A rocky path for Miss Sonoma County 2009

Resplendent in a gown and her new jeweled crown, Kimberly Stout appears quite the storybook princess.

Perhaps the life of the Santa Rosa Junior College student and Bodega Bay waitress could be written as a fairy tale. But between the story’s beginning and the triumphant moment the 23-year-old was crowned Miss Sonoma County 2009 are parts that hurt to read.

Her father has nothing to do with her, she said, because she quit the rigid religion in which she grew up. “It’s sad,” she said, “because I used to be such a daddy’s girl.”

Though Stout is as lively and animated as any other collegiate theater student and she’s loving this stage of her life, there was a time she fought the depression that she said runs in the family. “I was up to eight pills a day,“ she said.

She won the 2009 Miss Sonoma County competition held last month at Rohnert Park’s Spreckles Center because she impressed the judges with the candor and maturity she exhibited in an interview and wowed them with a theatrical monologue in the talent section. This was the third time she competed for the title and a scholarship prize.

“Every year I ran, I got better,” Stout said. “My eyes were opened to all it entails.”

The Cotati resident credits coaching from seasoned volunteers with the Miss Sonoma County contest with improving her interview skills, poise and talent performance. Sonoma County’s program, in its 62nd year, is the longest-running scholarship/talent program of its type in the state.

Those three years of competing for the sash and crown also taught Stout to stand up straight. “I have a tendency to slouch,” she confessed.

Her one-year reign will take her to parades and other public events throughout the county and to the Miss California competition, a steppingstone to the Miss America pageant. Stout’s predecessor as Miss Sonoma County, Montgomery High graduate and Harvard student Sara Choi of Rohnert Park, last summer finished as fourth runner-up to Miss California.

The local title will allow Stout to speak publicly about things that are important to her. For one, she’d like to set straight just what the Miss Sonoma County competition is.

“This pageant isn’t for some ditzy little girl who’s dressed up and waving at people,” she said. “It’s not that at all.”

The competition does include a stroll across the stage in a swimsuit, easily the most controversial element for pageant detractors and the young women themselves. But Stout emphasizes that the swimsuit and evening wear competitions are far less important than the talent and and interview components, which together account for 60 percent of a contestant’s potential score.

The comedy monologue Stout performed in the talent competition showed off the benefits of training she’s received in the JC’s theater department. Her public platform as Miss Sonoma County focuses on the importance of not allowing the current budget crisis to eradicate theater from the public schools.

She’ll offer to go into the schools and play games that involve improvisational acting. She’s convinced that improv cultivates kids’ imaginations and makes them better at thinking on their feet. One day she hopes to become a drama teacher.

Her own theatrical experience includes a stint as a member of Improvaholics at Sonoma State University. Though it’s typical for high school grads to attend a junior college first and then a four-year school, she did it the other way around.

After graduating from high school in her hometown of Brawley in Imperial County in 2004, she came north to Sonoma County and enrolled at SSU.

But her family troubles forced her to begin paying all of her own bills after two and half years of college, and she found she needed to transfer to SRJC to save money. “I love the JC,” she said.

Making no attempt to gloss over her less-than-storybook childhood, Stout said a source of conflict at home in Brawley was that her father is a devout Jehovah?s Witness, but her mother left the sect about 15 years ago. Stout agreed to become a Witness in her early teens.

“I wanted to make my father happy,” she said. “He always told me it’s my choice, it’s my choice.”

But when she left the religion as a 19-year-old SSU student, her father backed away from her, and he has since rejected her entirely, she said.

The new Miss Sonoma County is looking forward to representing the county that’s become her home. She pays her way by waiting tables at the Duck Club at the Bodega Bay Lodge and Spa.

Though it’s not an official part of her advocacy platform, she did avow, “I’m a big, big believer in tipping.“