The 2018 Miss Kansas USA pageant is a competition that selects the representative for the state of Kansas in the Miss USA pageant. Danielle Boatwright, Miss Kansas USA 1996 Kelli McCarty, Miss Kansas USA 1991 & Miss USA 1991.
Kansas did not place at Miss USA until 1973, the third-to-last state to make their first placement. From then, no delegate from Kansas made the cut until 1991, when Kelli McCarty won the crown. McCarty's win makes Wichita, Kansas the only state to host one Miss USA and Miss Teen USA to win in their home state. In 1992, the state joined the Vanbros group, which led to a surge in placements in the 1990s and early 2000s. This included two first runners-up, one second runner-up, one third runner-up, and one fourth runner-up, among others. All but three of Kansas's ten placements have been runners-up.
Three former Miss Kansas Teen USAs went on to win the Miss title, and also two Miss Missouri USAs (Missouri is also a Vanbros state).
Every year, each state holds a preliminary competition to choose their delegate for the Miss USA pageant. In some states (such as Texas and Florida), local pageants are also held to determine delegates for the state competition. The state winners hold the title "Miss State USA" for the year of their reign.
The most successful state is Texas, which has had the most semi-finalists and winners, including five consecutive Miss USA titleholders during the 1980s.[22] Other successful states include California, New York, Alabama, Tennessee and Georgia. The least successful states are Delaware, placing only once in 2015; Montana, which has not placed since the 1950s; South Dakota, which has only placed three times (the last time in 2016), and Wyoming, which gained only its second placement in 2010. The only state which has produced more than one Miss Universe is South Carolina.
The Miss Universe Organization licenses out the state pageants to pageant directors, who in some cases are responsible for more than one state. The most well established directorial groups are RPM Productions, created in 1980 (Alabama, Louisiana, North Carolina, South Carolina), and Vanbros, created in the early 1990s (Arkansas, Kansas, Missouri, Nebraska and Oklahoma). Future Productions direct the most states, seven, across the Midwest and Rockies.