{"id":310379,"date":"2026-07-31T02:00:41","date_gmt":"2026-07-31T02:00:41","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/310379\/"},"modified":"2026-07-31T02:00:41","modified_gmt":"2026-07-31T02:00:41","slug":"sweet-corn-queen-pageant-candidate-series-laylie-denault-shaw-local","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/310379\/","title":{"rendered":"Sweet Corn Queen Pageant candidate series: Laylie Denault \u2013 Shaw Local"},"content":{"rendered":"<p class=\"default__StyledText-sc-xb1qmn-0 gBIiEi body-paragraph\">Laylie Denault will represent the Knights of Columbus in the 2026 Sweet Corn Festival Queen Pageant. <\/p>\n<p class=\"default__StyledText-sc-xb1qmn-0 gBIiEi body-paragraph\">Denault was on the <a href=\"https:\/\/www.shawlocal.com\/tags\/mendota\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" title=\"https:\/\/www.shawlocal.com\/tags\/mendota\/\">Mendota<\/a> High School volleyball and basketball teams all four years, serving as team captain for both. <\/p>\n<p class=\"default__StyledText-sc-xb1qmn-0 gBIiEi body-paragraph\">She was on the track team and soccer team for two years, as well.<\/p>\n<p class=\"default__StyledText-sc-xb1qmn-0 gBIiEi body-paragraph\">Denault was selected as All-Area and All-Conference First Team for volleyball and received the All-Sectional Sportsmanship Award for soccer. <\/p>\n<p class=\"default__StyledText-sc-xb1qmn-0 gBIiEi body-paragraph\">She was president of the National Honor Society, a member of the Spanish Honor Society, a high honor roll student for all eight semesters and an Illinois State Scholar. <\/p>\n<p class=\"default__StyledText-sc-xb1qmn-0 gBIiEi body-paragraph\">Denault was class president, and a member of Interact Club, Spanish Club, Student Council, yearbook committee, Next Generation Leaders and the Fellowship of Christian Athletes. <\/p>\n<p class=\"default__StyledText-sc-xb1qmn-0 gBIiEi body-paragraph\">She participated in the <a href=\"https:\/\/www.shawlocal.com\/tags\/ivcc\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" title=\"https:\/\/www.shawlocal.com\/tags\/ivcc\/\">Illinois Valley Community College<\/a> Academic Challenge, and received the Mike Kilmartin Award and the MHS Science Award. <\/p>\n<p class=\"default__StyledText-sc-xb1qmn-0 gBIiEi body-paragraph\">Denault was also on the homecoming and prom court her senior year. <\/p>\n<p class=\"default__StyledText-sc-xb1qmn-0 gBIiEi body-paragraph\">Her schedule included working in the principal\u2019s office, volunteering for Christmas for Kids in <a href=\"https:\/\/www.shawlocal.com\/tags\/ottawa\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" title=\"https:\/\/www.shawlocal.com\/tags\/ottawa\/\">Ottawa<\/a> and serving on the roadside clean-up committee.<\/p>\n<p class=\"default__StyledText-sc-xb1qmn-0 gBIiEi body-paragraph\">This summer, Denault is working at the Mendota YMCA and babysitting. <\/p>\n<p class=\"default__StyledText-sc-xb1qmn-0 gBIiEi body-paragraph\">At the YMCA she loves helping kids with summer activities and camps, and loves creating activities to help children learn while babysitting. <\/p>\n<p class=\"default__StyledText-sc-xb1qmn-0 gBIiEi body-paragraph\">Some of Denault\u2019s hobbies include walking, sewing with her grandma, reading and hanging out with friends. <\/p>\n<p class=\"default__StyledText-sc-xb1qmn-0 gBIiEi body-paragraph\">She enjoys traveling, fashion, shopping and going to school games and events. <\/p>\n<p class=\"default__StyledText-sc-xb1qmn-0 gBIiEi body-paragraph\">This fall, Denault plans on attending the University of Iowa to major in Human Physiology. <\/p>\n<p class=\"default__StyledText-sc-xb1qmn-0 gBIiEi body-paragraph\">Afterward, she plans to attend dental school to pursue a doctorate in dental medicine. <\/p>\n<p class=\"default__StyledText-sc-xb1qmn-0 gBIiEi body-paragraph\">Denault hopes to eventually return to the area to get a job and start a family. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Laylie Denault will represent the Knights of Columbus in the 2026 Sweet Corn Festival Queen Pageant. Denault was&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":310380,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[37],"tags":[50731,61042,113085,9,24,50729,63,122,124,123],"class_list":["post-310379","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-queens","tag-illinois-valley-front-headlines","tag-la-salle-county","tag-mendota","tag-new-york","tag-new-york-city","tag-newstribune","tag-nyc","tag-queens","tag-queens-headlines","tag-queens-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/310379","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=310379"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/310379\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/310380"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=310379"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=310379"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=310379"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}