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The 2026 Miss Marion County Fair Queen is Kallie Walsh of Salem.\u00a0 She was crowned at the conclusion of the queen pageant held Monday night in front of the grandstand at the Marion County Fairgrounds.<\/p>\n
\u201cAm I dreaming? This is surreal; is it fake? I\u2019m so grateful; I\u2019m just looking forward to representing my community and to serve a place I love so much that I just call home.\u201d<\/p>\n
Walsh explained why she first ran for fair queen.<\/p>\n
\u201cI\u2019ve just grown up around many fair queens and the impact they have on people, and I want to have that impact myself.\u201d<\/p>\n
Walsh is a graduate of Salem Community High School and will be a sophomore in the nursing program at SIU-E in the fall.<\/p>\n
First runner-up was Jillian Green.\u00a0 Second runner-up, best interview, and the winner of the Rustler Award was Lorelai Rose.\u00a0 Hanna Duncan of Salem was named best in speech and communications.\u00a0 Abigail Patrick was named Best in Beauty and Physique.\u00a0\u00a0 Best Stage Presence went to Kenzi Coffee.\u00a0 Miss Congeniality was Jillian Green.\u00a0 The People\u2019s Choice, awarded by voting on the internet, was Madison Thrash.<\/p>\n
2025 Queen Ella Douglas said her farewell to the crowd before helping to crown Walsh as the new queen.<\/p>\n
\u201cI really enjoyed my year.\u00a0 I couldn\u2019t have asked to do anything more.\u00a0 I think this is why, when people ask me if it is bittersweet, I say it is nothing but sweet.\u00a0 I was so proud to give this crown away to the next deserving girl. She has no idea the joys that she is going to experience this year.\u00a0 I wish her all the best, and I\u2019ll be there in any way she needs, but she has the support team of a lifetime.\u201d<\/p>\n
A new Marion County Junior Miss will be crowned Tuesday night.<\/p>\n
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Marion County 2026 Fair Queen candidates. (left to right) Kenzi Coffee, Madison Thrash, Lorelai Rose, Kallie Walsh, Jillian Green, Sierra Ford, Abigail Patrick and Hanna Duncan.\u00a0 Photo by Bruce Kropp.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The 2026 Miss Marion County Fair Queen is Kallie Walsh of Salem.\u00a0 She was crowned at the conclusion…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":313172,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[37],"tags":[9,24,63,122,124,123],"class_list":["post-313171","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-queens","tag-new-york","tag-new-york-city","tag-nyc","tag-queens","tag-queens-headlines","tag-queens-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/313171","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=313171"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/313171\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/313172"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=313171"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=313171"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=313171"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}