Agriculture

Brenna Connelly of Olmsted County selected as 67th Princess Kay of the Milky Way

Published

4 years ago

August 12, 2020

Photo Credit: Princess Kay of the Milky Way

Following the first-ever virtual selection process, Brenna Connelly, 19, of Byron, representing Olmsted County was crowned as the 67th Princess Kay of the Milky Way Wednesday evening during a private banquet for the 10 candidates and their families.

While the Minnesota State Fair has been canceled for 2020, the rich tradition of butter sculpting will continue, with the newly crowned Princess Kay’s likeness scheduled to be sculpted on Thursday, Aug. 13. This will take place on the Minnesota State Fairgrounds in the butter booth inside the Dairy Building, where the butter sculpting typically takes place. The nine other finalists will be sculpted in the subsequent days, with the final sculpture being created on Saturday, Aug. 22.

Although the public will not be able to enjoy the butter sculpting in person, live updates will be streamed on the Princess Kay Facebook page each day, with opportunities to virtually ask questions and interact with Princess Kay and the finalists.

Kaitlyn Riley

Kaitlyn Riley’s passion for communications started on her family’s dairy farm in Gays Mills, Wis. Wanting to share agriculture’s story, she studied strategic communications and broadcast journalism at the University of Wisconsin-Madison. In college, she held officer positions with the Association of Women in Agriculture and Badger Dairy Club while volunteering as a news reporter for the college radio station. She also founded the university’s first agricultural radio talk show, AgChat. In her professional career, Kaitlyn has worked in radio, print and television news doing everything from covering local events to interviewing presidential candidates, and putting back on her barn boots to chat with farmers in the field. Today, Kaitlyn can be seen covering local stories that matter to you in the La Crosse area.