Must be single with no children, 5’7” or taller and “physically fit,” between 18 and 29 years old. Tattoos are typically shunned.
When Kimberly Covert started competing in beauty pageants in Dumaguete, Philippines, around 2012 at age 17, contestants had to meet these requirements in order to compete. Miss USA only started allowing married women and mothers in August 2022, and admitted adult women of all ages just last year.
As a married mother of two children, Covert, 29, currently holds the title of Miss Mesa Arizona. Next weekend, she will vie for the crown of Miss AZ USA at the Higley Center for the Performing Arts in Gilbert next weekend, with preliminaries on May 26 and the finals the next day.
Her first pageant was at her college, Silliman University in the southern Philippines. Studying music education and minoring in piano, her love for performing and having an outlet to feel feminine drew her to the beauty queen industry.
“Pageantry in the Philippines is a culture,” Covert explained. “Every month, a different town has their fiesta and during that town fiesta, the highlight is the pageant. The government actually has a budget set aside to throw their local pageant. They have really famous hosts come, so it’s a big deal.”
At 18, pageants gave her a source of income and a chance at self-expression. Traveling from town to town taking wins, she was entranced by the world of glitz, glamour, gowns and performing.
Pageantry also got her out of the house – and away from the issues bubbling at home.
“I always wanted to be out of the house, there was so much happening for me. I was the daughter of an alcoholic,” she said. “But ultimately it was a passion for me, it was my sport and I was competitive with it.”
The daughter of an American named Mark Covert who was stationed in Olongapo, a city in the Luzon Region of the Philippines, and Crisanta Cañega, Covert was born on Feb. 23, 1995.
After the birth of their daughter, Crisanta left Mark without a trace, nowhere to be found even by other family members. So, Mark brought Kim to his parents in Texas.
By age 3, Kim’s paternal grandmother had passed away and she landed back in her home country. Growing up in Dumaguete with her father, stepmother and two siblings, her mother was not a topic of discussion.
In 2013, Covert moved to San Diego with her family, and at age 18, decided she was ready to learn more about her mother. A simple post on Facebook with her lone photo of her mother drew 3,000 likes and shares.
Eventually, Covert eventually learned her mother had passed away, but that her five children and their father still lived in a small Philippine town.
At 19, Covert participated in Miss Philippines Earth, her first national pageant. Struggling and training for three months in a new city, her work paid off. She made her first runner-up.
By 2016, Kim had moved back to California, this time to Los Angeles, where she became a runway choreographer and worked in fashion – and met the man she eventually would marry who also was in the fashion industry.
“This is how destiny works,” said Covert’s husband, Benjamin Dixon. “Kenneth Barlis casted me for his show. Kim wasn’t at the casting but she was the model director on show day. She was really sweet, just super nice – which is how she still is now. …for me that was like a breath of fresh air.”
Covert jokingly noted, “I was his boss – and I still am.”
“At the time, my plan was to compete in Miss Philippines, Miss USA, but at the time they didn’t allow married women or moms and I was only 21. I had my son at 23,” Covert said. “I felt like I threw away my dream a little bit.”
She discovered a pageant in the Philippines that was open to mothers. Her husband’s willingness to move to the Philippines for a year enabled him to see Covert in a different light.
“When she gets into competitive mode, there’s a different kind of spark in her. For Kim, pageants are what drive her through life, she kicks into gear,” he said. “I enjoyed coaching her through the mental adversity of it all, but also I was just the role of support. I think the clearest illustration of it is like rubbing her feet all the time.”
The couple’s joint preparations for the Miss BiniBining Cebu pageant involved working out twice a day, practicing walking in her heels, waking up at 5 a.m., all the while bringing their 6-month-old son, Sol Genesis, along for the ride.
“She almost had a chip on her shoulder, like she had something to prove, but it was also like this closure for her,” Dixon recalled. “I feel like going back and doing the pageant was more of a healing thing for her.”
Competing against 50 women and only about three other mothers, Covert won first runner-up at the 2018 Miss Cebu Tourism competition. Her husband and son, Sol, returned to the States while she stayed overseas for another six months, traveling throughout Asia, modeling and even making music before returning to San Diego and her family.
Pageants also led Covert to her photography business.
She had returned to the States with the notion she could train pageant aspirants, including getting headshots and glamour photos for their portfolios.
But no photographer either fit her vision or was willing to grow the business with her and her husband.
So Dixon suggested she buy a camera and become a photographer herself.
Combining her skill sets in photography, branding, graphic design and the fashion industry at large, her business, Genesis Images, was born.
“I wanted to introduce myself as a professional photographer because there’s a different respect to it rather than coming in as a model. I’m an entrepreneur. People can look up to that, and people can use my services,” Covert said.
Joseph Leeds, director of Creative Council, a local membership program that hosts fashion-related networking events, said Covert is “an extremely hard worker, someone who is dedicated to her skill.
“As a mother she has to be able to turn this passion into a sustainable job and you can see that in everything she does. She’s a real advocate and team player, and that doesn’t go unnoticed,” Leeds continued.
“It’s clear that she values every one person so much, I think it’s super beneficial and we’re all excited to go and support her.”
Covert has been able to build and utilize her photography business even in her preparations for Miss AZ USA. She got Genesis Images credited for her official headshots, and offered her services to the other models.
From hitting 18,000 steps a day to strategically working out every day, having a nutritionist to collaborating with body sculpting clinic, Covert has built content on her Instagram that has drawn 29,000 followers. She is also working with local communities and is on the board of directors of Let’s Go Recovery.
“She’s vibrant, electric but can handle business, said model coordinator Shannon Love. “For me, being a mom just like her, it’s exceptional seeing another woman slay those areas [in the industry] and be themselves because it truly is hard and people don’t think it can be done.
“It’s magical working with her, she knows what hat to wear and when, really wanted to hear my feedback and valued my time.”
After many competitions with little to no support in the crowd, next weekend Covert will have nearly 100 people cheering her on.
“The main goal was to elevate my and my family’s life long-term, which means my lifestyle was going to change. I’m waking up early, managing my time, working out, eating healthier, expanding my business, and my husband’s business is growing too,” Kim said.
“Everything that I wanted to get by winning, I already got by just changing my life and joining. So, me competing in Miss Arizona at this point is just no pressure. It’s for fun.”
