DALMENY, Sask. — Savanagh Walker zips around the massive dairy barn guiding 70 plus cows, hooking up milking machines and mucking out stalls.
“I am the kind of person that likes to do everything a mile a minute,” she said.
Until March 2012, the closest the Saskatchewan dairy worker and university student had come to beauty pageants was through modelling classes while in high school. Today she competes on the world stage.
A friend had nudged the 18-year-old into her first pageant where she won Miss Teen Saskatchewan.
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From there, she went to Miss Teen Canada, where she was second runner up.
All the while, she continued to juggle dairy jobs and retail work to pay for the “ginormous costs” of provincial and national pageantry, including gowns, travel, accommodation and the $3,000 entry fees.
“And I did lots of fundraisers,” she said.
Walker attributes her strong work ethic and drive to her mother.
“To my mom, one obstacle meant that a better solution was just around the bend,” she said.
Walker grew up on her grandparents’ farm near Preeceville, Sask., leaving home at age 16 due to “family drama.”
“I have always been a farm girl,” said Walker, who enjoyed picking eggs and hauling grain with her grandma and riding the swather or combine with her grandpa.
“Milking cows and goats and butchering pigs and chickens was normal to me. I never saw that a cow giving birth was a really big deal because I dealt with it all the time,” she said.
Argentina is a world away from the farm. Walker travelled there last November as Miss Global Teen Canada and placed third.
“It was amazing to be chosen so I wasn’t expecting anything else,” she said.
In February, she was asked to represent Canada in Egypt as the Top Model of Canada.
Once again, Walker doubled up her duties. She competed in Top Model World and Miss Globe at the same time.
“There were 47 countries from around the world. They were all fashion models. It wasn’t a teen pageant anymore so I was up an age category from age 18 to 27,” said Walker.
She placed first for Miss Globe and fourth for Top Model World.
“For me, it’s important to represent my country to the best of my ability so that even if I didn’t win this year, the next contestant from Canada has an even better chance because Canada has been represented so well.”
In September, Walker will return to Egypt to do photo shoots and promotional work for clubs that sponsored the competition. Then she returns to university to pursue a goal to get into veterinary medicine after taking a one-year hiatus due to the demands of pageants.
“That was a scary decision because school is something that I hold very high,” she said.
