Welder, Miss Kentucky contestant champions women in trades

Adisyn Donk is two sides of the same coin.

Growing up, Donk eyed the crown her mother won at a local county pageant and put it on her bucket list to win one of her own. While competing in her first Miss Kentucky pageant in 2023, Donk attended Gateway Community & Technical College for welding.

Though Donk is relatively new to pageantry, competing in her first one in 2022, she placed in the top 10 in the Miss Kentucky pageant last year. This year’s pageant in June will be Donk’s second time competing for the Miss Kentucky title, but with a different approach. Now, she plans to focus her service initiative on advocating for women like herself in the trades.

“It was one of the things that I had on my bucket list to do a pageant and hope to win so that I get a crown, hoping I have a daughter so I can do the same thing,” Donk said. “I was so obsessed with my mom’s crown I wanted to get one myself.”  

Her first time competing was in the Boone County Fair pageant, where she lost, but encouragement from a friend’s mom got her to try again. Donk then competed in Miss Alexandria, where she won her first crown. After winning the Miss Alexandria title, Donk said she had to compete in the state pageant.

That’s where a Miss Kentucky scout found her.

“I immediately was like no, because one of the things that you have to do for Miss Kentucky is a talent, and I sing, but it’s not something I love to do on stage,” Donk said. “But my mom really really wanted me to do it for the point of her seeing me sing on stage.”

At the state level, Donk won the Miss Heart of Bourbon County title, which got her to compete for Miss Kentucky.

Last year, Donk won the evening gown award in one of the preliminary nights, which got her into the top 10. Though she didn’t win, Donk still received a scholarship for making the top 10. She also won the Newcomers Award, which means she scored the highest out of all the new people for that year, earning her a scholarship. Donk also won the Spirit of Kentucky Award, voted on by the board of directors, and received another scholarship.

“I knew going into it if I won, I would not have made a good Miss Kentucky that year because I didn’t even really know what the organization was all about,” she said. “I just kind of ended up there.”

Donk said she wasn’t even sure if she would return to Miss Kentucky this year but had judges from the competition encouraging her to return. One of those judges was Miss Kentucky 2003, MacKenzie Mayes, who reached out to Donk and told her she would help her if she returned.

Earlier this year, Donk won Miss Monticello, taking her back to compete for Miss Kentucky.

Donk said one change Mayes encouraged her to make was to showcase her skills as a welder and advocate for women in trades. Donk said she wasn’t even sure any judges knew she was a welder in last year’s competition.  

“Throughout that entire process, everyone would always ask me why I didn’t advocate for the trades because I was going to school for welding. I had a welding job at the time,” Donk said. “At Gateway, I was a keynote speaker and did a few speeches for them. I was already advocating for the trades and was so afraid that people would think that was my whole personality.”

Donk said she asked her mom and her boss for their thoughts on her competing in a pageant as someone who advocates for the trades, and their response was: Why not?

Donk graduated from Gateway with an associate degree in welding and business and is attending Northern Kentucky University in the fall for engineering. She started a co-op at Mazak—a Japanese machine tool builder—in the fabrication department on the floor welding but recently moved to the engineering department.

“It’s been really refreshing; most of our workforce, especially my department, is men, so the pageant things that she does are very different from what we’re used to, but it’s very cool,” said Jason Kinman, Fabrications Assistant Manager at Mazak. “Everybody has been very supportive and asking her questions. Just yesterday, some guys asked her what would happen when you win different types of questions, so everybody is very supportive. I think she brings that out of people because she’s such a positive, fun person, but she’s not just that; her hard work backs that up. It’s hard not to be on team Adisyn.”

Donk attended vocational school for welding while attending Connor High School. She said she decided the day before classes started and the only thing left open was metal fabrication.

Donk’s mom, Chasity Donk, said she has always been a busy bee and needed to be doing something.

“She did really well,” Chasity Donk said. “She actually won a metal fabrication thing that they had building ductwork. They had to build something in a certain amount of time, and everything had to be measured right and cut right, and she won and was supposed to go to state, but COVID-19 happened.”

Donk said she doesn’t advocate for the trades as a photo op; it’s just something she’s passionate about.

“I will speak to anyone about the opportunities in the trades and especially in my experience, the path that I took I never would have expected to excel as quickly in the trades, and a lot of people don’t know about it,” she said.

Chasity Donk said seeing her daughter advocating for something she is passionate about is fantastic.

“Adisyn has a strong personality, and you know it’s a tough world, a man’s world, and you have to be able to stand your ground, and she does,” Chasity Donk said.  

Typically, Miss Kentucky visits elementary schools around the state, but Donk said she intends to visit high schools where kids don’t know what they want to do. The Kentucky Work Ready Scholarship essentially allows students to attend a Kentucky community and technical college, like Gateway, for free if they are attending for a trade. Donk said she wants to highlight those types of things if she wins Miss Kentucky.

“I was one of those people; I had no idea what I wanted to do, which is inevitably why I went to trade school,” Donk said. “In my position, wearing a crown and sash, people are already listening, and then you start talking about the trades, and it’s even more like what? It’s great; it gets a lot more people to listen.”

Donk said she loved going to school at Gateway, but it wasn’t without tears and frustrations at times. She said her teachers were her number one fan. When it came time to graduate, her teachers introduced her to the mechanical and manufacturing engineering technology bachelor’s degree through NKU. If she wanted to pursue a master’s degree, she could then go for welding engineering.

Her teachers also heavily encouraged her to work at Mazak.

After working in the welding department for roughly seven months, she had the opportunity to move to the engineering department because she was continuing her education in engineering.

Donk worked with Kinman in the fabrication department before she moved departments.  

“She really has a strong passion and energy and excitement for the things she does,” Kinman said. “She’s very good about following through when someone gives her a task. I still work with her quite a bit now that she’s in engineering. She comes over and helps us with a lot of different tasks. So, her dedication and hard work always shine through. If Adisyn says she’s going to do something, she does it.”

Donk said she has no plans to leave Mazak.

“They have been so incredibly supportive of everything that has to do with Miss Kentucky,” she said. “It’s not that I get embarrassed, but I don’t come out and tell people about that.”

She said once people at work found out about her pageants, they were interested in her competing.

“It makes me feel so comfortable that they’re not judging or reacting how I expect people to react, like ‘Oh, she’s a welder, but she does pageants,” Donk said. “That’s always what I feared people would think, but I was so off with that assumption. It’s exactly the opposite.”