Morgan Niehues had thought about a lot of the possible questions. At just 16 years old, she’s been in a dozen Hugoton High School activities. She sings in show choir. She’s on National Honor Society. She qualified for the state track meet in the triple jump. She’s on a travel basketball team. She was the class president as a sophomore.
She actively chooses the kind of extracurriculars where she might have to speak publicly. Like she does for 4H at the Kansas State Fair. Like when she and her mom, Jamie Niehues, lead reading projects for Stevens County kids. Like this spring, when she entered the Sorghum Queen contest for the third consecutive year.
She isn’t just a teenager, she’s a walking college resume, and not a person who shows up for anything unprepared. Of course they don’t tell you what your Sorghum Queen question will be. It’s not supposed to be a memorization contest. They want genuine answers and heat-of-the-moment composure. So when it was her turn, with half the town watching on Friday, July 24, the judges at the 74th annual Sorghum Queen Pageant asked her something that caught her a little off guard: What age should kids should be allowed to use social media?
“I was actually more nervous this year than in past years,” Niehues said later. “I just really tried to think about what the questions might be. Things that were important to me personally.”
Ready or not, she didn’t dance around this one. She said 16, her age. She said she thinks kids grow up too fast and that social media is a big part of that. “I’d love to be a kid again,” she said.
“My advice to parents would be, slow down,” she said. “Because it goes super fast. It’s important to put the phones down and be in each other’s presence.”
Her big-picture answer impressed, and she won. Niehues was named the 2026 Sorghum Queen. Dayamit Juarez was First Princess, Silyn Valles was Second Princess, and Nikayla Vos was named Miss Congeniality.
The honors come with a series of appearances over the coming year, although the first was already canceled, along with the races, because of triple-digit heat at the Dirtona Raceway on Sunday.
Niehues and court will be at the Stevens County fair all this week, then it’s back to school, two years from her goal of going to Kansas State to study physical therapy and join the Air Force ROTC.
They grow up too fast.