After several months of preliminary interviews, Shannon MacKinnon has been chosen to represent Edmonton and Alberta in the 2008 Miss Universe Canada Competition.

Miss Universe Canada is the only competition in Canada that selects the Canadian representative for the Miss Universe Competition, to be held next year in Vietnam. Miss Universe is the most recognized pageant in the world, internationally televised, and owned by Donald Trump.

The Miss Universe Canada Competition is going to be held in Toronto this APRIL 18-29.

Shannon is a fun loving, Edmonton girl, with a deep love and appreciation for the arts and various local, national, and international philanthropies. Truly beautiful from the inside out, Shannon is extremely passionate about all she pursues, and helping others is a big part of that passion.

A professional dancer for the past 6 years, Shannon hopes to concentrate her efforts in future on Arts Education for underprivileged children by establishing a foundation as well as her own performance company. Shannon's Charity of Choice is the Firefighter's Burn Treatment Society. With independent chapters across the country, they fundraise to help local burn units acquire the funds and the resources necessary to treat burn victims.

In her career, Shannon is constantly looking to immerse her more and more into the entertainment industry. Knowing that her dance years are limited, she pressed pause on her pursuits of a political science degree in late 2004 to return to it at a later date. Living and breathing life as a performer, choreographer, model and instructor has brought to her attention how much she loves the industry. She plans to delve further into the worlds of Choreography, Direction, Acting, and more. Inevitably Shannon will be returning to University to pursue a Kinesiology Degree, as well as her MBA in Business in the near future.

Shannon graduated from Archbishop O’Leary High School in 2002 and was obtaining her BA at the University of Alberta. Shannon studied dance with Shelley’s Dance Company Ltd. in Edmonton and all over the world at various seminars, workshops and master classes with some of the best in the industry. She has had several accomplishments in the arts such as numerous invitations to train across North America, several published articles and choreography awards.

It is Shannon’s goal to increase the standard of arts education nationwide with the development of her own foundation for children with enthusiasm but not the financial means to pursue them. In addition to that ambition, Shannon will continue to support the Firefighters Burn Treatment Society as it was very close to the heart of her late stepfather, Gerald Hagan. A firefighter for the Canadian Military for some 20 odd years, Gerald donated much of his time to fundraising and attending to the BT society in Edmonton. He passed away in August 2006 from work related lung cancer. Joining the world’s fight against Cancer, and assisting the BT society has become a family effort in memory of Gerald Hagan.

If Shannon were to be crowned Miss Universe Canada, she would hope it would provide some volume to the voices of Cancer and Burn Victims in Canada, and around the world.