Columbia native Shelby Ringdahl has graced a lot of stages in her 33 years, whether performing in Les Miserables at the Muny in St. Louis or competing in the 2013 Miss America Pageant at the PH Live Theater in Las Vegas. Currently based in St. Louis and New York City, the performer, entrepreneur, and erstwhile Miss Missouri has never lost her deep-rooted appreciation for her upbringing in Columbia. If you have been involved in the local performing arts community, it is likely you either know Ringdahl or know someone who does.
Ringdahl grew up in the Columbia’s public school system and graduated from Rock Bridge High School, noting that show choir was one of the highlights of her high school experience. She believes she received such a well-rounded upbringing due to the opportunities available to her growing up here. Taking piano lessons, playing sports, and participating in different theater productions gave her many different life skills that she is incredibly grateful for as an adult. What Ringdahl appreciates even more is the community’s support.
“Columbia always supports its people, and that isn’t something you find just anywhere anymore,” she says.
The Path From Voice Student to Working Actress
From the ages of 10 to 18, Ringdahl took voice lessons at Stephens College with Harry Morrison, who she says was like a third grandfather to her. Ringdahl credits Morrison for helping her develop the voice she has now. He encouraged her to step outside her comfort zone and introduced her to opera, French art songs, folk songs, and more, leading to a diversified voice and an increased range.
Ringdahl brought that early training to Texas Christian University, where she received a BFA in theater with an emphasis in musical theater and a minor in business. While she was at TCU, her voice teacher encouraged her to get involved with beauty pageants to help pay for school. Ringdahl took that advice and ran with it, earning the title of Miss Missouri in 2013. She made it to the top 12 in the Miss America Pageant, which helped put her home state back on the map in the pageant world.
As a contestant, Ringdahl’s personal service platform focused on helping children in need. Specifically, she worked extensively with CASA (Court Appointed Special Advocates) and was one of the organization’s spokespeople during her year-long reign as Miss Missouri. While her state pageant win afforded Ringdahl high-profile opportunities such as singing the national anthem at a sold-out St. Louis Cardinals playoff game, she focused a lot of her time in the spotlight visiting underprivileged schools, Boys and Girls Clubs, and teen rehab centers.
During her reign, the Miss America Organization was partnered with Children’s Miracle Network, so as the Missouri state ambassador for the organization, Ringdahl made many trips to Missouri’s children’s hospitals to visit sick children and their families. The highlight of her year was a children’s hospital tour she set up to include other Miss America state titleholders. Ringdahl and Misses Maryland, Puerto Rico, Alabama, Iowa, and Wyoming all met in St. Louis to visit hospitals there and then hosted a talent show for the patients at St. Jude Children’s Hospital in Memphis.
In 2015, Ringdahl moved to New York City, where she pursued her show business aspirations by attending over 500 auditions. “I think I would say to make it in NYC, your main job has to be auditioning. It’s a game,” Ringdahl says. Every week, she pounded the pavement, sometimes getting up as early as 5 a.m. She would wait for eight hours to sing for a casting director for twenty seconds, only to then rush to one of her many survival jobs. It was a lot of hard work.
Ringdahl made it her goal for every casting director to recognize her when she walked into a room, an objective that took her about three years to accomplish. She learned quickly that landing a job in theater is 25 percent about your talent and 75 percent about nothing to do with you or your talent. After keeping track of all her auditions, callbacks, and jobs booked, Ringdahl found that, one year, she booked seven theater contracts — representing only 5 percent of the auditions that she attended.
Despite the grueling process, Ringdahl says she “was grateful to be a working actress.” Some of Ringdahl’s favorite performance opportunities included playing Snow White in a national tour of Disenchanted, which opened off Broadway in New York.
In between her performance contracts, Ringdahl would come home from NYC to Columbia and work with TRYPS or Rock Bridge High School to direct or choreograph shows or host seminars about how to pursue a career in show business. One of her mentors had told her, “Once you make it through the door, reach back around and help someone else through.” Ringdahl took that directive to heart and has always sought to help the next generation of performers, especially those from her hometown.
Bringing It All Back Home
During the fifth year that Ringdahl was living in New York, COVID hit. All live theater closed, and everyone started leaving, so Ringdahl came back to Missouri. “When I left New York, I definitely had an identity crisis,” she admits. “For so long, my identity had been ‘I am a performer in New York City.’” She says it was difficult not having that all of a sudden.
Fortunately, while her professional career was on a pandemic-induced downswing, things were looking up in her personal life. In 2019, she had reconnected with Taylor Cox, a Hickman High graduate she had known since she was five years old. Cox proposed in July 2020, and the couple got married in Columbia at the Missouri United Methodist Church. In 2023, they welcomed their first child, Hudson John.
In addition to motherhood, Ringdahl has been very active in the professional theatre scene in St. Louis since her return to Missouri. Along with her performance in Les Miserables, her credits include Chess at The Muny and playing Dyanne in Million Dollar Quartet and Million Dollar Quartet Christmas with STAGES St. Louis and The Repertory Theater of St. Louis.
Ringdahl’s aspiration to be head of a high school theater program prompted her to earn a Masters of Arts and Teaching from Columbia College. She also started The Shelby Ringdahl Collective, which is a pageant consulting and production company. She coaches young women all over the country on their interview and talent skills for those phases of pageant competition.
Marrying her entrepreneurial and artistic talents, Ringdahl started Show-Me Theatricals in 2023 with fellow Rock Bridge graduate Melissa Bohon-Webel. The company created Merry Ol’ Missouri: A Family Christmas Spectacular and presented it to a sold-out crowd at the Missouri Theatre in 2024.
Bohon-Webel and Ringdahl both have a passion for bringing Broadway to Columbia and giving back to the town that gave them so much. Expressing her love and appreciation for the city that helped raise her, Ringdahl says, “I owe the person I am to Columbia, the people, and its traditions.”
