Cycle 15 of "America's Next Top Model" premiered Wednesday, and while I'm thrilled it's back with the usual smorgasbord of ridiculous challenges, over-the-top photo shoots, weird celebrity guests and manufactured drama, I did feel a touch of the melancholy as I reflected on the brief "ANTM" career of the one and only Alaskan ever to make it into the Top Model house: Fairbanks-raised Hannah White.

Hannah's time on the show was brief -- she was ousted in a surprise elimination after a runway challenge back in Cycle 11, a season that was eventually won by the angular but standoffish McKey -- but memorable, mostly because the producers couldn't seem to let go of the fact that she grew up in the 49th state and had once been chased by a moose. There was also a little blowup in the house when some of the other girls decided Hannah was racist, drama she later chalked up in part to her own immaturity at the time and in part to misunderstandings involving her last name. (I'm also still a little confused about the story she tells in the video below, starting around 3:25, about how when she was growing up her house "didn't have any heat, and there was no way to make it warm." Listen, I was born in Goldstream Valley. No electricity I buy. No water, no problem. But no wood stove? That I have a hard time swallowing.)

When it came to the competition, Hannah was up and down; she got negative feedback for her photo shoots (including a voting-themed shoot for which she had to portray nuclear weapons; why they didn't give the Alaskan girl climate change I'll never understand) but won a Cover Girl commercial challenge, landing a featured spot on Cover Girl's website. Unfortunately, her runway walk was just south of atrocious, and Hannah was sent packing in the middle of episode five, although she managed to stay upbeat even in defeat:

Hannah, girlfriend, if you're reading, I was pulling for you. And I wouldn't feel too bad about that elimination. No one looks good walking around in a knitted grandfather clock.

Contact Maia Nolan at maia(at)alaskadispatch.com.