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As little girls grow up, they can begin to resemble their moms. That’s what happened with this year’s winners of the Pleasanton Weekly Mother-Daughter Lookalike Contest.
“Everyone thought Taylor looked more like my husband, but as she was growing, Taylor got totally to look like me,” said Patricia Kang, the mom in the duo who placed first.
“I think it is because she has more my demeanor,” she added. “Taylor carries herself like me, and we laugh the same, smiling with our eyes.”
Taylor, 18, is graduating from the King’s Academy in Sunnyvale and will attend and play golf for Carlton College in Northfield, Minn.
“At college visits last summer, everyone would say, ‘Your mom could be your sister,'” Taylor recalled. “It was always the same at sporting practices.”
The whole family plays golf at the Club at Ruby Hill, including dad Young Kang; Natalie, a freshman at Foothill High; and Matthew, 12, who attends Doris Eaton School in San Ramon.
“My husband loves golf and passed on his love for golf to all three kids,” Patricia said.
She plays more tennis but is glad Taylor has the chance to spend time with her dad on the golf course, and the mother and daughter enjoy traveling to golfing events.
“Mom has been taking me to a lot of tournaments – they are our girl trips,” Taylor said.
“We moved to Pleasanton in 2005. My husband, a physician, was recruited by ValleyCare to the area,” Patricia said.
“Ever since then we have seen the Pleasanton Weekly, and we kept seeing the Mother’s Day contest. I always had in the back of my mind that maybe we would do this if we continued to look alike. Then in February we visited grandparents in L.A. and took tons of pictures everywhere we went.”
These shots included the selfie with Patricia and Taylor winking at the camera.
“The whole family was like, ‘Who is who?!'” Patricia said. “Then we knew we should enter this one into the contest.”
Sheltering in place also gave them more time to sit down, write an email to the Pleasanton Weekly, upload the photo and send it.
“We said let’s just do this for fun, these last few months together before I go off to college,” Taylor remembered. “When we won, I was shocked! I was like, ‘No way!’ They all looked so similar.”
“We were excited just to become one of the eight finalists,” Patricia said.
The second-place winners this year are Rachel and Madison Moore, who live in Livermore. Madison, 13, is finishing Christensen Middle School and will be a freshman at Livermore High.
“My stepdad has lived in Pleasanton forever, and he was reading about the contest and he said, ‘I swear you guys will win this,'” Rachel recalled with a laugh.
She said they hear all the time how much they look alike, especially the last few years.
“We get all that time: ‘Oh, you can tell that’s your daughter,'” Rachel said.
And people comment on their similar mannerisms.
They are both athletic. Madison loves skateboarding as well as drawing, singing, hiking, camping, bike riding and working out. She also likes soccer and volleyball and plans to try out for those teams in high school.
Rachel played softball at Granada High, where she graduated in 1994. She has been a captioner at Chabot College for 16 years, working with students who are deaf or hard of hearing. She also has a small business called JoBi Accessories.
Now she is busy making face masks for anyone who needs one, “especially people on the front lines.” She and Madison are the lookalike models.
“I think it’s pretty cool that there was a contest because I knew I got a lot of compliments for looking like my mom,” Madison said. “It was fun.”
Rachel noted she and her mother also bear a strong resemblance. She heard the same comments about herself and her mother when she was growing up, and she still does.
“We all look alike. You know we are all related – and that’s a good thing,” Rachel said.
When people tell Madison she looks like her mom, she replies, “Wait until you see my grandma.”
A younger daughter Shayla, 11, looks like the dad, Jeff.
“But my mom sees part of me in Shayla,” Rachel said.
The contest was announced in March and the emails poured in with candidates. Pleasanton Weekly staff chose eight finalists, who were posted online for the public to vote. Out of almost 800 votes cast, the top two received an overwhelming number of votes.
The winners receive two $25 gift certificates from supporting businesses and $50 cash. The runners-up receive one $25 gift certificate and $25.
The Kangs plan to donate their prize money to the COVID-19 Essential Needs Relief Fund established to help 20 families in Pleasanton who have lost their jobs.
“I wish all the mothers a special shelter-in-place Happy Mother’s Day and send prayers to everyone affected by COVID-19,” Patricia Kang said.
Editor’s note: We decided to continue our tradition and design a print layout of what the 2020 Mother’s Day cover and inside story spread would’ve looked like — since the Weekly print editions are on temporary hiatus due to the pandemic. Take a look here.