U.S. Air Force officer Madison Marsh is 2024’s Miss America.
Marsh, 22, who is also a master’s student at the Harvard Kennedy School’s public policy program per CNN, was crowned as 2024 Miss America in Orlando on Sunday. She had previously represented Colorado.
“You can achieve anything. The sky is not the limit and the only person that’s stopping you is you,” Marsh said in an interview shared via Miss America’s Instagram story.
She then added that if she could come from “a small town, not being part of the pageant,” and step into the pageant world, then so could anybody else.
Marsh, who is now serving as a second lieutenant in the United States Air Force, breaks the record for becoming the first active-duty Air Force officer to be awarded the title. She replaces Grace Stanke of Wisconsin, who was the 2023 Miss America. In addition, Stanke was there on Sunday for the crowning of Marsh.
Marsh’s victory was celebrated by the United States Air Force via a post on X, which was previously known as Twitter. In the tweet, they referred to Marsh as “our very own.”
There were a total of 51 candidates, each of whom represented a different state or territory within the United States of America. The preliminary judges selected ten contenders to participate in the pageant, and the public voted for one of them, which resulted in eleven semi-finalists being selected.
There were four rounds of challenges that the semi-finalists had to go through before they were narrowed down to five finalists. These events included a fitness runway walk, a conversation on “hot topics,” a talent show, and a presentation of an evening gown.
After that, the finalists were required to give a speech in which they discussed their aspirations and objectives for the position of Miss America.
When Marsh was asked about the issue of pharmaceuticals in the United States, she revealed that her mother had been battling pancreatic cancer for a long time. This information was reported by CNN. Her choice to do a spoken word on obtaining a pilot’s license at the age of sixteen was her choice for the talent show round.
In the days leading up to the pageant, Marsh shared her thoughts on the factors that led her to participate. In an interview with SWNS, she was quoted as saying, “It’s an awesome experience to bring both sides of the favorite parts of my life together and hopefully make a difference for others to be able to realize that you don’t have to limit yourself.” This statement was attributed to The New York Post.
“In the military, it is an open space to really lead in the way that you want to lead, both in and out of uniform,” she added. “It is a truly flexible environment.” In my opinion, winning pageants, and more especially the title of Miss Colorado, was an opportunity to actually demonstrate that and to establish a precedent that would assist other individuals in feeling more at ease when it comes to discovering what is most important to them.