Miss America crowns active-duty Air Force officer as 2024 winner

The Miss America organization crowned Miss Colorado as its 2024 winner on Sunday, making her the first active member of America’s military to win the title.

Madison Marsh, 22, is a second lieutenant in the Air Force and a master’s student at the Harvard Kennedy School’s public policy program. Marsh, representing Colorado, was crowned as the winner by Grace Stanke of Wisconsin, the winner of Miss America 2023.

“You can achieve anything,” Marsh said in an interview that the organization shared on social media. “The sky is not the limit, and the only person that’s stopping you is you.”

View this post on Instagram A post shared by Miss America (@missamerica)

The Air Force joined Marsh in celebrating her historic win on X, the social media platform formerly known as Twitter.

Congratulations to our very own #Airman, 2nd Lt. Madison Marsh, aka Miss Colorado — who was just crowned @MissAmerica 2024! Marsh is the first active duty servicemember to ever win the title.#AimHigh pic.twitter.com/3RuDu5CulW

— U.S. Air Force (@usairforce) January 15, 2024 Ahead of Marsh’s crowning, she talked about her since-deceased mother’s battle with pancreatic cancer during a Q&A session with the other contestants. She also revealed during a talent session that she earned her pilot license when she was just 16.

CLICK HERE TO READ MORE FROM THE WASHINGTON EXAMINER

Among those who celebrated Marsh’s victory was Sen. Tom Cotton (R-AR), who stated that Marsh had visited the Capitol in 2021 to raise awareness for pancreatic cancer. He also revealed that the topic of pancreatic cancer was why she started her own nonprofit organization, which was dedicated in memory of her mother.

Congratulations to Fort Smith native and Air Force 2nd Lt. Madison Marsh on being crowned Miss America. Madison visited Capitol Hill in 2021 to help raise awareness for pancreatic cancer, a cause for which she started her own non-profit organization in her mother’s memory.… pic.twitter.com/zzvQNJxIPd

— Tom Cotton (@SenTomCotton) January 15, 2024 The runner-up of Sunday’s competition was Ellie Breaux, who represented Texas.

!function(){var g=window;g.googletag=g.googletag||{},g.googletag.cmd=g.googletag.cmd||[],g.googletag.cmd.push(function(){g.googletag.pubads().setTargeting(“has-featured-video”,”true”)})}();var _bp=_bp||[];_bp.push({“div”:”Brid_1527107″,”obj”:{“id”:”27789″,”width”:”1280″,”height”:”720″,”stickyDirection”:”below”,”video”:”1527107″}});

*As an Amazon Associate I earn from qualifying purchases