Madison Marsh, a 22-year-old master’s student in the Harvard Kennedy School’s public policy department and a second lieutenant in the US Air Force, won the 2024 Miss America pageant on Sunday night in Orlando, Florida. Marsh is the first-ever active-duty Air Force officer to win the national title, representing the state of Colorado.
Texas’s Ellie Breaux finished first runner-up.
Eleven participants from each of the 50 US states and the District of Columbia took part in the competition.
The pageant followed three nights of preliminary competitions. At the beginning of the main event, the field was narrowed to 11 semi-finalists — 10 chosen by the preliminary judges, and one by a public vote open to pageant fans and followers across the United States.
