Miss America 2024: Meet 22-Year-Old Air Force Officer Madison Marsh

Madison Marsh, a 22-year-old second lieutenant in the US Air Force and a master’s student in the Harvard Kennedy School’s public policy program, secured the 2024 Miss America title in Orlando, Florida, on Sunday night.

Marsh, the first active-duty Air Force officer to win the national title, represented Colorado in the competition featuring fifty-one contestants from all 50 states and the District of Columbia.

She succeeds Grace Stanke of Wisconsin, the 2023 Miss America, while Ellie Breaux of Texas claimed the first-runner-up position.

The pageant comprised three nights of preliminary competitions. During the discussion round, covering topics like terrorism, technology, nutrition, and climate change, Marsh focused on “drugs in America” and shared her late mother’s struggle with pancreatic cancer. In the talent segment, Marsh presented a spoken-word piece centered on obtaining a pilot’s license at 16.

In an interview shared on Miss America’s Instagram story, Marsh expressed, “You can achieve anything. The sky is not the limit, and the only person that’s stopping you is you.”

Providing encouragement to future pageant participants, Marsh stated, “If I can come from a small town, and not be a part of the pageant, yet step into the pageant world, then so can anybody else.”