The Miss America pageant is a long-standing competition which awards scholarships to young women from the 50 states plus Washington, D.C., Puerto Rico and the US Virgin Islands. The winner of the national pageant is awarded the title of "Miss America" for one year.
In January 2006, the pageant moved to its new home and time in Las Vegas, Nevada. The pageant presents itself as a "scholarship pageant," and the primary prizes for the winner and her runners-up are scholarships to the institution of her choice. The Miss America Scholarship program, along with its local and state affiliates, is the largest provider of scholarship money to young women in the United States and in the world. In 2006 it made available more than $45 million in cash and scholarship assistance. Since most of the contestants are college graduates already, or on the verge of graduating, most of their prize money is devoted to graduate school or professional school, or to pay off student loans for courses already taken.
The 91st and current Miss America is Laura Kaeppeler, from Wisconsin, who won the title on January 14, 2012.
Read more about Miss America: History, Judging, Winners, Hosts, Television Broadcasters, Homages and Parodies
Famous quotes containing the word america:
“To-day there is hardly a woman of intelligence in all America ... who is not definitely and actively concerned in some social interest, who does not recognize some duty besides those incident to her own blood relationship.”
—Charlotte Perkins Gilman (1860–1935)