Many of what used to be called “beauty pageants” have been trying to remake themselves in the 21st century, and in case you hadn’t heard, Miss Colorado may have achieved that…
(Mega-Talented Miss Colorado :48)
The newest Miss Colorado, part of the Miss America organization, is 23-year-old Madison Marsh, an Arkansas native who was crowned at the end of May. She’s far from the former stereotype of pageant contestants. 23-year-old Madison is one of this spring’s graduates of the Air Force Academy, a 2nd Lieutenant with a degree in physics. She becomes the first Air Force officer to win a Miss America program state title. She’s the founder and President of the Whitney Marsh Foundation, created after her mom Whitney passed away due to pancreatic cancer 5 years ago. So far, the Foundation’s raised more than a quarter million dollars for research on that particular cancer, and Madison’s a graduate intern with the Harvard Medical School, working to enable artificial intelligence to help detect it. She’s a national Truman Scholar, who this fall will use that scholarship at Harvard’s Kennedy School to begin work on her Master’s in Public Policy. And this past weekend, a Colorado Springs dealership awarded her a new car to drive for the coming year.