Miss America 2024 credited the U.S. Air Force for her Sunday night win of the title, along with her chance to study at Harvard University.
Madison Marsh, who represented Colorado in the beauty pageant, is the first active member of the U.S. military to win the title, with many celebrating her win on social media. In an interview on Wednesday, Marsh explained that she would like to merge her role as Miss America with her duties in the Air Force, saying she would like to become a recruiter for the military branch.
“Really, I wouldn’t be able to be Miss America or even gone to Harvard without the opportunities that the Air Force provided,” Marsh said on Fox News’s America Reports. “I mean, they gave me all the tools at the Air Force academy to compete in pageants, to get the scholarships I received, to send me to Harvard while I’m still active duty, and so we want to mesh these two roles together so I can advocate for people that are armed service members and really try to get more people to join the service.”
Marsh also discussed her studies at Harvard, where she is studying how artificial intelligence could be used to discover pancreatic cancer in people early on. Part of the reason she is studying pancreatic cancer stems from the death of her mother, who died from it at the age of 41 years old and had no history.
“And so I want to be able to provide hope for other families and really push in every sector down from congressional up to research and funding to ensure that everyone is being taken care of,” Marsh said, “because if my mom can’t get to be here, I want to ensure other families get to have their moms, brothers, sisters, fathers, you name it. That’s the type of person I want to be for my mom.”
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Marsh was crowned Miss America 2024 by Grace Stanke of Wisconsin, the winner of Miss America 2023. Her victory was celebrated by the Air Force on social media.
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
Marsh also visited Washington in 2021 to raise awareness for pancreatic cancer. In the wake of her winning the title, Sen. Tom Cotton (R-AR) shared a photo of him and Marsh outside the Capitol.