Madison Marsh had already made a name for herself as an officer in the US air force and a Harvard University graduate student when she took the stage at the 2024 Miss America pageant on Sunday night.
By the end of the evening, she had added another line to her résumé: the first active-duty military service member to be crowned Miss America in the century-old pageant’s history.
“I’m very excited to get to represent women who can break stereotypes,” Marsh, 22, said in an interview that the pageant shared on its Instagram page after her win. Dedicating her victory to her mother, who died of pancreatic cancer in 2018, she also remarked: “You can achieve anything … If I can come from a small town, not being a part of the pageant community, step into this role, so can you.”
Marsh had been pursuing – and achieving – lofty goals for years before clinching the Miss America title. She entered the US air force academy as a cadet with a pilot’s license and ambitions of becoming an astronaut in about 2020, as the military news outlet Stars and Stripes previously reported. More recently, she enrolled in graduate-level public policy classes at the Harvard Kennedy School, which were available to her through a special partnership with the air force.
But Marsh, who holds the military rank of 2Lt, focused on more than just her physics and astronomy classes as she began rising in the air force. She also decided to compete in pageants during her first year at the air force academy near Colorado Springs, Colorado, figuring they would give her the opportunity to engage in community service and strengthen her public speaking skills, she reportedly told Stars and Stripes.
That all set the stage for Marsh to capture the title of Miss Colorado in May.
“I don’t think I ever would have gotten into Harvard if I wouldn’t have gone to the air force academy. I don’t think I ever would have become Miss Colorado without the air force academy because they have trained me and honed in on my leadership,” Marsh said to the Harvard Crimson student newspaper.
Marsh’s victory as Miss Colorado qualified her for the Miss America pageant, which was founded in 1921. For the talent portion of the contest in Orlando, Florida, she delivered a monologue about difficulties she overcame when she completed her first solo flight as a pilot at the age of 16.
The air force was among the first to congratulate Marsh after she topped the field of 51 competitors.
“Congratulations to our very own airman, 2nd Lt Madison Marsh, Miss Colorado – who was just crowned Miss America 2024!” the military branch wrote on the social media platform X, formerly known as Twitter, late Sunday. “Marsh is the first active duty service member to ever win the title. #AimHigh.”
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For her part, Marsh wrote Monday on Instagram: “Here’s to showing the world that women can do anything.”
She said she planned to spend her year-long stint in the role of Miss America raising public awareness about pancreatic cancer through a research and advocacy foundation named for her mother, Whitney Marsh.
“To my momma – this whole year is for you,” Marsh also wrote on Monday. “If you were in the audience last night, I know you would have been my first hug. The world is about to know your story, light and love.”