In a world in which men in dresses are infiltrating beauty pageants, it’s hard for many to drum up any excitement for the annual Miss America crowning.
Madison Marsh may just change all of that.
Marsh is Miss Colorado, but don’t let the sash and pretty dresses fool you. Miss Colorado is an Air Force pilot and holds a degree in physics.
As a second lieutenant, the literal blonde bombshell is the first active-duty officer to make a run for the coveted crown, and the patriotic fervor she’s inspiring could resurrect the national pride once felt in Miss America.
Madison Marsh – quite an accomplished young lady! Air Force Pilot and Miss Colorado vying for Miss America. Get it girl! https://t.co/BNQhnRty7t
— One Bad Ass Patriot (@DebraM2222) January 11, 2024
A native of Arkansas, Marsh, 22, was just days from graduating from the Air Force Academy when she was crowned Miss Colorado in May, the New York Post reports.
“It’s an awesome experience to bring both sides of the favorite parts of my life together and hopefully make a difference for others to be able to realize that you don’t have to limit yourself,” she told SWNS. “In the military, it’s an open space to really lead in the way that you want to lead — in and out of uniform. I felt like pageants, and specifically winning Miss Colorado, was a way to truly exemplify that and to set the tone to help make other people feel more comfortable finding what means most to them.”
(Video: YouTube)
While training for the Miss America pageant, the pilot is using her national Truman Scholarship to pursue “her Master’s in Public Policy at the Harvard Kennedy School,” according to her biography.
Marsh is also the president of the Whitney Marsh Foundation, an organization she founded with her family following the death of her mother in 2018 from pancreatic cancer. In that role, she has “been able to raise more than a quarter million dollars for research with her leadership team at the foundation.”
Cancer research, Marsh said, is where she sees her future self. It’s quite the departure from her original goal of becoming an astronaut.
“Towards the end of my time at USAFA, I started to realize that my bigger passions were in policy-making and cancer research, so that’s why I ended up at the Kennedy School,” she explained. “I’m now trying to take the next step and use my studies from the Kennedy School to learn about the inner workings and the difficulties of what policy really looks like … Issues like economic environments and other social pressures that might be inhibiting our ability to implement cancer policies that can affect all Americans.”
According to Stars and Stripes, Marsh also works with the Dana Farber Cancer Institute on early pancreatic cancer detection research.
If she beats out the other 49 contestants on the Florida Miss America stage on Jan. 13 and 14, Marsh said she will “continue to use her platform to talk to young girls about serving in the military and to dispel stereotypes about military women,” according to The Post.
“There’s just so many thanks to give,” Marsh told Stars and Stripes, “whether or not I win, to kind of spread that message in the time that I have left in the organization.”
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Melissa Fine is the former executive editor of Casino Player, Strictly Slots, and Poker
Digest magazines. She is a UCLA graduate, news junkie, and dedicated Stargate SG-
1 fan. Melissa currently lives with her dog and two cats in a tiny town in the Sierra
Nevada foothills.
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