Nellis Air Force Base, Nevada. (June 2, 2024): In a historical first, an active-duty Air Force officer has been crowned Miss America. In the above photo, Second Lieutenant Madison Marsh, who won the crown on January 14, 2024, proudly shows off her purple ribbon lapel pin that highlights pancreatic cancer awareness, a disease her mother died from in 2018.

In winning the crown, the 22-year-old dispelled a lot of myths about beauty pageants and those that compete in them. For Marsh, dreams of becoming an Air Force aviator began at the tender age of thirteen when she and her classmates visited NASA’s Space Camp. She set a goal to attend the Air Force Academy and began preparations for a future in flight. She did well in school and started training for her civilian pilot’s license, something she achieved at seventeen. She went on to graduate from the Air Force Academy in the spring of 2023 with a degree in physics. Upon her commissioning, she realized her dream when she received a pilot's billet.

Then tragedy struck.

In 2018, Marsh lost her mother at forty-one to pancreatic cancer, one of the deadliest forms of the terrible disease. After her death, the family established the Whitney Marsh Foundation to raise funds for research and awareness. The foundation’s mission is to educate the public about the early warning signs of the disease to increase future patient’s chance of survival. Marsh became the charity’s co-founder and president while pursuing a master’s degree in public policy at the Kennedy School of Government at Harvard.

She later signed up as a graduate intern at Harvard Medical School to collaborate with experts from the Dana Farber Cancer Institute on early detection and community education. On top of all that, she found time to compete in the grueling events that lead to the title of Miss America 2024. She intends to use her visibility as Miss America as a national platform to advocate for pancreatic cancer victims like her mom.

Forget the stereotypes, Lieutenant Marsh has displayed both beauty and brains while earning her wings and the respect of her comrades.