After a grueling week of preliminaries and after tonight’s swimsuit, evening gown, talent, and question/answer competitions, Miss Wisconsin Laura Kaeppler became this year’s Miss America.
Kaeppler stunned the crowd with her dazzling beauty and her wonderful singing. In the talent competition, she sang an opera song that was sung properly.
This year’s Miss America Pageant added a new twist of having a contestant voted back into the semifinals by the remaining contestants that were ousted from the preliminaries. Miss Alabama was voted back into the contest after the swimsuit competition, but did not make it past the evening gown competition. Personally, I thought that Miss North Carolina should have been voted back instead of Miss Alabama.
The Pageant also allowed for the people to vote for the favorite one. The contestant with the most votes automatically qualified for the semifinals. The People’s Choice award winner was Miss Oklahoma Betty Thompson. However, the judges did not listen to the people as she finished second. Here is a list of the top five.
5th place: Miss California Noelle Freeman
4th place: Miss Arizona Jennifer Sedler
3rd place: Miss New York Kaitlin Monte
2nd place: Miss Oklahoma Betty Thompson
1st place: Miss Wisconsin Laura Kaeppler
