Miss America Crowns 2014 Winner

Sarah Donley

WRT 120

9/17/13

Miss America Crowns 2014 Winner

This past weekend, the infamous Miss America pageant returned to Atlantic City and, at the end of the night crowned the first Miss America of Indian descent, Miss New York, Nina Davuluri. It was a long night of evening gowns, swimsuits, tough questions and tears of joy as the competition widdled down from 53 contestants down to one final winner.

Beginning with video-recorded opening introductions from each contestant, the crowd chuckled at the wittiness of some of the contestant’s clever one-liners. For example,  "The Jersey shore is back and, no, I don't mean the TV show. Welcome home, Miss America. I'm Cara McCollum, Miss New Jersey." Afterwards, the celebrity judges were introduced, including Lance Bass, Mario Cantone, Carla Hall, Barbara Corcoran, Joshua Bell, Amar'e Stoudemire and the last Miss America to be crowned in Atlantic City, Deidre Downs Gunn.

ABC’s Chris Harrison, host of the hit TV shows, the Bachelor/Bachelorette, got the crowd going upon announcing the semifinalists. Among the lucky young ladies were Miss Kansas (Theresa Vail), Miss California (Crystal Lee), 
Miss New York (Nina Davuluri), 
Miss Oklahoma (Kelsey Griswold), 
Miss Connecticut (Kaitlyn Tarpey), 
Miss Georgia (Carly Mathis), 
Miss Mississippi (Chelsea Rick), 
Miss Texas (Ivana Hall), 
Miss Arkansas (Amy Crain), 
Miss Missouri (Shelby Ringdahl), 
Miss Kentucky (Jenna Day), 
Miss Maryland (Christina Denny), 
Miss Florida (Myrrhanda Jones), Miss Wisconsin (Paula Mae Kuiper), 
and Miss Minnesota (Rebecca Yeh).

The ladies then changed into their swimsuits for the next portion of the competition. As they paraded out, the crowd’s eyes turned to Miss Florida who went barefoot and wore a bedazzled knee brace after tearing two ligaments on Thursday night after a fall during her baton-twirling talent rehearsal. Thankfully, Judge Bass assured everyone that Miss Florida's knee brace wouldn't affect the judges at all. He even threw in a “God bless her” as a nod to her determination to continue.

Narrowing the contestants down further, the Top 12 Finalists were named: Miss Maryland, Miss Connecticut, Miss Florida, Miss Missouri, Miss Oklahoma, Miss New York, Miss Wisconsin, Miss Texas, Miss California, Miss Kansas, Miss Georgia, and Miss Minnesota. Next up was the talent portion with the Top Ten showing off t=for the judges with their best skills. Our Miss America, Nina, performed a Bollywood fusion dance for her talent (though she did miss her cue and had to be called three times before coming to the stage).

Once all had gone, only the Top Five moved on to the Question portion of the evening. The questions varied from talk of the situation in Syria all the way to reactions about Miley Cyrus’s performances as of late. Miss New York was asked about Julie Chen's decision to have plastic surgery about making her eyes less Asian. In response, she said she “didn’t agree with plastic surgery” however, she could agree from a standpoint since Miss America has always been viewed a The Girl Next Door. Yet there she was in the final five!

Finally, it came to that time of night to crown the winners. Fourth runner-up was Miss Minnesota, third runner-up was Miss Florida, and second runner-up was Miss Oklahoma. Finally, it came down to two Asian-Americans; Runner up: Miss California, and the winner: Miss New York, Nina Davuluri!

The following photos show Miss New York in her swimwear, her talent portion, and finally thanking the crowd for her crown.

http://www.usatoday.com/story/life/people/2013/09/15/miss-america-2014-crowned-in-atlantic-city/2818393/