Savvy Shields, who represented Arkansas, won the crown Sunday night to become Miss America 2017.
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Shields, who succeeded the 2016 Miss America victor, Miss Georgia Betty Cantrell, had some stiff competition at this year’s pageant.
Shields won the talent competition of the pageant this year with a jazz routine to the song “They Just Keep Moving the Line” from the NBC musical series “Smash”.
Initially using the word “contestants” instead of candidates, she said both Clinton and Donald Trump are doing a good job but “need to watch what they’re doing”. She later said it seemed both candidates seemed to be yelling at each other and they needed to focus more on compromise.
Miss Arkansas, Savvy Shields, claimed the title of Miss America.
The Fayetteville, Arkansas, native will return to the University of Arkansas as a senior art major and business minor.
In being crowned the new Miss America, Shields topped the following runners-up: Fourth runner-up, Miss Mississippi Laura Lee Lewis; third runner-up, Miss Washington Alicia Cooper; second runner-up Miss New York Camille Sims; first runner-up Miss South Carolina Rachel Wyatt.
When Ms. Shields talks about political compromise, perhaps she means something like what happened in California last month.
The most storied of U.S. beauty pageants, Miss America earned some of the country’s highest TV ratings during its heyday in 1950s.
What else does the new Miss America offer?
She is the 2011 Miss Kentucky Djuan Trent who finished in the Miss America top 10 that year, according to The Hollywood Reporter.
Erin O’Flaherty may not have been crowned Miss America on Sunday (11 September) but she made history anyway as the first openly gay contestant to compete in the pageant.
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The pageant began in Atlantic City in 1921 as a way to extend the summer tourist season beyond Labor Day weekend. AP material published by LongIsland.com, is done so with explicit permission. Doing so may result in civil and/or criminal penalties.
