Although there was lots of drama surrounding the Miss America Organization this year, on Sunday night, the actual televised competition had almost no controversy.
Miss New York, Nia Franklin, was named the winner of the 2019 Miss America contest, and earned a $50,000 college scholarship. Franklin, 24, whose social platform is advocating for the arts, said she hopes to earn a doctorate in music composition from Princeton University or Juilliard. Her win marks the seventh title for New York, the most of any state in the pageant’s nearly 100-year history.
Franklin, who came up through the pageant circuit in her home state of North Carolina, sang Puccini’s “Quando m’en vo” during the talent portion. “I want America to see that classical music is still alive and thriving, especially that an African-American woman is singing opera,” she said. “Because there’s so many kids out there that don’t know that they can do classical music.”
Aside from the actual competition, all eyes were on Miss America in the wake of the chaos that kicked off in December, when two executives resigned after the reveal of crude emails sent by pageant leaders about contestants. Gretchen Carlson, the former Fox News anchor and Miss America 1989, took over as chairman. Then this summer, plans for a pageant revamp (which included eliminating the swimsuit competition) triggered an exodus of board members and high-profile calls for Carlson’s resignation. Miss America 2018, Cara Mund of North Dakota, wrote a scathing letter last month about her unhappy year working for the organization.
