Organizers wanted to make it clear the 99th Miss America competition is not your grandmother’s beauty pageant, and their winner did just that on Thursday.
Virginia biochemist Camille Schrier won the crown just minutes after wowing the crowd with science. Dressed in a lab coat, she gave a colorful chemistry demonstration of the catalytic decomposition of hydrogen peroxide.
Schrier, a native of Pennsylvania, said she hopes to “break stereotypes about what it means to be a Miss America in 2020” by being a “woman of science” who is authentic to herself.
Photo: AP
“I’m not the beauty queen,” she said. “I’m the brand ambassador for this organization and I’m more than just someone with a crown on my head.”
Victoria Hill of Georgia placed first runner-up.
No longer called contestants, the 51 women “candidates,” who hailed from all 50 states and the District of Columbia, competed for a US$50,000 scholarship and the “job” of Miss America, a one-year paid position they hope to use as a public platform for their “social impact initiative.”
For the second year in a row, women were not judged in a swimsuit or how they look in an evening gown. Instead, a series of interviews and talent demonstrations determined who was best qualified to wear this year’s crown.
“To make it relevant for these young women, it was important for us as a scholarship and service organization to make sure that we were reflective of this generation, meaning that you no longer had to be defined by some sort of ideal,” Miss American Organization president and CEO Regina Hopper said.
Schrier, 24, who spoke on stage about having tackled an eating disorder, said she decided to compete for Miss America after the swimsuit competition was ditched, along with other changes that have been made to modernize the organization.
“I kind of figured that I would never get on that stage because I was a woman who did not want to get into a swimsuit on stage. And I didn’t have a performing talent, which is really ironic now,” she said, adding how she is the first Miss America to win with a science experiment, a presentation she brings to schools.
Schrier is a cum laude graduate of Virginia Tech, with dual bachelor of science degrees in biochemistry and systems biology and she is currently studying to obtain a doctor of pharmacy degree. Her platform issue is drug safety.
Morgan Nichols, Miss South Carolina, had her own message on Thursday night. She walked down the red carpet wearing a billowing, long skirt topped by a plain white T-shirt that read: “Stronger.”
While Hopper acknowledges there has been some push-back from “old pageant” people who liked the old way of doing things, she said there’s been greater interest in the competition since the roll-out of Miss America 2.0.
When asked on stage whether the Miss America organization should change even more, and allow married women and women with children to participate, Schrier and Hill said no.
Schrier told reporters afterward that she believes the job would be too busy for a mother.
This year also marked the first time the multiday event is being held at Mohegan Sun, a tribal casino and entertainment complex in suburban southeastern Connecticut.
Miss America organizers announced plans this summer to leave Atlantic City, New Jersey — for the second time in its history.
Miss America also switched from ABC back to NBC to broadcast the glitzy finale to an estimated 4.5 million viewers. And for the first time, preliminary events and the finale — held in Mohegan’s 10,000-seat arena — are being streamed live on the NBC app.
“We’ve had many, many large events. This probably reaches the most people,” Mohegan Sun president and general manager Jeff Hamilton said. “We’re just really, really excited about it.”
Miss America organizers and NBC have not yet agreed to a multiyear contract with the Connecticut casino. A decision is expected in the coming months.
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