Ivy League graduate, national dance champion crowned Miss America
ATLANTIC CITY: An Ivy League graduate and national dance champion from North Dakota was crowned Miss America on Sunday, becoming the first contestant from the state to win the nearly 100year- old contest.
Cara Mund, from Bismarck, ND, a graduate of Brown University in Rhode Island, who has been accepted to Notre Dame’s law school, trained for several summers with the world-famous Rockettes.
Mund, 23, was one of 51 contestants in the pageant, representing the 50 United States and the District of Columbia.
Mund, who adopted the Makea-Wish foundation which benefits children with life-threatening conditions as her platform for the competition, performed a jazz dance to “The Way You Make Me Feel” for the contest’s talent portion.
In a question- and- answer session, Mund weighed in on the United States’ recent withdrawal from the Paris climate accord, saying she thought it was a “bad decision.”
“Whether you believe it (climate change) or not, we need to be at that table,” she added. She will receive a six-figure salary, expenses for the year and a US$ 50,000 scholarship. — Reuters