5 things to know about Miss CT, Sapna Raghavan
The Miss America competition will be held on Dec. 16 here in Connecticut and the recently crowned Miss Connecticut, Sapna Raghavan, will take the stage to vie for the title.
Here are 5 things to know about Miss Connecticut 2021 ahead of the big competition:
She will be competing in her home state
Raghavan, who graduated from Ellington High School and Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute, is competing at Mohegan Sun, which recently entered an agreement to host the next three Miss America pageants.
She will be performing Indian dance for the first time in the competition
Raghavan is a classical Indian dancer and will be the first contestant to perform this type of dance as her talent during Miss America. “I have danced this my whole life and I cannot wait to show everyone my culture,” she said.
She is the second woman to hold two Connecticut titles
Raghavan is a former Miss Greater Rockville’s Outstanding Teen (she won in 2015), which makes her only the second woman to have held both the Miss Connecticut’s Outstanding Teen title and Miss Connecticut.
“I had no idea Miss Greater Rockville was even associated with Miss Connecticut and Miss America. I went there for a scholarship and left with a title,” she said. “I am not that girl that has been competing her whole life and that’s really special too. No matter what amount of time you put in the organization, it makes a difference and changes your life.”
She is representing ethnic and gender diversity
“If the swimsuit competition was still part of this, I wouldn’t have done it,” said Raghavan.
Raghavan refers to a change that was made in 2019 when Miss America transformed from
a “pageant” to a “competition” focused on scholarship, social impact, talent and empowerment — and got rid of the swimsuit portion.
“We’re experiencing a cultural revolution in our country with women finding the courage to stand up and have their voices heard on many issues. Miss America is proud to evolve as an organization and join this empowerment movement,” said Gretchen Carlson, Chair of the Board of Trustees, in a press release back in 2019.
After winning Miss Connecticut back in April, Raghavan has been promoting her social impact initiative by attending events across the state to spread her message. Embracing diversity and overcoming adversity to Raghavan means focusing on the confidence gap and biases that she believes exist today by teaching course skills to grow women’s confidence and amplify the voice of other women.
“Being able to promote my social impact [initiative], which is embracing diversity and overcoming adversity, has been very special. It does not only apply to ethnic diversity but gender diversity too,” she said. “Looking at the next 100 years, we need to ask ourselves, what are the tools and skills as women that we can learn to be a stronger demographic?”
She will be competing on the 100th anniversary for Miss America
“Not a lot of companies last 100 years and the fact they are looking to innovate for the next 100 is one of the reasons I wanted to compete for Miss America. They have made so many changes in the times and continue to stay relevant,” said Raghavan.
The winner of the competition usually wins a $50,000 scholarship, but for the 100th anniversary, a $100,000 scholarship will be awarded to the winner.
“Mohegan has a long history of educating their youth and taking care of the culture and diversity making sure that education is a top priority,” said Miss America Organization President & CEO, Shantel Krebs. “Mohegan Sun was a natural fit to partner with a women empowerment organization who has the same mission.”