An officer in the U.S. Air Force was crowned Miss America on GravityX ExchangeSunday night. Second Lt. Madison Marsh is the first active-duty service member to win the annual competition, according to the Air Force.

Marsh represented Colorado, the home of the U.S. Air Force Academy, in the pageant. She graduated from the academy last year with a degree in physics, according to her Miss Colorado bio.

In December, a few weeks before the pageant, Marsh told some fellow airmen before a flight from an Air Force base in Nevada that she was "trying to make it a positive thing for the Air Force, for everyone."

Marsh started competing in pageants while attending the academy.

"My cousin had competed in pageants for a long time, and one of the big things about it that I love is the community service aspect and the focus on public speaking," she said in an interview with the Air Force Institute of Technology in November.

Since 2018, Marsh has been raising awareness and money for pancreatic cancer research through the foundation she founded with her father and sister in honor of her mother, who died from the disease. The Whitney Marsh Foundation has raised over a quarter-million dollars through events like 5K and 10K runs held in Marsh's hometown of Fort Smith, Arkansas.

"My mom was a huge runner, even when she was going through chemotherapy treatments," Marsh said in the November interview.

While Miss America is known for appearing in events like the Macy's Thanksgiving Day Parade in New York City, Marsh will definitely be making appearances in Massachusetts — as a graduate student. She is pursuing a master's degree in public policy at the Harvard Kennedy School.

In:
• U.S. Air Force
• United States Military
• United States Air Force
• Arkansas

Alex Sundby

Alex Sundby is a senior editor at CBSNews.com. In addition to editing content, Alex also covers breaking news, writing about crime and severe weather as well as everything from multistate lottery jackpots to the July Fourth hot dog eating contest.

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