LANSING — An Okemos High School graduate was crowned Miss USA Sunday in Los Angeles, California.
Alma Cooper, 22, a second lieutenant and military intelligence officer in the U.S. Army, graduated in the top 5% of her class at West Point.
Cooper, who was named Miss Michigan in April, the first active duty military officer to win for the state, credited her family and her background for her success in the pageant.
“As the daughter of a migrant worker, a proud Afro-Latina woman, and an officer in the United States Army, I am living the American dream,” she said during the question and answer portion of the pageant, according to CNN and Today.com.
Before she was crowned Miss Michigan, she wrote an essay explaining why she wanted the honor and the opportunity to compete for Miss USA.
“Service comes in many forms and my only limitations are the ones I accept,” she wrote. “This has been my guiding credo, an unshakeable belief that has fueled my path as an Afro-Latina woman from a predominantly white, rural Midwestern town, to compete as the first active-duty Army officer in Miss Michigan USA.”
Cooper wrote that she wanted to use her win to uplift other girls of color.
“Other contestants may be drawn to pageants for their glitz and glamour, but I see the stage as an opportunity to represent the many girls of color who often go unseen and unheard, and to inspire others to free themselves from circumstances and perceptions about who they are.”
Cooper is also a Knight-Hennessy Scholar at Stanford, a competitive graduate-level scholarship.
Cooper played volleyball at Okemos High School, and graduated in 2019.
Contact Sarah Atwood at satwood@lsj.com. Follow her on X @sarahmatwood.
Alma Cooper, an Okemos High School Graduate, was named Miss Michigan 2024 on Sunday, April 21. She will now to compete for Miss USA 2024 in Hollywood, California.
This article originally appeared on Lansing State Journal: Okemos graduate Alma Cooper named Miss USA
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Publish date : 2024-08-04 22:36:00
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