When Katie Schreckengast was crowned as Miss Pennsylvania on Saturday night, she looked up and pointed at the ceiling because two months before the 2017 Miss Pennsylvania pageant, she lost her grandfather to cancer. He was one of her greatest supporters as he had never missed a pageant while he was alive.
She will now compete in the Miss America 2018 pageant to be held in Atlantic City on September 10th 2017. The event will be broadcast by the American Broadcasting Company (ABC). Miss America 2017 Savvy Shields from Arkansas will officially crown her successor.
Schreckengast is no stranger to state competitions. She competed in Miss America’s sister teen program, the Miss America’s Outstanding Teen pageant (ages 13-17) and was crowned the Miss Pennsylvania’s Outstanding Teen in 2013.
Schreckengast did a number of things to prepare for the Miss Pennsylvania pageant, for the talent round, Schreckengast worked with friends in Penn State’s Blue Band, of which she is a member also.
At the end of the competition she said, “I knew my grandpa was with me in that moment,” Schreckengast said in a text. “I felt overwhelmingly blessed to be experiencing what I was experiencing.”