Miss North Dakota Cara Mund won the title of Miss America 2018 on Sunday night, the first beauty, from her state to take the Miss America crown.
Mund is 23 years old and she defeated fifty other contestants to claim the title, succeeding the outgoing Miss America, Savvy Shields.
At the same event, Jennifer Davis (Miss Missouri) was titled as first runner-up, and Kaitlyn Schoeffel (Miss New Jersey) was announced as the second runner up. The third runner-up was Miss District of Colombia Briana Kinsey, and the fourth runner-up was Miss Texas Margana Wood.
Mund has been practising her talent, dancing since she was 3 years old. It was the Century High School junior where Mund was first introduced to pageants at a young age. Her cousin was participating, and the beauty was asked to be the ‘pageant page’, the person who carries the crown in.
Mund impressed the judges with a jazz performance on “The Way You Make Me Feel” during the talent portion. During the question and answer round, she was asked about the Trump administration's decision to pull out of the Paris agreement.
"I do believe it's a bad decision," she answered. "Once we reject that, we take ourselves out of the negotiation table and that's something that we really need to keep in mind. There is evidence that climate change exists. So whether you believe it or not, we need to be at that table, and I think it's just a bad decision on behalf of the United States."
The top 15 finalists were: Miss Tennessee Caty Davis, Miss Virginia Cecili Weber, Miss Pennsylvania Katie Schreckengast, Miss Louisiana Laryssa Bonacquisti, Miss District of Columbia Briana Kinsey, Miss Texas Margana Wood, Miss New Mexico Taylor Rey, Miss Alabama Jessica Procter, Miss Missouri Jennifer Davis, Miss Alaska Angelina Klapperich, Miss Georgia Alyssa Beasley, Miss South Carolina Suzi Roberts, Miss New Jersey Kaitlyn Schoeffel, Miss North Dakota Cara Mund and Miss Illinois Abby Foster.