Photo: John Angelillo/UPI/Shutterstock
Miss America’s2022 winner Emma Broyleswaltzed into the 2023 competition Thursday night wearing a dress for the ages.
The “Miss America Forever” gown pays tribute to those who previously wore the prestigious crown. The night’s host, Laura Rutledge, brought Broyles, 21, on stage to acknowledge the dress, calling it a “beautiful gesture.”
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John Angelillo/UPI/Shutterstock
“We couldn’t be here as an organization without them,” Broyles said while showing off her dress, telling the audience how proud she was to be a part of the sisterhood.
Rutledge and Broyles both acknowledged that the women on the gorgeous dress are the “pillars” of theMiss Americaorganization.
Broyles was crowned Miss America on the 100th anniversary of the pageant, making her thefirst Korean-American woman to take the crown.
“Being the first Korean Miss America, that we know of, is really cool because I think about when I was younger and I was growing up and not really seeing Korean women who looked like me in popular media,” Broyles told PEOPLE after winning last year. “I remember I was ashamed of my heritage and I was avoiding embracing it at all costs.”
“Now that I’m older, I’ve really been able to embrace my ethnicity and embrace my background, embrace the journey that my grandparents made 50 or so years ago,” she shared. “And I think that having a woman who’s kind of an underdog — being only 20 from Alaska and being half-Korean — is representative of all that Miss America stands for.”
The 2023 Miss America pageant is being held at Mohegan Sun Arena in Uncasville, Conn.
source: people.com
