LANSING ― A 2019 Okemos High School graduate was crowned Miss Michigan 2024 Sunday, and she will now compete for the title of Miss USA in California.
Alma Cooper, 22, is a United States Military Academy at West Point graduate now attending Stanford University in California.
She also is the “first active-duty Army officer” to be chosen as Miss Michigan, she said in an essay titled “Why I want to be Miss Michigan.”
“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.”