This year’s Miss America, Madison Marsh, or, around here, Madison the Magnificent, goes by another title as well, second lieutenant. Before she strutted across stages in high heels, she deciphered the esoteric pathways of gamma radiation as an astrophysics major — at the Air Force Academy. She is just as comfortable discussing black holes as red carpets. 

The graduate of the Air Force Academy sat down with the Sun to discuss her path to the sash and the good she hopes to do with the platform that comes with the crown. A former Miss Academy and Miss Colorado, she hails from Arkansas, where she hoped to be an astronaut. Space camp and flying lessons from an F-16 pilot set her on a course for the Air Force. Harvard’s Kennedy School is next. 

Ms. Marsh attributes her success to tragedy. Her mother, Whitney, died from pancreatic cancer at the age of 41, when Ms. Marsh was 17. She tells the Sun that early detection could have saved her mother’s life, and as Miss America she directs her efforts to aiding the Pancreatic Cancer Action Network. 

The pageant winner describes how it “rocked her world” when her mother passed away, a sudden and unforetold demise. Her family hosts a run every year at Fort Smith, in northeast Arkansas, in her mother’s memory. She hopes other people will see the signs — stomach and back pain and weight loss, among others — to which she was tragically “blind.” Weeks and months matter, she insists.

Ms. Marsh describes the Air Force Academy as “hard” and an “experience like no other.” When asked if her life resembled the milieu depicted in “Top Gun: Maverick,” she patiently explained that that film depicted Navy fighter pilots, not those bound to the Air Force. Her training, though, did include combat wrestling and being “punched in the face” during boxing class. She speaks of her devotion to “serving our nation.”

The Sun asked whether the Miss America competition was a gantlet, but Ms. Marsh insists that it was an edifying experience. She, though, denies that she thought she would win — “zero expectations” and “chill” is how she describes her mindset before she captured the  garland. A career in the Air Force, though, awaits this beauty with a sense of duty.