Tonight at 9 p.m. ET on ABC, the 2018 Miss America Pageant will air and a new contestant will be crowned, taking over for Miss America Savvy Shields of Arkansas. Over the course of the week, the contestants have participated in several events, including the preliminary competitions. So, which contestants were winners in the preliminaries this week? Miss Louisiana Laryssa Bonacquisti won both the swimsuit and the talent competitions for her preliminary night. Miss Florida Sara Zeng and Miss Texas Margana Wood also won the Lifestyle and Fitness rounds, while the talent rounds were won by Miss Minnesota Brianna Drevlow and Miss Utah JessiKate Riley as well.
Get to know each competitor below.
Miss Louisiana Laryssa Bonacquisti
Laryssa Bonacquisti’s winning talent is ventriloquism and pageants are in her blood as she is the daughter of Miss New Jersey 1990, Lynette Falls Bonacquisti. For her ventriloquist act, she often uses a yellow duck puppet named Waddles and she has been practicing her skill for 16 years. Her platform is pancreatic cancer prevention because her grandmother died from the disease.
Miss Louisiana won the swimsuit competition for night 2 of the Miss America preliminary competitions.
Miss Florida Sara Zeng
According to Sara Zeng’s Miss America Pageant bio, she specializes in classical piano and her platform is Music Matters! She hopes to one day play the piano for a big music artist like Beyonce. As a music education major, she hopes to attain a Master of Music Education and Master of Music Therapy degree.
She has all ready received her Bachelor of Music Education and enjoys teaching elementary students.
Miss Texas Margana Wood
With all the devastation in Texas from Hurricane Harvey, Wood opened up about the hurricane’s effects on her community. FOX News reports her saying that:
Thankfully, my home in Houston was safe. We were in an extremely lucky pocket that wasn’t flooded. And I say lucky because six blocks around us, everything was flooded. So I had a lot of family and friends that were impacted by the flood … It was very important for me to let everyone know that my heart is still in Houston. I also didn’t want everyone to think that Miss Texas should win Miss America because of the storm.
Her talent for Miss America was dance.
Miss Minnesota Brianna Drevlow
During night 2 of the preliminary competitions, Miss Minnesota won for talent by delivering a piano performance of George Gerswhin’s 1924 composition “Rhapsody in Blue”. Currently, she is a graduate student in music composition at the College of Musical Arts at Bowling Green State University, where she hopes to one day become the dean, according to NJ.com.
According to the official Miss Minnesota website, her platform Brenna’s Brigade: Juvenile Arthritis Awareness, “is inspired by her eight year old sister, Brenna, who struggles with arthritis. As a goodwill ambassador for the Children’s Miracle Network and the Arthritis Foundation, Brianna advocates for the awareness of pediatric auto-immune diseases and provides a network of support for children and families who battle JA during her reign.”
Miss Utah JessiKate Riley
Riley was a winner of the Preliminary Talent Award for Miss America this year and she was also previously Miss Utah’s Outstanding Teen 2014.
On her journey to the pageant, Riley said her goal is “to represent everyone who has ever felt like they were unable follow their dreams.” And, on her road to Miss America, Riley posted a photo of herself as a young child, playing the violin. As the caption, Riley wrote:
Music is the most pure and simple way I am able to share my heart. It has carried me all over the world and solidified a place in my dream university.
Its incredible that I will be performing on the Miss America stage in under a month but always remember, it all started with a dedicated mother, a dream, and a box.
With her love of music, Riley was actually able to start attending college early.