Miss Florida 2017 Sara Zeng is one of the winners from the preliminary competitions for Miss America 2018 this past week. But, while Zeng is appearing on national television, many of her friends and relatives are dealing with Hurricane Irma. Fortunately, Zeng’s parents currently live in Maryland, where she grew up, but she does have friends from the Florida area who are in Atlantic City to watch the Miss America Pageant. Zeng talked about Hurricane Irma in a YouTube video, stating that:
A lot of my friends who are here in Atlantic City, their flights have been canceled to go back home.
She also said that she was happy to hear many listened when it came to evacuating in certain areas of the state. See Zeng talk about the storm in the below video. Also in the video, is Miss Texas discusses the effects of Hurricane Harvey as well.
Prior to tonight’s event, today Zeng also wrote the following heartfelt message on Instagram:
My heart is filled with so many emotions on this final day of my experience at Miss America. First of all, a moment has not gone by while I am here that I haven’t thought about everyone in my home state and have been praying for their safety as hurricane Irma approaches. I will not have access to my phone or news sources until after the competition so I can only hope that everything will be okay and that no matter what I will be right there with everyone in Florida.
The past 2 weeks have been more incredible than I ever could’ve imagined. I have already walked away with so much, and I am so excited to see what unfolds tonight on the Miss America stage! Thank you to everyone that has helped get me to where I am!! Whether I become Miss America or not I will always be proud to be your Miss Florida!!
So, who is Sara Zeng? According to her Miss America Pageant bio, her talent is in classical piano and her platform for her title is Music Matters! She hopes to one day play the piano for a big music artist like Beyonce. In addition, she says that one of her biggest accomplishments in life was this:
I was able to help keep music alive by obtaining a donation for musical instruments to a Title 1 school in Florida. This allowed economically-disadvantaged youth access to the many benefits of a music education.
Zeng started playing the piano at the young age of 5.
Check out some of her best Instagram photos below.