Nebraska's 17-year-old Teresa Scanlan was crowned Miss America 2011 on Saturday night, becoming the youngest since a 1938 age regulation was changed in 1993.
Scanlan, from Gering, Nebraska and a Scottsbluff High School student, was selected out of 52 other participants in the pageant's 90th edition, which was held at Las Vegas' Theater for the Performing Arts, winning a $50,000 scholarship.
In 1938, the beauty pageant placed a rule, requiring all participants to be at least 18 years old, with an age limit at 28. However, in 1993, the rule was changed to 17 to 24. The youngest to ever win Miss America was Connecticut's 15-year-old Marian Bergeron in 1933. In her desire to go to law school, Scanland said that attorneys and politicians are "looked down on and have terrible reputations for being greedy and power hungry," adding that she believes that people "who have their heart and mind in the right place" should get into those "powerful positions."
The first and second runner ups were Alyse Eady from Arkansas and Jalee Fuselier from Hawaii, respectively. Scanalan is taking the place of last year's winner, 22-year-old Caressa Cameron from Virginia. The Quality of Life Award went to Michigan's Katie LaRoche.
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