Miss Wisconsin wins Miss America pageant in Vegas

A 23-year-old beauty queen from Wisconsin won the Miss America pageant Saturday in Las Vegas after singing opera and strutting in a white bikini and black beaded evening gown.                

Laura Kaeppeler also had to answer a question about whether beauty queens should declare their politics.              

"Miss America represents everyone, so I think the message to political candidates is that they represent everyone as well," she said. "And so in these economic times, we need to be looking forward to what America needs, and I think Miss America needs to represent all."             

Miss Oklahoma Betty Thompson came in second, while Miss New York Kaitlyn Monte placed third.             

Kaeppeler wins a $50,000 scholarship and gets the title for one year. Her platform during the competition was supporting and mentoring children of incarcerated parents  a topic close to her heart.              

Kaeppeler's father, Jeff Kaeppeler, told The Associated Press he served 18 months in federal prison for mail fraud. He said when his daughter approached the family about making the personal topic her chosen platform, they supported it even though they knew it would be discussed publicly.             
Laura Kaeppeler's hometown of roughly 97,000 people, Kenosha, Wisconsin, is about 40 miles (65 kilometers) south of Milwaukee.              

She majored in music and vocal performance at a private Lutheran liberal arts college in Kenosha, and told pageant officials she planned to obtain a master's degree in speech and language pathology and become a speech therapist.             

Kaeppeler was crowned the new Miss America by a panel of seven judges during a live telecast on ABC. The event was the culmination of a week of preliminary competitions and months of preparations for the titleholders from all 50 states plus the District of Columbia, Puerto Rico and the U.S. Virgin Islands.

AP