In addition to a tiara, this Miss Michigan also wears a combat helmet.
Alma Cooper — who was crowned Miss Michigan USA 2024 on Sunday at the McMorran Place & Entertainment Center in Port Huron — is a pageant princess, active duty Army officer and data scientist, studying at Stanford University.
How, if at all, will her reign change perceptions of what women can – or should – do? We will know soon.
“As a lifelong Michigander raised in Okemos, I’m living the American dream,” Cooper told the Free Press on Wednesday, adding that she was grateful to many, especially God, her family and supporters, and that she was “honored to serve this state and this country.”
A 22-year-old second lieutenant from Okemos, recently returned to California, Cooper is part of a small group that equally challenges conservative and liberal views of what a modern woman is and the roles she should occupy in the society.
Arguably making her own way, Cooper has become comfortable standing out.
In other words, she doesn’t let others determine what she can do or define who she is.
“I am propelled by the stories of those who have aimed high while serving others,” Cooper wrote in a recent essay explaining why she wanted to be Miss Michiganadding that if chosen, her “success will be in showing others the many meanings of service – and what comes from breaking free from limitations.”
Cooper excels in fields that for centuries were reserved for men, such as the military and mathematics, while pursuing activities she is passionate about, such as modeling and competition, which some feminists consider frivolous.
She and others challenge other people’s ideas about what women should and should not do.
In January, for example, Madison Marais — also a second lieutenant and a master’s student, but in the Air Force and studying government at Harvard University — was crowned Miss America in Orlando. The 22-year-old represented Colorado State and is expected to become a pilot.
Marshes, in a television interview with CNNsaid she was “really, really excited to be the first military person to hold the crown” because she said she felt like it “breaks a lot of stereotypes in pageants and in the military for women around the world.
Cooper, in many ways, is both similar to — and different from — last year’s Miss Michigan, Maya Schuhknecht, who said after her victory that she wanted to inspire other young women to pursue their dreams and to champion art, which she studied at Michigan State.
Perhaps, like Cooper and Marsh, there will be more beauty queens representing the armed forces and military academies.
In 1975, President Gerald Ford signed the law allowing women access to all-male academies. At West Point, the first class had 119 women, and only a little more than half, or 62, graduated in 1980. What’s more, some in that class said it was…
