According to the Air Force, she is the first active-duty service member to win the annual competition. As many as 51 contestants participated in the event, representing all 50 US states. Marsh represented Colorado in the competition. Marsh, 22, graduated from the US Air Force Academy last year with a degree in physics.

“Trying to make it a positive thing for the Air Force, for everyone,” she told her fellow airmen before a flight from an Air Force base in Nevada in December.

“My cousin had competed in pageants for a long time, and one of the big things about it that I love is the community service aspect and the focus on public speaking,” she said in an interview with the Air Force Institute of Technology in November.

She has been raising awareness for pancreatic cancer research through The Whitney Marsh Foundation she founded with her father and sister in honour of her mother, who died from the disease.

“My mom was a huge runner, even when she was going through chemotherapy treatments,” Marsh said in the November interview.