Miss Alabama USA 2023: Meet 37 women competing for the crown

Thirty-seven women from around the state will compete for the title of Miss Alabama USA 2023 on Friday and Saturday, Jan. 27-28, at the Gogue Performing Arts Center at Auburn University. (See their names and photos in the gallery above.)

Tickets are $45-$100 via the Gogue Center website, by phone at 334-844-8497 or at the box office, 910 S. College St. in Auburn.

The pageant runs in tandem with the 2023 edition of Miss Alabama Teen USA; 36 young women are in the running for that.

Katelyn Vinson, Miss Alabama USA 2022, will crown her successor at the finale. Miss Alabama Teen USA 2022, AnnaLee Story, will follow suit. Neither pageant will be televised, but live streams of the Jan. 27 preliminaries and Jan. 28 finals can be viewed online at Pageants Live. Access costs $40 for a two-night package; the streams start at 7:30 p.m. CT.

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How it works:

Contestants for Miss Alabama USA are judged in three categories: Personal interview, swimwear and evening gown. Miss Alabama Teen USA has an athletic wear competition instead of swimwear. but the two other components of this pageant are the same.

Voting is open online for the People’s Choice Awards, which guarantee a spot in the semifinals. You can vote for your favorites for Miss and Teen on the Miss Alabama USA website, giving them a nudge toward the state crowns. Each vote comes with a $1 fee. Voting runs through noon on Saturday, Jan. 28.

The winners will move on to compete for Miss USA and Miss Teen USA later this year. The winner of Miss USA will then compete in the Miss Universe pageant.

R’Bonney Gabriel, Miss USA 2022, won the Miss Universe title on Jan. 14 in New Orleans. She competed at the state level as Miss Texas USA.

To date, only one Miss Alabama USA has gone the distance and been named Miss Universe. Sylvia Hitchcock, who was crowned Miss Alabama USA in 1967, went on to become Miss USA and Miss Universe later that year. Hitchcock wasn’t an Alabama native — she was a junior at the University of Alabama when she became Miss Universe — but she helped to bring public attention to Alabama during her pageant days.