Miss Alabama USA 2024: Meet 34 women competing for the crown

Thirty-four women from around the state will compete for the title of Miss Alabama USA 2024 on Friday and Saturday, May 31-June 1, 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 2024 edition of Miss Alabama Teen USA; 33 young women are in the running for that.

Sophie Burzynski, Miss Alabama USA 2023, will crown her successor at the finale. Miss Alabama Teen USA 2023, Kensey Collins, will follow suit. Neither pageant will be televised, but live streams of the May 31 preliminaries and June 1 finals can be viewed online at Pageants Live. Access costs $40 for a two-night package; the streams start at 7 p.m. CT.

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 activewear 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 CT on Saturday, June 1.

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.

The current Miss USA is Savannah Gankiewicz, who competed as Miss Hawaii USA in September 2023. Gankiewicz initially was named first runner-up at the national pageant, but she took over when winner Noelia Voigt resigned her title in May. In an Instagram post on May 6, Voigt said she wanted to prioritize her mental health and start “a new chapter” in her life. (Voigt has ties to Alabama, and attended the University of Alabama, Jefferson State Community College and the Aveda Institute Birmingham, according to her LinkedIn profile.)

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.