Katie Stam, the 21 year old Miss Indiana, won the Miss America Crown tonight in Las Vegas. Katie Stam is a communications major at the University of Indianapolis who plans to work in television news. She began competing in pageants at age 15. Katie takes home a $50,000 scholarship and will be embarking on a year of travel and public appearances.

This year the pageant was aired on the TLC network, it had been dropped by network TV when in 2004 it drew in the lowest ratings. Tonight though the show was hosted by Mario Lopez with co-host Clinton Kelly from What Not To Wear. Judges included Laura Bell Bundy, Miss America 1999 Nicole Johnson, hairstylist Ken Paves and Olympic swimmer Cullen Jones.

The competition was interesting this year with all the girls not being stick thin. TLC also added fun to it by in its scorecard for home viewers posted online, it asked viewers to count the number of mentions of world peace and to name the contestant with best spray tan.

View Photos and Bios on All 52 Miss America Contestants

And the questions they asked were harder, like “Should college be free for everyone?” I think the answer was answered brilliantly by saying that the government needs to make it more affordable instead of free.

When Katie Stam walked down the runway as Miss America everyone cheered. Congrats to her…the next couple of days are going to be a whirlwind for her.

Photo Source: Miss America Website

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