Miss Missouri 2016 Erin O'Flaherty is being crowned by Miss Missouri 2016 McKensie Garber and the new 2016 Miss Missouri's Outstanding Teen Christina Stratton, her arm seen, in Mexico, Mo. (Photo : Getty Images/ Brenda Fike)
Erin O'Flaherty, Miss Missouri 2016 has made history of been an openly gay woman.
According to the Kansas City Star, O'Flaherty, who was crowned on Saturday in Mexico, Missouri, will be the first openly gay woman to represent the state in the upcoming Miss America pageant.
"I am totally in disbelief. I was really not expecting this," O'Flaherty, 23, told local newspaper the Mexico Ledger.
Ann Jolly, chairman of the board of the Miss Missouri Scholarship Organization, said on Wednesday that the 23-year-old O'Flaherty is the first openly gay woman to be named Miss Missouri.
O'Flaherty said in a telephone interview that she came out as gay when she was 18. She knew going into the Miss Missouri pageant if she won she would be making history, but she says that was not her focus.
A graduate of the University of Central Florida, O'Flaherty owns and operates a boutique in Chesterfield, Missouri. Her platform is suicide prevention - a topic close to her heart, as a close high school friend committed suicide, People reported.
O'Flaherty thinks she will also be the first openly gay woman to compete in the Miss America scholarship pageant, scheduled for September in Atlantic City, but the Miss America Organization has yet to comment.
"I had my concerns about it," O'Flaherty told The Riverfront Times of being out in the pageant world. "Progressive is not exactly a word people might think of when you think Missouri."
She continued, "I don't carry a rainbow flag with me everywhere I go, you know. It's not going to be my focus, but I certainly hope my presence will help people open up a little bit more. I'm very open about it. It's never going to be something I try to hide because I'm very proud to be a member of the LGBT community."
O'Flaherty will compete for the Miss America crown in Atlantic City, New Jersey, this September.
"What I'm going to try to do this year is open up people's eyes and minds a little bit," she told the Times.
Have a look of Miss Missouri 2016 here:
