There She Is: CT Resident Set For Miss America Competition

ELLINGTON, CT — The 100-year anniversary of the Miss America competition will feature a first - a resident of Ellington will be competing for the crown representing her home state of Connecticut.

Sapna Raghavan, an Ellington High School graduate who earned the title Miss Connecticut in April, will return to the site of that win - Mohegan Sun - to compete against young women from the other 49 states and the District of Columbia. Preliminaries are slated for Dec. 12 and 13 from 7-10 p.m. in the Earth Expo & Convention Center, while the finals will take place Dec. 16 in Mohegan Sun Arena.

Each of the 51 candidates will be judged in four categories: evening wear, on-stage question, social impact and talent. Raghavan, 23, is a first-generation Indian-American, and proudly embraces her heritage through her platform, Embracing Diversity: Overcoming Adversity, and her talent, Indian Classical Dance.

"My parents would make twice-yearly trips to India, and that is where I learned to dance," Raghavan said in an exclusive interview with Patch. Her parents, Raj and Simy Raghavan, were among the first Indian families to immigrate into Ellington, and own American Control Technologies, a small resistance welding pin manufacturer in South Windsor.

She is also proud of representing her hometown. She is just the fifth Tolland County resident to carry the title of Miss Connecticut into the Miss America competition since 1922; in 2019, Bridget Oei of Hebron earned first runner-up honors, one of only three Connecticut entrants to place in the top five.

"People overlook our little northeast corner, so I'm glad to put Ellington on the map," Raghavan said. "Anytime Fitness is a sponsor, and many Ellington businesses have helped support me on this mission."

The figure of speech "all good things come in threes" is in Raghavan's thoughts as the competition approaches. In addition to her Miss Connecticut win last spring and the upcoming Miss America extravaganza, she won the title Miss Connecticut's Outstanding Teen in 2015, also at Mohegan Sun.

"Six years ago, I was thinking about college and knew nothing about this stuff," she said. "Some of the other girls had been doing it for years. Afterward, I took time off to go to college and be a normal girl."

A 2020 graduate of Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute, where she majored in business management and marketing analytics with a minor in professional writing, Raghavan has already established her chosen career in management consulting, working for Deloitte.

Her ultimate goal is to win the competition and become just the second Connecticut representative to hold the title, following Marian Bergeron of West Haven in 1933.

"I did not make the top 10 at Miss Teen, but my life did not end," she said. "I learned a lot from it. It really changes your life."

The Dec. 16 Miss America finals will be streamed live on Peacock, an NBCUniversal streaming service.

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