Miss United States Alexandria Mills Wins Miss World Pageant

Go Team USA! Dark horse Miss United States Of America Alexandria Mills walked away with the prized tiara at the 60th annual Miss World Pageant in the Chinese city Sanya on Saturday.

The 18-year-old aspiring teacher from Kentucky wore a ravishing white gown as she beat out 114 contestants from across the Globe for the coveted prize. Second place went to Emma Wareus of Botswana, and Adriana Vasini of Venezuela came third. Mariann Birkedal, a 23-year-old college graduate from Norway, was a early odds favorite to win the crown. Interestingly enough, she didn’t even make it into the group of five finalists. Some observers said that might be a response to this year’s Nobel Peace Prize, awarded by the Norwegian committee to Liu Xiaobo, a Chinese dissident now in prison.

Mills describes herself as a bubbly bundle of sunshine, albeit soft-spoken.

“I’ve never met a stranger and enjoy meeting new people,” she says in her personal bio. “The best things in life are worth waiting for, fighting for, believing in, and just never letting go of it.”

A strict vegetarian, Alexandria was fondly nicknamed KFC (short for Kentucky Fried Chicken) by her fellow contestants.