Miss Connecticut USA & Teen USA 2017 will be crowned tomorrow, with the final competition starting at 2pm.  Connecticut will farewell Miss CT USA Tiffany Teixiera and Miss CT Teen USA Katy Brown - Tiffany made the top ten at Miss USA and is only the fourth from her state to make the cut at Miss USA since 1969!

Three runners-up from last year are returning, two of whom are former Teens:  Miss CT Teen USA 2011 Samantha Sojka was first runner-up last year and fourth runner-up in 2015 and  Miss CT Teen USA 2007 Olga Litvinenko was foruth runner-up after competing four years in New York.  The third is 2016 semi-finalist Dalila May who has returned thanks to the age limit increase.  Miss Connecticut USA 2013 third runner-up Fiona White, who was in the top five that year alongside Tiffany and future Miss USA Erin Brady,  is competing for the first time in four years.  

Brianna Munoz, who started her USA pageant career placing fourth runner-up at Miss Massachusetts Teen USA 2007 and second runner-up in 2008, is competing in Connecticut for the second time.  She, Samantha Lusniak, Hillary Scoville and Elizabeth Wolanin are returning semi-finalists. 

As with last year there are only nine contestants in the Teen pageant.  Only one has returned from last year, third runner-up Alexandria Palmer - although 2016 second runner-up Meera Gupta competed in Indiana this year and placed first runner-up.  2014 semi-finalist and Congeniality winner Celina Chapman is back for the first time since then.  Three-time New York contestant Lana Coffey is competing in Connecticut for the first time, as is Brynn Slicer whose only other year competing was at Miss DE Teen USA 2013 when she was only 14.

Shoutout to the new Miss Connecticut USA 2016 Tiffany Teixeira and Miss Connecticut Teen USA 2016 Katy Brown.  Tiffany was Miss CT Teen USA 2009 and first competed in Miss in 2013 when she finished first runner-up to eventual Miss USA winner Erin Brady.  In 2014 and 2015 she finished second runner-up.  Tiffany is a sweetheart and a big favourite of mine, like so many winners this year I really admire her perseverance.  She works as an ICU nurse at Yale-New Haven Hospital.  Katy was competing in the pageant for the first time and is the first titleholder from her hometown of Hebron.  Tiffany is from Bridgeport, the first Miss titleholder from there since 1984, according to my records (although I do have some gaps in the 80s & 90s).

In the Miss division, all three former Teens made the top five.  The final two were Tiffany and Samantha Sojka​, Miss CT Teen USA 2011 and fourth runner-up last year.  This was the second time this state pageant season that two former Teens were holding hands at the end - the other time was in Alabama last week.  Olga Litvinenko, Miss CT Teen USA 2007, made the top five in her fifth shot at the Miss title (she now has only one year left).  After competing in New York for four years she returned to her home state and placed fourth runner-up.  I love that she chose an orange gown, the same colour she won her Teen title in.

Second runner-up went to Dalila May, a semi-finalist in 2013 and 2014 and third runner-up, for the second year in a row, was Brittany Capozziello.  Brittany has one year left and Dalila has now aged out, as has three-time runner-up Amaryllis Rodriguez who finished in the top ten this year and won Miss Photogenic.

In Teen, first runner-up went to Shelby Gallagher, the sister of two-time CT Teen runner-up Taylor Gallagher.  Shelby is only 15 so has plenty of time to return!  Second and third runner-up went to newcomers Meera Gupta (Photogenic winner) and Alexandria Palmer, and Sarah Barrett repeated her fourth runner-up placement from last year and also won Congeniality.