Miss Arizona Teen USA 2017 Karly Riggs was born and raised in Scottsdale, Arizona where she is four out of the five of her sibilings – she also has a twin sister! She has always been dedicated to school and is currently an Honor, AP student at Chaparral High School where she is active with Best Buddies, National Honor Society and serves as an Ambassador for the TYRO mentoring program.

Karly was chosen to represent the nearly 27,000 students in her school district as a student advisor to the Scottsdale Unified School Board. This past summer, she was also chosen to attend the Pre-College Program at Harvard University where she studied the evolution of medicine.

Karly passionately believes that if her generation is going to be responsible leaders of tomorrow, they need to first understand who and what shaped our nation. For this reason, she is working to promote the civics education initiative which requires high school students, as a condition for graduation, to pass a civics test.

​For the past several years, she has combined her love of sports and children by volunteering at The Miracle League of Arizona, where she helps children with disabilities play baseball. These amazing kids inspired her desire to pursue a career in pediatric medicine.