Morgan Greco is a junior at Camas High School with an incredible achievement: becoming Miss America’s Outstanding Teen of 2022. After starting competitions in 2019 and winning the preliminary talent and community service awards, she won the title of Clark County teen in 2020. She competed for the state title in 2021 but lost. This year, she was able to win the state competition and then ultimately win the title of Miss America’s Outstanding Teen. “I received 53 thousand in scholarships overall, I also received full rides from multiple universities,” said Morgan.

With the title of Miss America’s teen, so far she has been spreading her social impact initiative and volunteering locally to make a difference. “I’m hoping that after the actual miss America competition happens that I will get to do a couple of events with her,” said Morgan about her wishes for this year.

The Miss America competition has four phases of competition: interviews, fitness, talent, and evening wear. “The talent portion, which is my favorite, is a 90-sec talent phase of the competition where you can just do whatever you wanna do,” said Morgan. For Morgan, the talent portion was the reason she joined the competition. “I joined the competition because I wanted to sing on a national level.” Outside of competing in Miss America, Morgan is involved in theatre and opera. She participates in the drama program at Camas High School and was even nominated last year for the Fifth Avenue Awards for her performance. 

Another important part of the Miss America program is the social impact campaign. Morgan’s campaign is called “Empowerment Starts With Me” and involves empowering young women to take self-defense classes. Inspired by her mother’s push for her to take a self-defense class to learn to protect herself before going to college, Morgan began to take self-defense classes.

As a four-year Krav Maga student, she realized the importance of self-defense. “My hope is that when women take a self-defense class, maybe it be just one, they’re not only learning how to defend themselves but they’re also learning to be independent,” she said. She is also in the midst of creating a scholarship program for young women who don’t have the financial resources to afford self-defense classes and a program to teach college students inside and outside Washington how to defend themselves.

“We really don’t believe that this is a pageant because we’re here for something bigger,” said Morgan. From the Miss America competition, she has learned how to speak eloquently in front of a crowd, interview skills, confidence, as well as how important it is to ask for help. “Asking for help is actually encouraged because then you get to collaborate and create connections with the people around you to build a sense of community within the organization,” said Morgan.

Although Morgan has been crowned Miss America’s Outstanding Teen, she hasn’t let that change her. “I really wanted to make it clear that even though I had this new title and opportunity it didn’t matter because I was still the same person, crown or not,” said Morgan. Just like a normal teenage girl, Morgan loves the DECA program at CHS and has plans to major in marketing in college. But unlike a normal teenage girl, Morgan has a major achievement that expanded her skills immensely, gave her amazing opportunities for her future, and allowed her to empower the young women around her.