Miss Georgia Sophia Wootten Returns Home for Rome’s Pageant Saturday

Four young women will be crowned Saturday night at the Rome City Auditorium, five weeks after one of the same program’s alumnae won the Miss Georgia title outright. The 2027 Miss Rome, Miss Northwest Georgia and Teen Competitions start at 7 p.m., with $20 tickets at the door funding the scholarships every contestant on stage is chasing.

That alumna is Sophia Wootten, the reigning Miss Georgia, who will sit in the audience Saturday as a guest of honor rather than a contestant. Beside her will be Anna Kate Robinson, the outgoing Miss Rome titleholder who finished second runner up to Wootten at the same state pageant in June. Both women came out of this exact stage in Rome.

Four Crowns, One Night in Rome

Doors open at 6:30 p.m. and the show runs general admission, no reserved seating. Every ticket dollar goes back into the cash scholarships handed out at the end of the night. Young women between 18 and 28, as of September 2027, who live, work or attend school in Georgia can compete for Miss Rome and Miss Northwest Georgia. Teens between 14 and 18, as of September 2027, compete for the two companion Teen titles.

Four winners walk away with crowns:

• Miss Rome and Miss Northwest Georgia go to the top two scorers in the Miss division, who move on to compete for Miss Georgia in Columbus next June.
• Miss Rome’s Teen and Miss Northwest Georgia’s Teen go to the top two scorers in the Teen division, who advance to Miss Georgia’s Teen the same week.
• Every contestant who competes leaves with some scholarship money, win or lose, drawn from Saturday’s ticket sales and sponsor support.

Why Is a 2026 Show Called the 2027 Pageant?

The 2027 label refers to the year its winners will compete for the state crown, not the year of Saturday’s show. Georgia’s Miss America preliminaries crown a local titleholder roughly eleven months before she competes at Miss Georgia, so a pageant held in July 2026 produces a Miss Rome 2027 who heads to Columbus in June 2027. Wootten followed the identical calendar a year earlier as Miss Northwest Georgia 2026.

A Hometown Run at the State Pageant

Wootten won the Miss Georgia crown on June 20, 2026, at the RiverCenter for the Performing Arts in Columbus, the 81st time the state has crowned a titleholder there. She is 21, from Peachtree City, and studies communication sciences and disorders at the University of Georgia (UGA), with plans to pursue a doctorate in audiology at Auburn afterward. Her platform, AccessAbility: Disability Advocacy in Education, grew directly out of her own childhood: she was born with a cleft lip and palate and underwent 20 surgeries before she turned 20.

She sang her way to the title. Wootten started voice lessons at five years old as a form of speech therapy and still wears hearing aids on stage.

I stood up there with one of my best friends, Aleks Arwood, holding hands, and in that moment, I felt peace with whatever the outcome might be, and Lord willing, it became my chance to be Miss Georgia.

Wootten told Georgia Public Broadcasting after the win. She collected $25,300 in scholarships across the four nights of competition.

Robinson, also 21 and also a UGA student, competed for Miss Rome at that same event. She is from Wrightsville and performed a tap routine for her talent. At the 81st annual competition, which drew 52 Miss contestants from across the state, the Miss Rome Board of Directors says Robinson was a preliminary talent winner, took the pageant’s overall talent award, and finished as second runner up to Wootten. Two women from the same small local program stood near the very top of a 52 candidate field.

The Name Still on the Talent Trophy

The award for Saturday’s top talent score carries the name of Frances Frazier, a Rome native who won the local pageant as Miss Rome in 1984. She went on to win the Miss Georgia crown itself in 1988, by then competing as Miss Peachtree City, and represented the state at Miss America later that year. Frazier died in 1991 of a heart attack, at just 28 years old.

Her sash, shoes and Miss Georgia crown are still preserved and have been shown at the Rome Area History Museum. Rome’s pageant has followed a consistent pattern since her era: the winner of the local Miss Rome title competes at the state pageant the following year, the same track Robinson and Wootten just ran. Saturday’s Frances Frazier Memorial Talent Award keeps her name attached to the exact skill that carried her to a state crown almost forty years ago.

Twenty Names Chase Four Crowns Saturday

Ten teenagers and ten young women make up this year’s delegate class, ranging in age from 14 to 24. Talents span violin, marimba, magic and tap, and their community service platforms cover everything from fire safety to disability inclusion to childhood abuse recovery.

Ten Teens Take the Stage First

Lorelei Rodgers’ platform, built around families who lived through abuse, and Maggie Miller’s Red Cross partnership stand out as the two Teen initiatives tied to national organizations rather than personal causes.

Ten Young Women Vie for the Two Top Titles

Five of the ten Miss candidates are 18, the youngest age this division allows. Kessler Kunkel’s marimba act is the only instrumental talent in the group, and Carys Feldman is the field’s lone ballet en pointe performer.

The Road Now Runs Through West Palm Beach

Wootten’s next stop is considerably bigger than Rome. The Miss America Organization confirmed the competition will run Aug. 28 through Sept. 6, 2026, in West Palm Beach, with events split between the Palm Beach County Convention Center and the Raymond F. Kravis Center for the Performing Arts. It marks the pageant’s 105th anniversary, and current titleholder Cassie Donegan will crown the 99th Miss America on the final night. That event carries the same forward-dated name as Rome’s: the winner crowned this September becomes Miss America 2027.

Wootten will not be the only small-town winner walking that stage. Florida crowned its own representative after three nights of competition in Lakeland earlier this month, one of dozens of state pageants that fed delegates toward the same September week.

What the Scholarship Math Adds Up To

Saturday’s $5,800 pool is a fraction of what the winners could eventually chase if they follow Wootten and Robinson’s path. The numbers climb fast the further a titleholder advances.

• $25,300 is what Wootten collected over four nights at Miss Georgia in June.
• $85,000 was awarded in total across the Miss Georgia and Miss Georgia’s Teen finals that same week.
• $50,000 is the tuition scholarship that comes with the Miss America crown itself.

Every figure traces back to a $20 ticket and a local board writing checks in a city auditorium. Saturday’s winners will not find out if they can match Wootten and Robinson’s run until next June, when Columbus hosts the next Miss Georgia Scholarship Competition.