After graduating in May 2026, Ruby Tilghman, who currently serves as Miss Alabama, is shining the spotlight on rural service-learning initiatives as she takes the Miss America stage.
Tilghman was recently crowned Miss Alabama on June 6 while competing under the title of Miss Birmingham and previously served as Miss University of Alabama in 2025. While competing in the Miss Alabama organization, her community service initiative has been “57 Miles: Connecting Students to Rural America.”
“I think that universities and colleges are uniquely positioned to meet the needs of rural America in a way that we don’t typically recognize. So that’s why I chose it. And it’s been something that I’ve been really proud to represent,” she said. “The whole idea is that we’re finding an infrastructure or a mode by which students, undergraduate students across the nation, can be connected to rural America… As Miss Alabama, my role is now to take that model and advocate for it, especially in our state.”
Leading through service
The initiative is named in honor of the University’s Honors College program, 57 Miles, which Tilghman helped revive in 2024 as the club’s president. Centered around developing community programming and resources in Alabama’s Black Belt, the organization connects undergraduate students with opportunities to learn about and volunteer in the Marion community.
While Tilghman was familiar with the strengths and challenges facing rural areas when she came to the Capstone, it wasn’t until her time as a Dr. Robert E. Witt University Fellow that she understood the role she could play to steward these communities.
Through the program’s Black Belt Experience, Tilghman spent a year researching Perry County’s culture and social support system. The program culminated in a month-long living experience where she implemented a college and career readiness curriculum while contributing to community support projects.
I’m a real living example of the power that a university has to take care of a student and expose them to the state that they serve, and then to change the trajectory of their life.
Her participation in the Black Belt Experience and her study of global poverty and healthcare policy in Cuba provided Tilghman with opportunities through the Honors College to foster her passion for rural community development.
“We often have this idea that the need for humanitarian aid around the world exists in places that are easy to point to and say, ‘This has a high poverty rate, i.e. Cuba,’” Tilghman explained. “But the reality is that our neighbors are impoverished and we’re not doing enough here on the home front to solve some of the problems that plague third world countries around the world.”
Taking inspiration to build new pathways
After 57 Miles was mentioned to Tilghman by a professor, she began working to revive the program to ensure that students outside of the Witt Fellows Program would have access to the same life-changing experience in Marion. Following the program’s five-year hiatus, the program was reintroduced in 2024 with a new, student-led structure.
The Honors College worked to champion her ambitions as she received key support in reviving 57 Miles from Dean Tiffany Sippial, Professor Emeritus David Boles, Professor Megan Bailey and undergraduate student Zacc Gleason, who is now the organization’s president.
“The thing that I saw most in our campus and the thing that proved true throughout my undergraduate experience was that The University of Alabama will foster every interest, every inclination, every passion that you have, and will turn it into something that is so much more than you could have imagined,” Tilghman said.
Building a foundation for the future
What made this reintroduction different, and what continues to fuel Tilghman’s work as Miss Alabama, is the research behind 57 Miles.
Tilghman analyzed the best practices and reccurring barriers for university-sponsored programming across the country, leading to the creation of a model that is affordable, student-led and marketable to other universities. The infrastructure connects undergraduate students to persistent-poverty counties, 82% of which are within 57 miles from the nearest college or university.
In Marion alone, the program has generated an economic impact of $31,000 through partnerships in community engagement, education, economic development and healthcare. Over 120 students have completed approximately 2,700 volunteer hours to enact meaningful change in Perry County.
As Miss Alabama, Tilghman is now advocating for this self-sustaining model to be implemented on campuses across the state. Professors and students alike at Troy and Samford University have begun looking at adopting 57 Miles’ framework to implement similar service-learning opportunities.
57 Miles at UA currently hosts semesterly days of service while maintaining partnerships in the Marion community. Students regularly complete SAT prep with Marion high schoolers, serve as peer mentors through Project Horseshoe Farms, provide art therapy to adults with dementia and work with grant programs to preserve historical sites.
Using pageants as a platform
Tilghman began competing for the title of Miss America on Aug. 30 while sharing the importance of service learning on a national stage. She credits UA’s investment in student life and real-world experiences with fostering her passions and the confidence to articulate who she is and how she hopes to participate in the world around her.
Following her year as Miss Alabama, Tilghman will pursue another lifelong dream, this time, back in the classroom. She will attend the Heersink School of Medicine at The University of Alabama at Birmingham on a full tuition scholarship as she works toward a career as a physician.
“I think that I’m a real living example of the power that a university has to take care of a student and expose them to the state that they serve, and then to change the trajectory of their life,” she said.