She Was Told She Might Never Be Understood. Now She’s Miss Georgia: Peachtree City’s Sophia Wootten

Twenty years and 20 surgeries after doctors warned her parents she might never be understood because of a complex cleft lip and palate, Peachtree City native Sophia Wootten is wearing the Miss Georgia crown and preparing to represent the state on the Miss America stage.

For Wootten, 21, winning Miss Georgia on June 20 in Columbus was about far more than a title.

“Because of this opportunity, I get to break barriers and make history,” Wootten said. “I am the first Miss America contestant to walk that stage with a cleft lip and palate.”

Born in Atlanta, Wootten moved to Peachtree City before her second birthday. She attended Peeples and Braelinn elementary schools before graduating from Trinity Christian School in 2023, where she immersed herself in musical theater, performing in productions including Beauty and the Beast, Les Misérables, Little Shop of Horrors, and Newsies. She also performed with Stepping Out Performing Arts, taking on leading roles such as Ariel in The Little Mermaid and Miss Honey in Matilda.

Growing up, however, performing seemed like an unlikely path.

Wootten was born with a complex cleft lip and palate caused by medication her mother had taken after a previous pregnancy loss. Her condition affected far more than her appearance. Over the years, she underwent reconstructive surgeries involving her jaw, nose, ears, and palate. Today, one eardrum is laboratory-made, her nose has been reconstructed using bone from her hip, and she continues to live with hearing loss and a small opening in the roof of her mouth.

“My story spans 20 surgeries in 20 years,” she said. “That inspired my platform going into Miss Georgia.”

Her parents were told she might never be clearly understood when she spoke.

“My parents were told to try the Atlanta School for the Deaf,” Wootten recalled. “They advocated for me all the way through my education.”

Instead, they enrolled her in public school and encouraged her to pursue every opportunity available.

One of the most important influences came in first grade, when she met local vocal coach Lisa Kelly. Wootten became one of the first students at The Lisa Kelly Voice Academy, where singing lessons evolved into something much more meaningful.

“Voice lessons became speech therapy for me,” Wootten said. “Lisa really paved the way for me to fall in love with performance and with my own voice. Had it not been for those early singing lessons and her knowledge and expertise, I would not have been in the position to wear the Miss Georgia crown.”

Kelly remembers meeting Sophia long before she became a student. The Wootten family had just welcomed Kelly’s family to Peachtree City after their move from Ireland, and Sophia quickly befriended Kelly’s young son, Jack, helping him adjust to a new school and a new country.

“Sophia was Jack’s first friend in school,” Kelly recalled. “She knew that he was a little different to everybody else, and she made him feel so welcomed. She was such a good friend to him.”

As Sophia returned from one surgery after another, Kelly watched both her confidence and her voice grow.

“After every operation, her voice would just get a little bit better,” Kelly said. “The singing, I feel, certainly helped her because it’s a more intentional way of using your mouth. You really have to articulate when you sing.”

More than a decade later, Kelly says the young woman wearing the Miss Georgia crown is the same person she met as a child.

“Nothing stopped her,” Kelly said. “She was just a child that you knew was going to take on the world, and take it on with kindness and resilience. I’m really not shocked that this is the journey that she saw herself on.”

Her love of music eventually led her to the University of Georgia, where she is studying communication sciences and disorders with plans to pursue a doctorate in audiology. She hopes one day to work with children facing many of the same challenges she experienced growing up.

“I was striving to get a pediatric doctor of audiology so I can serve kids living my same story,” she said.

Pageantry wasn’t even on her radar until college.

One of her closest friends suggested they enter the Miss UGA competition together as a way to find community. Wootten almost dismissed the idea but decided to give it a try.

“I thought it was a small pageant,” she said. “We called it a side quest.”

She didn’t win Miss UGA, but judges encouraged the Miss Georgia organization to award her an at-large title. Competing as Miss Classic City, she became a semifinalist at Miss Georgia in 2025. She returned this year as Miss Northwest Georgia, armed with another year of preparation and community service.

“When I went into this competition this year, I knew I’d done the job. I knew I’d done the preparation, so I just had to execute it.”

Preparation for Miss Georgia involved far more than rehearsing a talent performance or selecting an evening gown.

Wootten worked with a personal trainer, continued voice training, met regularly with medical specialists to ensure no surgeries would interrupt a potential year of service, and refined every aspect of her stage presentation. She earned the preliminary evening gown award before ultimately hearing her name called as Miss Georgia.

The crown also came with $25,000 in scholarship money, which she plans to use toward graduate school after taking a year away from UGA to serve full-time as Miss Georgia.

She’ll spend the coming year traveling throughout Georgia, visiting schools, speaking at community events, and advocating for disability awareness through her service initiative, AccessAbility: Disability Advocacy in Education.

One moment after her crowning captured exactly why representation matters.

Just minutes after she became Miss Georgia, former Miss Georgia Patricia Ford Reeves introduced Wootten to her young daughter, who wears pink hearing aids. Wootten smiled and pointed to her own.

“I also wear pink sparkly hearing aids,” she told the little girl.

Looking back, Wootten says those moments—not the crown itself—define beauty.

“I don’t think there is any standard of beauty that is correct, because it is so subjective,” she said. “The most beautiful experience that I’ve ever been a part of was five minutes after being crowned Miss Georgia.”

Although she’ll spend much of the coming year traveling, Peachtree City remains home.

“We grew up on the golf cart trails,” she said. “I tell everybody, you drive to middle school on a golf cart, you see golf cart parking spots, and you don’t really see that anywhere else in Georgia. That’s what makes us special, and that’s what I love so much. I carry Peachtree City with me everywhere I go.”

That hometown will continue serving as her home base as she prepares to compete for Miss America on Sept. 6 in West Palm Beach, Florida.

The message she hopes to share extends far beyond the pageant stage.

“I had somebody tell me once, ‘You belong here,'” Wootten said. “I carried it with me. You belong where your voice is being heard. You belong in the rooms where decisions are being made. You belong changing people’s lives, because I think every single story has value.”

For those who have been told they’ll never be able to accomplish something because of a disability or diagnosis, she hopes her own journey offers encouragement.

“Your label will never define you or what you can do,” Wootten said. “Barriers are made to be broken, because that is how you make change for the people who come after you.”