Alwal. At Winona State she majored in political science and minored in sociology.
WATERTOWN, S.D. – The new Miss South Dakota USA is Ahmitara Alwal, a Winona State University political science graduate who’s been active in pageants since she was 4 years old. Now 25, she’s a marketing specialist for the Sioux Falls-based Avera hospital group. At Winona State she was a student trustee on the Minnesota State Colleges and Universities System governing board. She testified in the Legislature to lower tuition. Herself she is a first-generation college graduate. She is of Ethiopian extraction with family still in Gambella after escaping war in the early 1990s. Her favorite recipe, she told pageant judges, is a spicy Ethiopian stir-fry of peppers and jalapenos. She claims fluency in Japanese, Spanish, Haitian Creole, Anyuak and French. She volunteers with Habitat for Humanity. Her lifelong ambition, she said, is to be an ambassador to help maintain integrity in international relations and to contribute to global peace and understanding.