They lift your spirits, prompt you to think, make you feel grateful and inspire you to do more. They connect you to our community, shining a spotlight on what's good about our city. They're stories that are Uniquely Milwaukee, sponsored by the Milwaukee Public Library.
Though her intuition was strong, of course, Willow Newell didn’t know she’d be the next Miss Wisconsin. But the 22-year-old said it felt right because she did her best and felt connected to her highest self.
“It’s so amazing,” Newell said. “Having the state title, I realized it was a full-circle moment. It was meant for me to represent my hometown, and bring all of my knowledge and experiences from Racine to the state stage.”
She’d competed for the state title six times: three as a teenager, as Miss Kenosha and as Miss Great Lakes. Now, the Racine native has won the Miss Wisconsin crown — the first Black woman to hold the title.
“Being the first woman to represent, who looks like me, is so mindblowing,” she said. “I just think about the women who came before me. To be able to represent that experience of all of us and have achieved it so that I can inspire other people to do the same is so magical.”
As Miss Wisconsin, Newell will compete for the 2026 Miss America Crown this September in Orlando. She also received a $13,000 scholarship that, as a recent graduate of Carthage College, she’ll put toward a master’s degree in dramatic writing. While she loves musical theater, she wants to work behind the scenes in movies, musicals and maybe even TV — a professional goal that ties to her Miss Wisconsin platform: “expression without exclusion.”
Newell believes everyone should have access to the arts and has partnered with the Wisconsin Arts Board to advocate for funding, as well as increase awareness in schools and communities statewide. “We’re ranked 49th out of all the states, which is so disappointing, in arts funding,” she explained. “And it’s really so hard to get people to understand that the arts are important. It allows people to express themselves.
“We’ll be doing different events throughout the year, social-media campaigns, more research and talking to people who are already making things happen.”
Newell’s passion for the arts connects her to Radio Milwaukee. She’s an alum of our youth music program, Grace Weber’s Music Lab, which helped her find a new creative community after switching to virtual learning in high school and then having to navigate the height of the COVID-19 pandemic.
“I remember I struggled a lot during COVID, but it was really something that gave me hope,” she said of her time at the Lab. “I stopped doing theater and wasn’t really involved in the arts scene anymore, and so that gave me the opportunity to perform again and to be around other performers.”
As Newell relishes her new title, she hopes it inspires other young girls and women to embrace their truest selves. She said she’s faced self-doubt, from her love of rock and emo music to simply wearing her naturally coily hair — which the Miss Wisconsin crown now sits atop.
“I never thought I’d ever have the confidence to even wear my natural hair everyday, to school, out in public,” she said. “And then for me to wear it on the pageant stage and be able to represent just the natural beauty of Black women everywhere, I’m so excited for the way that it’s making people feel.”
You can hear all of that and more from Willow Newell on this episode of Uniquely Milwaukee, which includes another creative voice from southeastern Wisconsin: Grace Weber's Music Lab Program Director Britney “B~Free” Freeman-Farr, who joins our interview as we discuss Newell’s inspirations, the source of her confidence and what comes next.
