Betty Cantrell of Georgia crowned Miss America

ATLANTIC CITY - Betty Cantrell, a 20-year-old opera singer from Georgia, became Miss America 2016 Sunday night before a cheering crowd in Boardwalk Hall.

History was also made when a contrite pageant official apologized to entertainer Vanessa Williams, who was stripped of the title as Miss America in 1984 after nude photos of her were published without her permission in Penthouse magazine.

Cantrell, who is from Warner Robins, Ga., wowed the judges with her lovely version of the aria "Tu, tu Piccolo Iddio" from Puccini's Madama Butterfly. Cantrell has studied music at Wesleyan College and Mercer University in Macon and would eventually like to graduate from a conservatory for musical theater. Her career ambition is to perform on Broadway.

In a pageant biography, Cantrell listed her favorite food as steak and mashed potatoes and mentioned that she grew up in a rural home without cable television. Cantrell's win perhaps upstaged the dramatics that occurred in the first 10 minutes of the live broadcast from Boardwalk Hall - the apology that pageant chairman and CEO Sam Haskell gave Williams.

The pageant, which some have called an Ozzie and Harriet ideal in a Kim Kardashian world, may have taken itself out of television obscurity by announcing last week that Williams would return as the head judge.

Williams, who made history as the first African American Miss America, had to relinquish her title two months before the end of her reign in 1984 after the nude photographs appeared. The photos were taken long before Williams entered the pageant world.

Immediately after the announcement was made by Williams on Good Morning America, ABC began generating its own buzz by airing 30-second promo spots on television and the internet promising a "shocking twist" within the first five minutes of the live broadcast Sunday night. The spots noted that Williams would "change pageant history."

Even TMZ, the celebrity news television show and website, picked up on the scent of supposed controversy at the pageant and made its lead story a piece that quoted anonymous pageant production sources saying that things were in "crisis mode" because the Miss America Organization and Williams couldn't agree on who would be apologizing to whom for the 31-year-long debacle that made the acclaimed singer and actress little more than a pageant footnote for decades.

And while some have long called Miss America the original reality show, others contend that it took too stark a veer toward extreme television with the Williams twist.

"I'm happy she's coming back, but I have always thought of the pageant as a place of elegance and refinement," said Linda Schroder, 56, of Ventnor, who said she has been coming the pageant every year it has been in Atlantic City since she was a little girl.

Schroder was among the throngs of women who teetered on high heels as they made their way along the Boardwalk Sunday night to get to Boardwalk Hall for the event. Most attendees wore elegant attire - some women turned out in evening gowns and their escorts donned tuxes.