Costs are so prohibitive that some areas bow out entirely — which is why Miss Puerto Rico was notably missing from the stage this year. The organization announced that her absence was because not enough contestants were willing to compete, but Rigual says there is more to the story. "Unfortunately, Puerto Rico has suffered an economic crisis for a few years now, and the struggle of Hurricane Maria only served to further limit our resources for the contestants, unlike the other states," says Rigual. But Puerto Rico’s relationship with the Miss America pageant has always been fraught; the U.S. territory only began competing in the Miss America pageant in 1948 and then took a nearly 50-year hiatus before returning, sporadically, to the competition in 2010.