The air crash of an American Airlines plane that collided with a military helicopter last Wednesday night over the Potomac River in Washington DC, claimed the lives of 67 people and unfortunately there were no survivors, according to the latest data received from that city.
Kiah was returning from seeing her mother in Wichita
One of those people was Kiah Duggins, a civil rights lawyer who also competed in the Miss Kansas beauty pageant and was traveling to the nation’s capital from Wichita, Kansas, as she had gone to see her mother who was recovering from surgery and because she was preparing to teach at Howard University, according to testimony from former pageant director Larry Strong
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It was Strong himself who broke the news that Kiah had been a beauty queen in 2014, as Miss Buttler County, a title that allowed her to compete for the Miss Kansas pageant: “It is with great regret that the Miss Augusta and Miss Butler County organization has just learned that Kiah Duggins, Miss Butler County 2014 [and] 2015, was a passenger on the plane that crashed last night in Washington DC (…) Keep the rest of the family in your thoughts and prayers at this difficult time. Kiah was one of the top 10 finalists in 2014 and 2015 in the Miss Kansas pageant,” he said on his Instagram account.
“A brave and beautiful soul”
Kiah Duggins graduated from Wichita State University, was a Fulbright Scholar in Taiwan and studied law at Harvard University. She served as a civil rights litigation attorney for the nonprofit Civil Rights Corps and fought unconstitutional policing practices in places such as Tennessee, Texas and Washington, D.C.
“She was a brave and beautiful soul, a light in the fight for civil rights (…) Her loss is heartbreaking, not only for her family and friends, but for all who believe in justice and equality. May her work, her message and her spirit continue to inspire and create change. She was taken too soon, but she will never be forgotten,” wrote Lacey Cruse, the former Sedgwick County commissioner, where Kiah was from, on Facebook.