Ramsey Carpenter-Bearse

Carpenter-Bearse is a graduate of the University of Kentucky with a Bachelor of Arts degree in special education with a focus on learning and behavior disorders.[4] An accomplished bluegrass fiddle player, she participated in musical competitions at festivals and other venues while in high school and college.[2] Known as "the girl with the green fiddle", she began playing the instrument at age 15.[3]

Carpenter-Bearse was named Miss Kentucky 2014 on July 12, 2014. She competed for the title of Miss America 2015,[2][3] where she won the preliminary talent competition[3] and placed in the Top 12 as a semi-finalist. Her platform issue was multiple sclerosis awareness.[4] Diagnosed with multiple sclerosis in 2010, she has served as a spokeswoman for the National Multiple Sclerosis Society.[6]

After her beauty competition career, Carpenter-Bearse began teaching science at Andrew Jackson Middle School in Cross Lanes, West Virginia. On December 7, 2018, Carpenter-Bearse was arrested for allegedly sending topless photos to a 15-year-old boy, a former student of hers in the Kanawha County School District. She was charged with four felony counts of distribution or display of obscene matter to minors. Carpenter-Bearse testified that the matter started when she tried to send a photo to her husband, but accidentally sent it to the teen, who thereafter asked for more photos and she was "afraid to not appease him."[7] A year later, she pleaded guilty to one felony count of possession of material depicting minors in sexually explicit conduct.[8] In July 2020, she was sentenced to two years imprisonment, ten years supervised release, and registering as a lifetime sex offender.[5][9]