Southington's Logan West Named the New Miss Teen USA

Logan West of Southington was crowned Miss Teen USA on Saturday, July 28, the Miss Universe website reports.

According to West's bio on the Miss Universe website, the 18-year-old attended the Greater Hartford Academy of the Arts.

Her career goals are to attend Pace University in New York to study dance. She hopes to travel with the Alvin Ailey American Dance Theatre and also earn a law degree.

With that degree, West wants to serve as a children's lawyer specializing in divorce cases, according to her bio page. West said her hobbies are cooking, reading and dancing, and she collects turtle-related items.

At the pageant in Nassau, Bahamas, West defeated 15 other finalists, and will spend the next year alongside Miss USA and Miss Universe, according to a Miss Teen USA press release.

Let Patch save you time. Get great local stories like this delivered right to your inbox or smartphone every day with our free newsletter. Simple, fast sign-up here.

In an interview with the Record-Journal in 2010, West told reporters she had been bullied when she was younger and decided to turn her bad experiences into positives ones, teaching students how to prevent bullying from occuring.

"I was bullied and I wasn't educated enough to know what to do to stop it from happening," West said in July of 2010. "I go to schools in Southington and tell the students five steps to stop bullying. I did a lot of research online and talked to people who have studied this. Some of things I found, I made sure that they would work for me."

Make sure to like Southington Patch on Facebook or follow on Twitter for breaking news, daily updates and more!