YAKIMA, Wash. (AP) - Elyse Umemoto won second runner-up in the Miss America 2008 pageant, making it as far as any Miss Washington ever has.

The 23-year-old Wapato native tied with Miss Washington 1959, Sharon Joyce Vaughn of Port Orchard.

Miss Michigan, 19-year-old Kirsten Haglund, was crowned the new Miss America at the Planet Hollywood Resort & Casino in Las Vegas on Saturday. Miss Indiana, Nicole Rash, won first runner-up.

Umemoto - a 2001 Wapato High School graduate who now lives in Tacoma - wore a red and black bikini and a coffee-colored beaded gown during the swimsuit and evening gown portions of the pageant. She sang "Angels" by Robbie Williams during the talent portion of the show.

"I'm thrilled," Umemoto said of her performance. Now, "I get my life back. No more shopping, no more stressing about interviews."

She won a $20,000 Miss America scholarship, plus $10,000 for placing in the top three in the four-part TLC reality series "Miss America: Reality Check." The final episode aired Friday night.

After six months of rigorous exercise six days a week and a strict low-carbohydrate diet, Umemoto told the Yakima Herald-Republic she's looking forward to "rest and food and my family." She'll remain Miss Washington until the state's next beauty queen is crowned this summer.

After that, she said, she might "take a year off, do some traveling, do my own thing."

She is eight credits away from graduating from Pacific Lutheran University in Tacoma with a double major in psychology and political science, and hopes to go to law school.