With the title, Justus Kelley achieves multiple firsts in pageant history.
By Julie Saetre
Congratulations to Justus Kelley, a former Kiwanian who recently was named the winner of the 75th Miss USA pageant! Kelley was a member of the Bloomington Kiwanis Club in Indiana, U.S., from 2020 through November 2025. She also served on the Kiwanis International Diversity, Equity and Inclusion Board from 2020-22. (Kelley was featured in Kiwanis magazine in 2021. See the photo above.)
As someone who always has shown a commitment to service, Kelley has a fitting Miss USA platform: Foster Footprints, a nonprofit she founded with her husband, Tyler. The organization supports and empowers foster youth and families. One of its key initiatives focuses on donating suitcases to replace the plastic bags many foster children use to carry their belongings from home to home.
“A trash bag should never be a child’s suitcase,” Kelley posted on Instagram. “Every foster child deserves to carry their belongings with dignity.”
A foster mother of two, Kelley is the first married woman, first mother and first woman in her 30s to win Miss USA. The pageant started allowing married women and mothers to compete in 2023, and the following year expanded its requirements past the previous age limit of 28 to welcome all women 18 and over.
Kelley will represent the United States at the Miss Universe pageant in Puerto Rico on November 24.
“I look at this like a responsibility to know that I was trusted to be the first,” she said in a post-pageant news conference. “I won’t be the last.”
Kiwanis history
Kelley began volunteering with Kiwanis as a student at Indiana University, where she received both her bachelor’s and master’s degrees. After she became an official Kiwanis member in the 2020s, she won the title of Mrs. Indiana and centered her platform on “Building Inclusive Societies.”
As part of that goal, she traveled to all 92 Indiana counties, visiting grade school classrooms, granting wishes for students as a Make-A-Wish Foundation representative, attending community events and volunteering with local organizations.
Kelley also has organized the Miss Kiwanis Balloon Fest pageant, which determines the official ambassador of the annual Kiwanis Indiana Balloon Fest fundraiser.