The 2018 Miss Maryland USA competition is the pageant that selects the representative for the state Maryland in the Miss USA pageant. The pageant is directed by D&D Investments.
The first Miss USA winner from Maryland, Mary Leona Gage, won Miss USA 1957. However, she was later discovered to be a mother of two sons and was therefore dethroned. In 2012, Nana Meriwether placed 1st runner-up, but became Miss USA 2012 when Olivia Culpo won Miss Universe 2012.
Four Maryland titleholders are former Miss Maryland Teen USAs. These four all reigned in the early 1990s, and in fact four out of six titleholders from 1990 to 1995 were former teens. Only one Miss Maryland USA has competed at Miss America.
Every year, each state holds a preliminary competition to choose their delegate for the Miss USA pageant. In some states (such as Texas and Florida), local pageants are also held to determine delegates for the state competition. The state winners hold the title "Miss State USA" for the year of their reign.
The most successful state is Texas, which has had the most semi-finalists and winners, including five consecutive Miss USA titleholders during the 1980s.[22] Other successful states include California, New York, Alabama, Tennessee and Georgia. The least successful states are Delaware, placing only once in 2015; Montana, which has not placed since the 1950s; South Dakota, which has only placed three times (the last time in 2016), and Wyoming, which gained only its second placement in 2010. The only state which has produced more than one Miss Universe is South Carolina.
The Miss Universe Organization licenses out the state pageants to pageant directors, who in some cases are responsible for more than one state. The most well established directorial groups are RPM Productions, created in 1980 (Alabama, Louisiana, North Carolina, South Carolina), and Vanbros, created in the early 1990s (Arkansas, Kansas, Missouri, Nebraska and Oklahoma). Future Productions direct the most states, seven, across the Midwest and Rockies.