This week, Vicksburg native Allen Ditto is the co-executive director of the Miss Mississippi Pageant. The rest of the year he is audio engineer for country music star Martina McBride in Nashville.

“Audio and production are in my DNA,” he said. “I live for this stuff. There’s no bigger rush for me than when I hear, ‘10 seconds ’til live.’”

Through the years, the 34-year-old Ditto has worked on the country music circuit with such mega stars as Garth Brooks, Taylor Swift, Tim McGraw and Faith Hill.

In the rock world, he’s worked with Mississippi native 3 Doors Down and with Kid Rock.

For the pageant — the 52nd such in Vicksburg — Ditto and co-executive director Norman Ford are in charge of creating a spectacular show, following in the footsteps of longtime executive producer Pat Hopson of Vicksburg, who directed Ditto for his first 16 years of working with the pageant.

“She’s taught me a lot about how to do this,” he said during an interview while he was setting up the stage for the preliminary competition that begins tonight.

“Once I started touring with people, I saw how different things can be done,” he said. “I’ve taken that experience and tried to bring that into this pageant.”

Without giving too much away, Ditto said this year’s show will include more lights and more trussing. But, he said, more focus will be on the contestants than on stage adornments.

Ditto began his run with the Miss Mississippi Pageant the year he graduated from Warren Central High School, where he was a behind-the-scenes driver of technology to support school musicals, and moved away to take any production job he could find.

After he wraps up pageant production, he will head back to Nashville, where he lives, and then fly to Europe to meet up with McBride — and her husband, John McBride, for whom Ditto is a personal assistant — for her European tour.

Until then, it’s hometown and backstage at the Miss Mississippi Pageant at the Vicksburg Convention Center.

He said he’ll treat this venue the same as all: “Things are bound to go wrong, but don’t let the audience know,” he said. “Fix it and don’t get upset.”

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Contact Manivanh Chanprasith at mchan@vicksburgpost.com