Temperatures in the mid-90s didn’t stop well-wishers from showing up to watch the 2011 Miss Mississippi contestants ride down Washington Street Monday night.

“I would say a conservative estimate for the parade would be around 600,” said Warren County Sheriff Martin Pace, one of the escorts for the annual parade of contestants competing for the crown in a contest that is a forerunner to the Miss America pageant, which officials said today will be in Las Vegas on Jan. 14.

The parade kicked off a week of events in the 54th annual Miss Mississippi Pageant in Vicksburg, including closed rehearsals to the shows that start nightly Wednesday.