Education and job training, medical care and business tax cuts were the focus of Lt. Gov. Phil Bryant’s address to the Vicksburg Rotary Club Thursday.

Speaking to the group following the introduction of the 43 Miss Mississippi contestants — in Vicksburg for this week’s state pageant at the convention center — Bryant also repeated a theme he’s voiced over the past few weeks, that he would like to see the Miss America pageant brought to the state, calling Vicksburg or a city on the Gulf Coast the “wholesome” alternative to the current pageant city, Las Vegas.

“We have a good opportunity of convincing the board of directors that Mississippi would be a good, wholesome place to crown Miss America,” said Bryant, who recently met with Miss America executives to pitch the idea. “I think we have a fair shot at bringing Miss America to Mississippi.”

The lieutenant governor is one of five Republicans running for governor this year to replace Republican Haley Barbour, leaving by law after serving two terms.

Bryant was elected in 2007 after serving 11 years as state auditor. Prior to that he served five years in the Mississippi House of Representatives.

“I ran for lieutenant governor because I believed I could make a difference,” he told Rotarians.

During his term, taxes were cut six times, he said, including the passage of business tax rebates on farm and forestry equipment that he said enabled financially challenged companies to retain employees.

He said the state could go further, specifically advocating elimination of the inventory tax, which he said hits businesses twice.

With an additional 300,000 to 500,000 projected new Medicaid recipients in the coming years, the state also needs to promote investment in doctors, particularly in poor, rural areas like the Mississippi Delta. Making preventive medicine more accessible will in the long run cut medical costs, by heading off more expensive procedures and long-term care.

Bryant wants to see “1,000 new physicians in the field by 2025,” he said. “I believe there are health care industries that are looking for investment opportunities.”

Young people also need to be better prepared for jobs, said Bryant, who favors more trade education in the schools.

A Moorhead native and former deputy sheriff, Bryant has a bachelor’s degree in criminal justice from the University of Southern Mississippi and a master’s in political science from Mississippi College, where he is an adjunct government professor.

Bryant faces Dave Dennis, James Broadwater, Hudson Holliday and Ron Williams in the Republican primary Aug. 2. Four Democrats, Bill Compton Jr., Johnny DuPree, Bill Luckett and Guy Dale Shaw; two Reform candidates, Bobby Kearan and Shawn O’Hara; and one independent, Will Oatis, are also running. The general election is Nov. 8.