Two Vicksburg women will be in charge of running this year’s Miss Mississippi Pageant after many years of combined dedication and service to the event.

Amy Jackson will be the producer of this year’s pageant and Chesley Sadler Lambiotte will be taking over for longtime production director Mallory Graham, said David Blackledge, executive director of the Miss Mississippi Pageant.

Graham won’t be involved in the pageant’s production for the first time in 24 years,

Lambiotte and Jackson said their goal is to get back to basics, while helping the pageant contestants believe in themselves and feel confident.

“We want it to be all about the girls,” Lambiotte said. “It is a pageant, not just a show.

“In every single production number the girls will be featured,” Lambiotte added.

“We also want to shine a spotlight on the contestants’ platforms,” Jackson said.

Lambiotte worked as Graham’s assistant choreographer for six years and spent time as a volunteer at the Miss Mississippi Pageant office when she was in high school.

Lambiotte is the artistic director of the Vicksburg Performing Arts Company.

For Jackson, helping with the Miss Mississippi Pageant has been a family tradition. Her dad, David Boolos, helped produce the pageant from 1986-89 and her mom, Kathryn Resio, was the producer of last year’s show.

“Dad and Mom started in 1976,” Jackson said.

As a young girl she remembers painting sets, putting together goodie bags for contestants and cutting Mylar ribbons when the Mylar curtain didn’t come in.

Both women said as soon as they were asked to take over this year’s production that they have been in constant contact with each other.

Working with a smaller budget than last year, Lambiotte and Jackson are confident that this year’s Miss Mississippi Pageant will still have the “wow” factor.

Contestants will once again be staying at the La Quinta Inn, said Blackledge, and due to the Grand Gulf Nuclear Station outage, blocks of hotel rooms were reserved for the Miss Mississippi Pageant, he said.

Forty-two women will vie for this year’s Miss Mississippi crown, Lambiotte and Jackson said. For this year’s 55th anniversary, Nashville performer Dietz Osbourne and former Miss Kentucky Mallory Ervin will be the masters of ceremony.

Along with performances and appearances by former pageant winners, Lambiotte and Jackson said they have increased the number of princes and princesses for this year’s show with 85 children participating.

Lambiotte said they will be featured in two separate numbers, while also participating in a musical theater experience during the weeklong event.

The pageant is scheduled for June 27-30, with three nights of preliminaries and the crowning of Miss Mississippi on the final night of the competition.

Other events planned for the week of the pageant include a parade and an autograph party.

For more information about the pageant or to purchase tickets, visit www.missmississippipageant.com