What exactly does it take to house 44 Miss Mississippi contestants for a week?

Leslie Madison, general manager at the La Quinta Inn, where the contestants have stayed for the past five years, is a pro.

“It’s just a regular routine week for us because we’ve gotten so used to it,” Madison said. “The hostesses have said they like coming back here because of the fact that we know the routine. I didn’t realize it had been five years until someone emailed me this morning. Time flies when you’re having fun I guess.”

Madison said she and her staff have the routine down to a science, though everyone moving in and moving out on Sundays is still hectic due to the time needed to prep the rooms and then quickly turn them over once the pageant ends.

“Sundays are going to be crazy,” she said.

Preparation of the rooms includes rearranging furniture, like moving desks to the corners of the rooms, in order to accommodate clothing racks. She said she orders extra cereal, yogurt, eggs and other breakfast staples in preparation for the pageant.

“You wouldn’t believe these girls would eat, but they do,” she added.

The breakfast area is also rearranged to accommodate a drape to separate the women from the rest of the guests so that they have the mornings to themselves, she said.

In addition to the pageant booking are all 36 double rooms, the hotel provides a room filled with tables specifically for the flower arrangements brought to the hotel for the women.

“There will be tons and tons of flowers, and any leftover I take to the funeral home,” she said.

During the week is the easy part, according to Madison.

“It’s very light cleaning when they’re here,” explaining that vacuuming could end up ruining jewelry. “(House keeping) knows to just go in and do what you can.

“It’s just a normal routine week after they move in,” she said, adding that the only other special accommodation is the security posted at night on the two floors the women occupy.

“Nobody is allowed to go up to their rooms. They have to go through the hostesses to get anything to them.”

Although the contestants’ rooms are given a discounted rate, Madison said the rest of the hotel being filled with family and other pageant-related visitors makes the week lucrative.

“We’ll be sold out just about every night probably,” she said. “Most of the ones in the other rooms will (also) be here all week.”

Overall, Madison said once the week begins, her and her staff become pageant spectators like everyone else.

“Once we get them in, it’s a slow week because there’s not a whole lot for us to do besides stand back and watch,” she said.