In an effort to enhance scholarship offerings and give an additional contestant the opportunity to perform on stage one more time, the Miss Mississippi Pageant Corporation is sponsoring a “People’s Choice Award. ”

“This award will go to the Miss Mississippi contestant that receives the most votes through our website,” Secretary of the Miss Mississippi Pageant Corporation Earl Edris said.

“Basically you can go on the website and vote for your contestant and each vote is $1,” Edris said.

“And you can vote as often as you want to and as many times as you want to, so if you want to vote 50 times it will cost $50 and if you vote 100 times it will cost $100,” he said.

David Blackledge, who is the executive director of the Miss Mississippi Corporation, said the reason for this decision was two-fold.

“We decided to do this because we wanted to enhance our scholarships, but we also wanted to give another young lady the chance to have an opportunity to be on-stage one more night,” Blackledge said.

Therefore, in addition to the top 10 contestants who will be selected at the top of Saturday night’s competition, the contestant who has the most votes will also compete.

“If this young lady happens to be the most vote-getter and she is already in the top ten, then we will only have 10 competing, but if she is not in the top ten then we will have 11 competing, Blackledge said.

Also, the winner of the “People’s Choice Award” will receive a $2,000 Scholarship.

For those, who for whatever reason cannot attend the preliminary competitions, biographies and pictures of each contestant can be found on the Miss Mississippi Pageant website and through contestants’ social media, Edris said.

Voting will end at 9 p.m. Friday night.

Prior to each of the preliminary competitions, Blackledge said the top five vote-getters would be announced each night.

“This way people will know who is near the top,” Edris said.

Further changes in the 2018 Miss Mississippi Pageant production include the number of contestants who will go on to compete in the on-stage question and the time preliminaries will begin.

After the top 10 or 11 contestants have competed in the talent, swimwear and evening gown phases of the competition, Blackledge said, seven would go on to compete in the on-stage question. And from there the four finalist and winner will be named.

Also, this year the preliminary competitions will begin each night at 7 p.m. A preshow will be held beginning at 6:30 p.m. and will include specific scholarships and award announcements in addition to VIP recognitions.

On Saturday, the final round of competition will begin at 8 p.m. and because it is being aired live on WLBT, audience members will need to be in their seats no later than 7:30 p.m., Blackledge said.

The Miss Mississippi Pageant will also live stream free, on Saturday, at www.missmisslive.com.

For more information, call 601-638-6746 or visit missmississippipageant.com.