Andre Huff is the owner of Limelight Design Service, the company that just won an Emmy Award for Lighting Design/Direction for its work on the 2024 Miss Mississippi Contest.

The award was part of the National Academy of Television Arts and Sciences Southeast Chapter, also known as the Southeast Emmys. Limelight Design Service is responsible for all the visual effects and video that goes on during the contest.

“I handle all the lighting and video as far as what you see on stage,” Huff said, adding he considers it an honor to receive the award for his hard work.

“I’m theatrically trained, but I’ve always loved television and I’ve always liked all the Emmys and stuff like that and Oscars and those types of shows. And, you know, this is basically a production show, a pageant within a production show,” Huff said. “It’s not just your typical pageant of girls just doing their thing and then that’s it. There’s singing and dancing. And professional singers (and dancers) come and do this show.”

Huff said the improvements they have made to the production have paid off.

“We brought some new technologies in. We’ve got LED. We brought lasers in,” he said. “So there’s a lot of stuff that we’ve been able to introduce the past couple of years on the show that we haven’t been able to in the past.”

Limelight Design Service is based in Knoxville, Tennessee, and was established by Huff in 2011.

Huff said he always enjoys making his way to the River City for the Miss Mississippi Contest.

“We just enjoy coming to Vicksburg every year. I mean, we always look forward to it,” he said. “We’ve made family down there that, you know, is extended family of ours, and we just look forward to every year coming down and being there for two weeks.”

The Miss Mississippi Contest has been nominated 8 times and has won three other Emmys over the years under the direction of Vicksburg resident Pat Hopson.

Huff said that when the time comes, he will submit to be an Emmy nominee for the 2025 Miss Mississippi Contest.