All American Girl Pageant Thursday, Saturday

The 48th annual All American Girl Pageant will be held at Graham Memorial Auditorium Thursday Nov. 7, and Saturday, Nov. 9, allowing students to show off their talents to the community.

Graham High School theater teacher and pageant coordinator Katie Huitt said 28 students, from freshmen to seniors, will be taking the stage at 7 p.m. Thursday to showcase their talents. The students will return at 7 p.m. Saturday with the finalists performing again and the judges announcing the winner, talent winner and runners up.

She said the students, who have been preparing for over a month, had to be academically eligible and have a student club sponsor them to participate in the event.

“Now some of the clubs did not have a young lady participating in the pageant and they said that they would like to sponsor someone anyways,” Huitt said. “So some of the young ladies that didn’t have a club to sponsor them were sponsored by a good samaritan club. So, like our boy’s basketball team is sponsoring a young lady. It is kind of a neat way to be able to support someone who needed an organization.”

On Thursday, the contestants will all individually present a talent which they planned, selected and rehearsed themselves. The three judges, which change each year, score the contestants on originality, stage presence and audience involvement.

“There is a lot of things that the young ladies need to think about before they even take their act on stage,” Huitt said. “Is this something that I can get not only the judges, but the hundreds of people to respond to and to connect to.”

On Saturday, the contestants individually meet and are interviewed by the judges who get to know each contestant and talk about what they are involved in, what they do in their free time and their plans for the future. Saturday night is the finals for the competition and the six contestants who advanced to the round will get a chance to perform their talent one more time. The winner will be announced and crowned. The contestants will also vote on who should be crowned Miss Congeniality.

Entry will be $5 for each event separately at the door. All of the proceeds from the event will go to the GHS theater department and thespian society and fund future shows for the department. For more information about the program, contact Huitt at katie.huitt@grahamisd.com.

For the rest of the story, see the Wednesday, Nov. 6 edition of The Graham Leader.