Born in Guyana, Chung left these shores for England when he was 14. His parents soon joined him.

Now, 53, Chung returned to Guyana only last year, searching for a Guyanese beauty to represent this country at the Miss World pageant.

"I always dreamt of coming back to Guyana", he said.

So how did it all happen?

Chung said that since he had a friend in London who holds the Miss World franchise for Puerto Rico, he was invited to a Miss World dinner prior to one of the pageants.

"I was looking for Miss Guyana, but I was informed that there was no Miss Guyana", Chung said.

Chung thought of making some enquiries and the rest is history.

He obtained the franchise and was on his way to his homeland.

However, Chung soon ran into problems with the partner he chose to plan a local pageant to select a Guyanese delegate for Miss World.

The committee of Derek Moore, Andrea McAdam and Phoolkumarie Coopsammy walked out on Chung's local partner and the pageant hit rock bottom.

About two weeks before the pageant was due to come off, Chung arrived in Guyana. The delegates were not sponsored and they were ready to walk out given the constant problems, Chung said.

He severed ties with his local partner and brought back Moore, McAdam and Coopsammy and things started going again.

In the end, a highly successful pageant came off and Olive Gopaul was adjudged the winner and went on to represent Guyana at the Miss World Pageant in South Africa.

"Olive has been a fantastic Ambassador for Guyana. Due to her, people who didn't know Guyana, now know about Guyana. She represented Guyana in a manner that could only help tourism. The Guyanese in London were so excited that they came from all over to meet her", Chung said of Olive who just has two more weeks of reign.

Chung is happy with the way preparations for this year's pageant are going.

"Compared to about this time last year, we are miles ahead and that's thanks to a terrific team", he said.

He is happy with the record number of persons visiting the official pageant website http://www.Miss-Guyana.org/

Said Chung, "people are visiting from Canada, the United States, the UK, Brazil, China, and would you believe we had a visitor from Iraq?"

For Miss Guyana searches, the Miss Guyana World website is listed number two on major search engines like Googles, AOL, and Yahoo.

Chung is happy with the selection of this year's delegates and his final words are, "may the best girl win".

The pageant is scheduled for the National Cultural Centre on September 7.