Executive Producer of the pageant Pamela Dillon told Chronicle twenty-two young ladies were recently orientated for the pageant and one more will be selected from the Miss East Bank Demerara Talented Teen pageant slated for this weekend.

She said the girls were selected after careful screening of fifty applicants countrywide, while pageants held in particular zones also produced participants to represent those areas.

The schoolgirls between the ages of fourteen and eighteen are currently under training in various personal development areas including stage presentation, personal presentation, platform research, ballroom dancing, spiritual empowerment, AIDS awareness, health and hygiene and dining etiquette.

They are being guided in those areas by committee members and past pageant Queens Ulex Atwell, Asha Pieters, Shammane Davis, and runner-up Zena Edwards, and are getting along well.

Competition begins July 24th with delegates contesting the talent segment, and continues with an interview segment to be televised live on GTV in the form of a tea-party on August 1. The final event is scheduled for August 7 at the National Cultural Centre.

Pageant night will feature opening dance and introduction, swimsuit competition, evening gown competition, and question and answer segments, while the talent pieces that would have won the top ten spot will be displayed also, Dillon said.

She said this year each segment will be well choreographed and in the end the committee will crown a girl who possesses charming personality, humility, excellent communication skills, beauty of face and figure and is a high-achiever in school. The young lady who will be selected as queen “must be willing to accept a challenge,” Dillon told Chronicle.

The pageant aims at helping “a group of young ladies develop themselves into role models, career women and leaders in their communities,” and Simpli Royal is there to guide participants in those areas.

“Our pageant programme is one that prepares them for the future,” the executive producer pointed out.

The Miss Guyana Talented Teen queen wins $50,000 cash, a computer, a trip to a Caribbean country and participation in a competition among Caribbean Queens, among other gifts, and Dillon said the committee is working towards getting an even more attractive first prize this year.

Her one-year calendar of events include charitable work with the Mahaica Children’s Home and Underneeming, addressing school audiences on issues of interest, and being Guyana’s beauty ambassador to at least one Caribbean pageant.

In 2000 the pageant adopted the Mahaica Children’s Home after doing work with five different charitable organizations. Shammane Davis and Zena Edwards worked with the home, and passed the one-year charitable work to reigning queen Shonette Moore. This year Moore, who secured a computer for the home during her reign, will also pass that on but all the former Simpli Royal queens will work along with the new on establishing a recreational facility for that home.

And although reigning queen Shonette Moore is expected to give her final walk and hand over the one-year responsibility to another beautiful teenage girl, she is slated to represent Guyana at this year’s Miss Teen Caribbean pageant in December.

Committee members of the pageant are Executive Producer Pamela Dillon, National Trainer Marvin Pearce, Sponsors Liaison Jermaine Denny, Communications Consultant Wendy Hermonstine, Platfrom Research Coordinator Ruth Cox, Choreographer Clive Prowell, Ballroom Dance Instructor Marlon Nurse, and ‘Big sisters’ Atwell, Pieters, Davis and Edwards.