Friday's Internet Edition, March 12, 2010.

“We’re shifting where we’re putting our energy,” Jacob Fetty, a member of the festival’s executive board as well as the city of Spencer’s marketing director, said. “Our pageant committee’s energy will be placed on Miss Black Walnut Festival and Miss Roane County.”

The Junior Miss competition became a festival event in 1997. It included Roane residents who were students in the seventh or eighth grade and was staged in conjunction with competitions for Miss Roane and the BWF queen.

A dozen contestants were entered in the inaugural event, when Jennifer Kelly won the crown, while eight competed last year when Muriah Nutter was the winner.

Amber Taylor, the pageant director, said the decision to drop the Junior Miss competition did not come from the four members of the pageant committee. She said it was determined during a meeting with Fetty that the festival would place more emphasis on the queen’s competition, but she would not comment further.

Fetty said the goal is to create a queen’s pageant that is worthy of the winner advancing to the state Fairs and Festivals pageant. The winner of that competition goes on to the Miss USA pageant.

“We’re trying to put forth an effort to get more ladies from surrounding communities,” Fetty explained. “We definitely want the Roane County girls to participate, but we want to get girls who have competed or won other pageants. We want to make it a really big deal where the competition will be really stiff.”

Only seven of the 24 queen contestants a year ago were from outside Roane County, with four of those coming from neighboring Jackson County.

Fetty said letters had been mailed to pageant directors, convention and visitor bureaus, politicians and others asking them to sponsor a contestant in the queen’s pageant.

“We’ve sent them to somebody in every county,” he said. “The executive board and pageant committee are all excited about this change. Everybody’s on board with making the Miss Black Walnut Festival pageant one of the best in the state.”

Contestants ages 16-22 are eligible to compete for the title of festival queen. The entry fee is $100, with the winner receiving $1,000 in scholarship money and a prize package.

Taylor said the executive board originally wanted to raise the minimum age requirement to 18 this year, an idea her committee did not support.

Contestants for Miss Roane County must be entering their sophomore, junior or senior year at Roane County High School.

While the festival has decided not to sponsor a Junior Miss pageant, Fetty said there is a possibility that it could be brought back by another sponsoring group. He said the competition would have to take place apart from the queen’s pageant.

“We’re not opposed to someone else taking it on and running it,” Fetty said. “We welcome somebody doing that.”

This year’s queen’s pageant will be Saturday, May 22 at Roane County High.