Miss Alabama USA and Miss Alabama Teen USA

After more than three decades in Birmingham, the Miss Alabama USA and Miss Alabama Teen USA pageants are moving to Tuscaloosa. The 2011 pageants will be Nov. 6-7 at the Bama Theatre on Greensboro Avenue. “I knew it would be something special here,” said Dohn Dye, executive director of the pageants. “Tuscaloosa is the city of champions, and I knew that it would embrace the pageant and the young ladies who would be coming here.” Dye announced the move from Birmingham to Tuscaloosa in May, shortly after taking over as executive director of the pageants, which are part of the Miss Universe organization and under a partnership between NBC Universal and Donald Trump. Dye said a total of 95 contestants- 55 for the Miss Alabama pageant and 40 for the Miss Alabama Teen contest- between the ages of 14 and 26 have registered. The women will compete in interview, swimsuit and evening gown competitions for the chance to win thousands of dollars in scholarships and prizes. The winner of each will go on to represent Alabama in the respective national pageants while traveling the state promoting the pageants’ charitable affiliations.

“This is going to be a full-scale production,” said Dye, who also hosts a weekly segment on fashion, celebrity gossip, style and social events on CBS 42’s Wake Up Alabama! “It’s going to be a little New York and Las Vegas in Tuscaloosa.” The dignitaries will include Alabama’s only Miss USA and Miss Universe winner, Sylvia Louise Hitchcock, who was a student at the University of Alabama when she won the crowns in 1967 and will return to the pageant for the first time, Dye said. Two seven-member panels of judges are being flown in from such areas as New York City, Los Angeles, Dallas and Salt Lake City, and Dye turned to his former classmate at UA, national award-winning choreographer Christopher Dean, to assist with the pageants. “It’s going to be a great show and great production,” Dye said. It’s also going to be a great economic influx for the city of Tuscaloosa. Beakie Powell, the director of meetings and conventions for Visit Tuscaloosa, formerly the Tuscaloosa Convention and Visitors Bureau, said she worked closely with Dye for two years to bring the pageants to Tuscaloosa. Additionally, the timing of the event - a fall Saturday when UA will play an away football game against Louisiana State University - was no coincidence. “We put all the strategic plans together to help Mr. Dye to relocate the pageant from Birmingham to Tuscaloosa ...,” Powell said. “And this gives us a chance that, during an away ball game, we will be filling hotel rooms.”She said four hotels are already reserved and that Visit Tuscaloosa is expecting up to 500 rooms to be filled during the two-day event.