Mrs. Wanda M. Brown is The Mid-Ocean News Baby Pageant Coordinator. Below she tells why the pageant is special to her and gives some tips to parents entering the pageant.

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“For the past 10 years, I have had great pleasure in assisting this event and three years of it coordinating the pageant of beautiful babies and children. God has blessed me with two beautiful children, Kiwan (three years old ) and Waunita (18 years old), so my husband and I know how proud and precious our children are.

“Therefore, I would like to assist parents of future Baby Pageant entries to be aware of the following information that can help parents when entering in future Baby Pageants.

“The rules are very important as they are there to assist parents when entering their children. Rules can change from year to year from what is the norm for some. The only thing that I regret about the many entries in the Pageant is when a parent enters their child either with a photo that is too small, not qualified due to age, more than one photo entry and the parent either has to reject one entry or eliminate the photos altogether depending on the situation.

“In most cases, this is sometimes an inconvenience to the parent, therefore I try to assist them as much as I can. The contest used to require a minimum of two photos, but, we decided on one photo because some parents were not pleased with the one that we chose over the other, so, we decided to let the parent choose the photo that they feel would best suit either of the winning categories.

“I want to see all entries get judged and hear the excitement and proud voices when I contact winners to congratulate them of their winning photo. I meet many proud parents and lovely babies when they arrive for the prize presentations. I do not judge the entries.

“Therefore, I urge parents to please read all rules when entering in future Baby Pageants as this helps everything to run a lot smoother.

The Pageants are fun for myself and co-workers and we do not want to disappoint anyone for any reason.

“Thank you and God Bless all past and present Baby Pageant participants, winners, advertisers and organisers for the many years of successful Pageant publications.Myself and my co-workers look forward to the next Baby Pageant in June 2003.”