The New Miss Mississippi!

VICKSBURG, Miss - The 2011 Miss Mississippi Pageant is officially in the history books. The new Miss Mississippi has been crowned and her name is Mary Margaret Roark.

Roark, a veteran of the Miss Mississippi's Outstanding Teen Pageant and second-year contestant in the Miss Mississippi Pageant, is currently attending Mississippi State University and is majoring in communications and would like to pursue a career in the broadcast industry. She is a native of Cleveland, Mississippi and graduated from Bayou Academy in 2009.

The daughter of Fred and Mary Jo Roark, Mary Margaret developed her own platform to promote thanks to a very personal experience that she had watching her grandmother progress through Alzheimer's. Due to that experience, she is a proud advocate for the Mississippi Chapter of the Alzheimer's Association and has created her own campaign to promote Alzheimer's awareness throughout the state called JEWELS for Alzheimer's.

JEWELS is an acronym which stands for:

Join the cause to

Educate the public and

Work for a cure while

Encouraging those who

Live with the disease and

Supporting those who care for them.

Mary Margaret says, "JEWELS For Alzheimer's summarizes everything that I hope for with Alzheimer's Disease. With my campaign, I have promoted awareness among communities in the state to recruit more activists and to raise more funds for research and care centers. I have also started a jewelry collection for JEWELS For Alzheimer's with the help of jewelry designer, Alex Bowen. A portion of all sales from the jewelry is donated to local Alzheimer's Association chapters to help with their expenses. My experience with Alzheimer's began with my grandmother, but with the help of others, my mission is growing and will continue to grow until we find a cure."

We will be interviewing Mary Margaret a little later today and will have that interview posted tomorrow morning here on the Miss Mississippi website.

For those of you who were not able to see the pageant on television last night, we apologize. One of our television stations had a difficulty receiving our satellite signal and has said that they will re-broadcast the event so that all may see it. Those of you with an Internet connection can watch the Miss Mississippi Pageant in it's entirety by clicking on the WATCH link on the menu to the left.

Article by Chris Whittington - missmississippipageant.org