The 80th Annual Miss Georgia Scholarship and The Miss Georgia’s Teen Competitions are being held in the Bill Heard Theatre of the RiverCenter for the Performing Arts in Historic Columbus, Georgia.

On Friday, June 13, Halli Kate Johnson, a dual enrollment student at East Georgia State College, won the Newcomers Preliminary Talent Award. Halli Kate is the daughter of Wade and Anna Johnson and attended Emanuel County Institute, where she was the valedictorian this year. She will transfer to the University of Georgia in the fall as a biological science major.

Former Miss Georgia Southern Megan Wright took home a second prelim round award for her Broadway vocal talent. Wright placed in the evening gown competition earlier in the week.

The full results of the night of the Preliminary Competition are the following:

Miss Georgia’s Teen

Preliminary Talent Award ($200 Scholarship): Miss Rome’s Teen, Sydney Snyder, from Hogansville, GA, age 16, she attends Lagrange High School, her community service initiative is “Active Live, Healthy Mind”. Her talent is lyrical dance.

Newcomers Preliminary Talent Award ($100 Scholarship): Miss Southeast Georgia’s Teen, Halli Kate Johnson, from Twin City, GA, age 18, she attends Emanuel County Institute, her community service initiative is “A Doggy Difference.” Her talent is a tap dance.

Preliminary Evening Gown Award ($100 Scholarship): Miss Warner Robin’s Teen, Kameron Griffith, from Kathleen, GA, age 16, she attends Veterans High School, her community service initiative is “Compassion to Action: Promoting Youth Volunteerism”.  Her talent is contemporary vocalist.

Miss Georgia

Preliminary Talent Award ($500 Scholarship): Miss Rome, Megan Wright, from Calhoun, GA, age 22, she attends Georgia Southern University, her community service initiative is Wright Response: Learn; Train; Save a Life.” Her talent is a Broadway vocal performance.

Newcomers Preliminary Talent Award ($250 Scholarship): Miss Dogwood, JW Watson, from Thomasville, GA, age 22, attends Valdosta State University, her community service initiative is “Seeing the Invisible: Chronic Illness Awareness”. Her talent is a Broadway vocal performance.

Preliminary Evening Gown Award ($300 Scholarship): Miss Northwest Georgia, Aleks Arwood, from Thomasville, GA, age 22, she attends University of Georgia, her community service initiative is “What If We Lead?”. Her talent is Jazz en Pointe.

The sexual abuse campaigner and former reality star Georgia Harrison has told the BBC she is “honoured” to be receiving an MBE.

Harrison, 30, will be awarded for her efforts to tackle violence against women and girls, which includes working with the government on the Online Safety Act in 2023.

She says she feels “a responsibility to help” the many women who are victims of crimes such as intimate image abuse and deepfaking.

Her ex-partner Stephen Bear was jailed for 21 months in 2023 after uploading sexual footage of himself and Harrison to OnlyFans filmed without her consent.

Harrison, who is being awarded her MBE as part of the King’s Birthday Honours, said she had to re-read the letter she received from King Charles “three times” as she “just couldn’t believe it”.

“It’s definitely not something I anticipated and it feels nice to have my work recognised because with campaigning sometimes you feel like a lot goes unnoticed,” she told the BBC.

The former reality star appeared on ITV shows such as The Only Way is Essex in 2017 and Love Island in 2018, where she entered the villa as a bombshell and gained nationwide fame.

It was during 2019 that she entered MTV’s The Challenge, where she met fellow reality star Bear.

The pair dated on and off for a few months, with Harrison discovering in December 2020 that the now 35-year-old Bear had uploaded intimate CCTV footage of them to streaming service OnlyFans without her consent.

She subsequently reported the crime and Bear was sentenced after being found guilty of voyeurism and discussing private, sexual photographs and films.

Harrison was then awarded compensation in a damages claim and said she would donate some of the £207,900 to charity.

She says she often feels a “responsibility to help” as she worries about the increase of social media influencers fuelling misogyny and sexism.

Harrison, who is currently expecting her first child, said: “I’d be scared to have a teenager right now, being completely honest, I really would be terrified”.

“We’ve seen with the rise of Andrew Tate and some men thinking the thing to do with women is to mistreat them and think they can do what they want with them,” she said.

She added she feels the need to let women know, “they deserve to be treated fairly, they deserve consent and the right to their own bodies”.

A recent poll of teachers in the UK found three in five believe social media use has had a negative effect on behaviour in schools – with Tate being named as a reason by a number of teachers in the poll.

Harrison says she has been into some schools recently to watch consent workshops with primary school age children, describing them as “brilliant”.

She hopes that these type of lessons will have an impact for the next generation.

“I’d like to think by the time my child gets to the age where consent becomes an issue, things are going to be a lot better, because we are doing something to educate around consent and that’s something that’s never really been done before in this generation,” she added.

Harrison says “on a positive note” women have told her case and “the strength you found” has encouraged them to take their perpetrators to court for causes of rape, domestic abuse and intimate image abuse.

Since Bear’s conviction in 2022, she has campaigned to increase the support for women and girls who have faced similar crimes to her by working on the Online Safety Act and as part of the Women and Equalities Committee.

She says she has been working with the committee on improving timescales for women who want to report crimes against them – as currently they only have six months after a crime has taken place to tell the police about it.

“It took me about four months to even realise a crime had been committed to me when it happened so its scary to think, had I been notified a few months later, I may not have had the right to justice.

“It should be a lot easier for women out there,” she added.

Harrison says she has also been receiving more and more messages from victims of deepfakes, which are videos, pictures or audio clips made with AI to look or sound real.

There have been recent concerns about schoolchildren using apps to distribute AI-generated deepfake content, despite the practice being illegal.

The Internet Watch Foundation (IWF) – a UK-based charity partly funded by tech firms – said in February there had been 245 reports of AI-generated child sexual abuse in 2024 compared with 51 in 2023, a 380% increase.

“I think [deepfake] technology is getting a lot more impressive and easier to access,” Harrison said.

Earlier this year, the government announced laws to tackle the threat of child sexual abuse images being generated by AI, which include making it illegal to possess, create, or distribute AI tools designed to create such material.

(Georgia Recorder) — The state government and Atlanta City Council are at odds over a proposed skybridge connecting the state Capitol with a new legislative office building currently under construction across the street.

The Georgia General Assembly last year approved spending $392 million on the new office building to house government offices and committee hearings and for other refurbishments to the Capitol campus.

But the state needs authorization from Atlanta to build the skybridge, which would extend over Martin Luther King Jr. Drive, because part of its footing takes up some of the city’s right of way, and they also need air rights. Members of the city’s transportation committee voted 5-0 to table the project Wednesday.

David Mitchell, executive director of the Atlanta Preservation Center, said the Capitol is one of Atlanta’s most iconic buildings and the state hasn’t done enough to work with the city.

“To do this, to allow them to have this in perpetuity basically diminishes Atlanta’s autonomy, diminishes what Atlanta stands for and it allows the state to come in and basically say they can do whatever they want,” he told committee members. “It is offensive.”

Council members expressed concerns that the skybridge would interfere with efforts to revitalize downtown Atlanta.

“I’m a big believer that these sorts of pedestrian bridges – or as like to call them, hamster tubes – don’t do much or do anything to get people on the street and patronizing businesses because they’re able to go from building to building without really interacting with the street in a way that breaks the vibrancy that we’re looking for,” said Councilman Jason Dozier, whose district includes the Capitol.

Councilman Amir Farokhi agreed.

“Our friends from Dalton and Thomasville and Macon and Swainsboro, et cetera, we welcome them on our streets, and as you spend time during the legislative session at the Capitol and the state buildings complex, downtown Atlanta and the area around the state Capitol will be made better by folks walking around the footprint,” he said.

But Gerald Pilgrim, chief of staff at the Georgia Building Authority, said lawmakers, lobbyists and members of the public attending legislative hearings won’t pass any small businesses between the Capitol and the new legislative building whether they cross Martin Luther King Jr. Drive at the crosswalk or high above traffic.

“The state of Georgia, we own the blocks around this area,” he said. “There are no private businesses within multiple blocks of this location. The closest restaurants to the area are both owned by the Georgia Building Authority, so we really weren’t sure, we didn’t understand those (comments).”

“It’s just to connect the Capitol and the legislative office building,” he added. “You would still have to walk to get to the Capitol from a parking lot or parking deck or MARTA. You would have to walk to get to the legislative office buildings from those things. So it’s still the same.”

Pilgrim said the skybridge will improve accessibility to the Capitol and to committee hearings for young people, seniors and people in wheelchairs. He said his agency is ready to answer any questions the council has and hopes they can come to an agreement.

“Ultimately, the new legislative office is being built. It will be open October 31st, 2026, and hopefully we’ll have a bridge. If not, that’ll be something that somebody can add at a future time,” he said.

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