Mississippi
Williams, Jolly named final preliminary winners in Miss Mississippi Competition – The Vicksburg Post
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Williams, Jolly named final preliminary winners in Miss Mississippi Competition
Published 10:33 pm Friday, June 7, 2024
- Preliminary competitions for the 2024 Miss Mississippi Competition came to a close Friday night at the Vicksburg Convention Center with Miss Capital City Becky Williams and Miss Rankin County Anna Leah Jolly winning in the evening gown and talent phase of the competition, respectively. Pictured are Williams and Jolly. Photo by Chris Todd.
Preliminary rounds of the 2024 Miss Mississippi Competition came to a close Friday night at the Vicksburg Convention Center with Miss Capital City Becky Williams and Miss Rankin County Anna Leah Jolly winning in the evening gown and talent phases of the competition, respectively.
Williams also won the talent preliminary Thursday evening.
After hearing her name called a second time, Williams said she was “even more speechless.” Williams wore a crimson beaded strapless gown she found at Lasting Impressions in Columbus, Ga.
“It’s really funny, I have this thing where I put on the first dress and I’m iffy about it, and then I will try, try, try (on other dresses), but I end up comparing every dress to (the first one I tried on),” Williams said. “That was the situation here. It was surprising that I didn’t fall in love with it to begin with because it really is so stunning.”
As the evening gown preliminary winner, Williams received a $400 scholarship from the Miss Mississippi Organization.
As a first time Miss Mississippi contestant, Jolly said hearing her name called as the talent preliminary winner was exciting.
“I am originally from Ukraine,” Jolly said. “I started dancing when I was twelve years old because I couldn’t speak English and I had to do something to get out of the house and I fell in love with the art.”
Jolly performed a self-choreographed ballet en pointe dance to a classical piece of music by Vivaldi.
In preparing for the talent portion of the competition, Jolly sought to ensure her choreography “wasn’t boring.”
“Ballet is always scrutinized and labeled as boring,” she said. “I wanted to convey to the audience that it can be inspirational, fun and you don’t have to know anything about ballet in order to enjoy it.”
Jolly received a $500 scholarship from the Miss Mississippi Organization.
Previous preliminary winners from this week are Miss Madison County Gracie Bassett and Miss Mississippi State University Morgan Nelson. On Wednesday, Nelson won the evening gown phase of the preliminary competition and Basset won talent. Thursday night there was a tie with both Miss Heart of the South Sarah Randolph and Miss Lafayette County Madison Belk winning in the evening gown. Miss Capital City Becky Williams won talent.
The final round of the competition, where the top scoring contestants and the People’s Choice Award winner will re-compete in all phases of the competition except for the judge’s interview, will begin at 8 p.m. Saturday with one contestant being crowned the new Miss Mississippi.
Tickets for the competition and crowning are $50 and are available by calling 601-638-6746.
The Miss Mississippi Competition will also be livestreamed at www.missmisslive.com. The cost is $35.
Saturday night’s competition will also air on WLBT-Jackson, WLOX-Biloxi, WMC Bounce – Memphis, WTVA-Tupelo, WTOK- Meridian and WDAM-Hattiesburg.
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Mississippi
Mississippi alligator breaks 2 state records and is possibly a world record
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‘When she came up she was under the bottom of the boat in between the pontoons. She was slapping the boat with her tail and all that. I thought she was going to knock my motor off for a minute.’
Watch: Texas officer wrangles angry gator from family’s front porch
Body camera footage captured the moment a police officer swiftly removed a small alligator from a home in Texas.
After two frustrating nights on the last weekend of the season, a Mississippi hunter caught the alligator he’d been after, but what he didn’t realize when he pulled it in his boat was that not only did it break two state records, it’s possibly a world record.
Jason Ullendorf said a cousin of his was buying a part at a boat shop last week when he was told about an alligator in the Pascagoula River. The alligator had been spotted near a sandbar and had been making people visiting the location uncomfortable.
“We figured we’d help them out and get it out of there,” Ullendorf said. “We went down there to look at it, and it was a pretty good gator. It’s kind of crazy how it happened.”
Catching it was easier said than done, though. Ullendorf and members of his hunting party repeatedly hooked the alligator, only to have the hooks pull out or break off when the alligator would go under logs.
“We chased it from about 9 o’clock until about 3 o’clock in the morning,” Ullendorf said. “By then we’d lost all our hooks.”
More: Hunters bag Mississippi alligator weighing almost 700 pounds
Another long night of hunting alligators
The following day, Ullendorf bought more hooks and returned to the river with only one other hunter, Joseph Mangano of Richton. Fortunately, they found the alligator in the same spot as the night before. Unfortunately, it was shaping up to be a replay of the night before with the two repeatedly hooking the alligator, only to have the hooks pull free.
“It was frustrating,” Mangano said. “At one point, we got so frustrated we left it and an hour later started again. We knew we would hook it, but we were going to have to get it out of the trees.”
At 4:45 a.m., the hunters got a break. The alligator surfaced in open water near the sandbar. The two hooked the alligator with a rod and reel and then got a hand line on it as the alligator towed the two men and their 18-foot pontoon boat upriver. Everything was going relatively smoothly until they pulled the gator near the boat.
“When she came up she was under the bottom of the boat in between the pontoons,” Ullendorf said. “She was slapping the boat with her tail and all that. I thought she was going to knock my motor off for a minute.”
More: ‘The size and mass of his head is unreal.’ Mississippi alligator hunters bag 800-pound giant
Mississippi hunters suspect their alligator is a female
The two got the alligator in their boat and while Ullendorf referred to it as a “she,” he didn’t think it was a female at the time. This alligator was too big to be a female, and the longest female alligator ever recorded in the state was caught in 2022 by Jim Denson and measured 10 feet, 2 inches.
“As soon as she came up we said, ‘That’s a male,’” Ullendorf said. “We never second-guessed it.”
But then they did. When to two took the alligator to Mangano’s business in Richton, Running M Meat Company, they discovered the alligator didn’t have male sex organs.
“I couldn’t believe it at first,” Ullendorf said. “We called Andrew Arnett to come down and verify it. I didn’t believe it at all.”
Is this Mississippi alligator a world record?
Arnett is the head of the Mississippi Department of Wildlife, Fisheries and Parks Alligator Program. He confirmed it was a female and certified it at 11 feet, 3/4 inches long and 324 pounds. Not only was it a state record for longest female, it was the new state record for heaviest.
However, it may have broken another record, if only it existed. Multiple internet searches came up empty for an official world record for female alligators, but some states keep official records. According to searches by the hunters and Arnett, the longest female alligator on record before Ullendorf’s was 10 feet, 6.75 inches long and it was caught in Florida. If that’s true, Ullendorf has the new world record for longest female alligator.
“Just from what I’ve seen online, I think so,” Arnett said.
Do you have a story idea? Contact Brian Broom at 601-961-7225 or bbroom@gannett.com.
Mississippi
Mississippi Mass Choir new album
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JACKSON, Miss. (WLBT) – The Mississippi Mass Choir has a new album! We Still Believe is available!
The director and some choir members joined Studio 3 to discuss the songs.
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