By By Adrienne McKenzie
Men wearing dresses. It's an interesting concept, one I am not all that fond of, but when it is done for a good cause then I am completely supportive of it.
Saturday night there will be an abundance of men on the catwalk in their finest eveningwear for the second annual United Bank Womanless Beauty Pageant at the Atmore Area YMCA &Community Center at 7 p.m.
As I have mentioned, I am usually not a fan of men wearing dresses, make-up and having their hair looking better than mine, however, the Womanless Beauty Pageant is held for a very good reason.
All proceeds collected from the pageant go to the American Cancer Society. This organization is the United State's largest non-profit source of funding for scientists that study cancer.
According to the organization's Website, the focus of ACS is "investigator-initiated, peer-reviewed proposals." This means that the projects that scientists propose are ones that they truly believe are ready to be administered with knowledge and techniques that are already available, instead of working on projects that are designed by administrators that are not in the line of research. This encourages intellectual independence that could one-day lead to solving the problems of cancer.
Cancer is the second-leading cause of death in the United States, preceded by heart disease. Cancer accounts for one out of every four deaths in the U.S.
Since ACS's founding nearly a century ago, the organization has made great strides in cancer research. Overall cancer mortality has declined since the 1990s and the five-year survival rate is up to 66 percent, whereas in the 1970s, it was 50 percent.
The United Bank's Womanless Beauty Pageant is raising money to help keep ACS's cancer research afloat.
Men of the Atmore community will be wearing ball gowns, wigs and plenty of cosmetics to raise money to support cancer research.
Money will be raised by the audience's support of their favorite participant. The top five in the pageant will be chosen by participants who raise the most money. In order to raise money, the crowd pays to vote for their preferred contestant.
After the top five, three judges will choose the Queen, First Runner-up, Second Runner-up, Best Body, Miss Physical Fitness and Most Spirited. Also there will be a Miss Congeniality, which is an award the contestants vote on and the winner is one they feel was the most encouraging, supportive and had the best attitude throughout the entire pageant process.
I am definitely looking forward to attending the pageant because of the fantastic reasoning behind it. Also, it is going to be a great laugh. I have never attended a womanless beauty pageant; in fact I have never been to a beauty pageant at all. The closest thing resembling a pageant that I have been to is the Junior Miss Program, which is more about knowledge than beauty.
Being that this is going to be my first "beauty pageant" experience, I feel that it is going to be a lot of fun and full of amusement. I personally know two individuals that are going to be participants, Matthew Nascone and Tray Smith. I cannot imagine either of these guys wearing a dress or all dolled up with make-up, but I do feel they will make beautiful young women.
I am looking forward to Saturday night's thrills and giggles and I hope that everybody will come and support their favorite participant of the pageant. It is important to bring a lot of money to vote for our little darlings to raise a wealth of money for the American Cancer Society.
For more information on the pageant, please call United Bank at 446-6000.
Adrienne McKenzie is a reporter for the Atmore Advance. She can be reached at 368-2123.