A new Miss America will be crowned Saturday night in Las Vegas with two women from the Double Q Country area among this 53 contestants: Miss Nebraska Mariah Cook of Chadron and Miss Wyoming Lexie Madden of Wyoming.

The preliminary rounds of competition begin tomorrow at the Planet Hollywood Resort and Casino with the finals on Saturday night to be televised live on ABC starting at 7:00 MT.

Yesterday, the contests visited the Las Vegas Fashion Mall and strutted their stuff on an 80-foot retractable Plexiglas runway…with each featured on multimedia screens.

A meet-and-greet session where the contestants signed autographs and photos for the public followed the show.

Mariah Cook was the oldest contestant at last summer’s Miss Nebraska Pageant in North Platte and was competing for the fourth time.

Before heading off to Las Vegas and the Miss America Pageant, she said she was in a state of shock when her name was called in North Platte because she’d expected to be just the 4th runner-up, and had to ask outgoing Miss Nebraska Kayla Batt if she’d won.

Cook…a senior at Chadron State College…was originally scheduled to do her student teaching this past fall in North Platte, plans that were obviously changed when she won the crown. She said she had no problem at all with putting her expected life on hold for her year as Miss Nebraska and a shot at becoming Miss America.

Cook grew up in and graduated from high school in Colorado, but often visited her grandparents in Crawford and made Chadron her adopted home shortly after starting classes at Chadron State…where she went on to become a cheerleader and Homecoming Queen.

Since Saturday’s Miss America finals will be on ABC, the network’s Good Morning America is offering behind-the-scenes footage from this year’s pageant today, tomorrow and Friday.