For the first time in over a decade, royalty will reign over Gulf Shore’s Shrimp Festival.

This year the festival is introducing the First Annual Little Miss Shrimp Festival Pageant, open to any Baldwin County student from pre-K to sixth grade.

Nearly 50 years ago, the crowning of an adult queen, Miss Sunny, was part of the annual festivities. The Friendship House Restaurant hosted that first contest, won by Brenda Rogers. The next year, in 1971, the pageant officially became part of the Shrimp Festival schedule. An exhibit at the Gulf Shores Museum says the Miss Sunny title was “bestowed to Bobbie Morris Walker during a ceremony on top a flatbed trailer parked at the end of Hwy 59.”

The royal court was knocked aside in 1979 when Hurricane Frederic roared inland on Sept. 12 and many of the festivities, including the pageant, were cancelled.

A Little Miss Sunbeam contest was added several years later. Both pageants faded away as festival planners changed the schedule over the years to add more popular events.

This year’s Little Miss Shrimp Festival Pageant will kick off a new tradition for the annual event. All contestants must be currently enrolled in Baldwin County public or private schools or home schooled in Baldwin County.

Age categories are: Tiny Miss – pre-K and kindergarten, Petite Miss – first and second grade, Little Miss – third and fourth grade, Miss – fifth and sixth grade.

Each age group will have a crowned queen, first runner-up, and a three-princess court that will be introduced and reign at the 46th Annual National Shrimp Festival's Children's Activity Village on Saturday, Oct. 14.

Tiny Miss may wear Sunday dress, short or tea length pageant dresses.

Petite Miss, Little Miss, and Miss may wear Sunday dress, short tea length, or long pageant dresses. No strapless dresses are allowed. Contestants may not wear glitter in their hair or makeup.

For a full list of rules, visit: http://www.myshrimpfest.com/uploads/5/7/2/0/57203459/little_miss_shrimp_fest_rules.docx__1_.pdf