The 2016 Miss La Vergne Pageant and Baby Show will be held on Saturday, August 27 at La Vergne High School Auditorium. La Vergne says they are excited to announce the panel of judges!

• Former Miss America Debra Maffett. Upon relinquishing her crown, Maffett guest-starred in NBC specials, TV Pilots, and network television series with, Bob Hope, David Frost, Alex Trebek, Andy Griffith, and others while co-hosting PM MAGAZINE, a nightly news magazine show for FOX TV in Los Angeles.
• WSMV's Channel 4 Traffic Reporter Melanie Layden. Layden joined Channel 4 News in December 2014 as a newscast producer and became the full-time traffic anchor in January 2016. A Tennessee native, hailing from Jackson, Melanie grew up participating in pageants throughout her teenage years and still gets back to Jackson every June to watch the Miss Tennessee Scholarship Pageant.
• Artistic innovator Tonia Kirkpatrick. She will be putting her performing arts knowledge to use by choosing the best of the best to represent La Vergne. One might call Kirkpatrick a triple threat -- her performing career spans from singing to acting and even photography. As a writer, she has spent years chronicling the most important events of her life and hopes to publish her work one day.
• Pageant veteran Laura Johnson. Johnson competed in pageants for over 20 years and won various titles on the local, state, and national level. Some of her biggest wins were being named the 2007 Miss Georgia Forestry Queen and the 2007 Miss United States Forestry Queen. She helps contestants with modeling, interview, public speaking, and every aspect of pageantry, and has also judged on local and state level pageant boards.

This year's pageant theme is "Purple Reign" and will have performances by local dancers and singers performing some of Prince's classic songs. La Vergne High School is located at 250 Wolverine Trial in La Vergne. The baby show starts at 11am followed by the pageant at 2pm.