Some of the most beautiful women in Louisiana are in Monroe. This is the only week that we can write those words with some degree of certainty. That's because this week the city of Monroe is hosting the Miss Louisiana Pageant. This year's pageant may be the last pageant of its kind to be held in Louisiana.

It's not the Miss Louisiana is going away. The selection process in which a young woman is chosen as Miss Louisiana is about to be noticeably different. For those of us who are only casual pageant observers we won't notice much change this year, but next year there's a good chance the entire pageant format could be modified.

This will be the last Miss Louisiana pageant to feature a swimsuit competition. Miss Louisiana is following the lead of the Miss America pageant and is eliminating that part of the pageant. There is talk that the evening gown competition will be going away in 2019 and the proceedings may actually drop the word "pageant" from its title.

We will just have to wait to see how that all unfolds but what we do know for this year,

contestants will compete in interview, swimsuit, talent, evening wear and on-stage questions as they always have

That's part of a text message sent by Darris Waren as reported by NOLA.com. That means the 33 young women in Monroe this week will be judged and scored in those particular categories over the pageant's three-day run. Miss Louisiana will be crowned on Saturday night.

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