Light participation in the Liberation Day queen contest in recent years has prompted the Mayors’ Council of Guam to look for ways to boost participation in the annual competition.
Yona Mayor Brian J. Terlaje has tried to revive the contest.
“This past year and the year before, we’ve had issues with trying to get candidates to participate in the liberation coronation,” he said. He discussed the situation with Mayors’ Council Executive Director JoyJean Arceo.
“She made suggestions to have our queens actually go into the school system to do presentations about liberation, the liberation queen, and then, once we get some sort of interest, we can funnel that out to the mayors who are actually looking for candidates for next year’s liberation queen pageant.”
Judges and spectators at last year’s event said they wished there had been more participation with the villages, Terlaje said.
Council President and Piti Mayor Jesse Alig asked what the Mayors’ Council could do to attract interest.
“Two years ago, we changed the way in which we were going to conduct the contest. And we removed the raffle ticket sales and created a different contest in hopes that we would garner more participation,” Alig said. “This is our second year to do it in that manner, and we still didn’t get 19 contestants.”
He said the mayors need to figure out how to move forward.
“I want to put this on the monthly agenda to talk about it,” Alig said. “It’s important to us, as an island, to celebrate liberation.”
