You must have a minimum of 5 members on your local team: (1) Executive Director, (1) Judges Chair, and (3) additional members. If your organization is run with co-directors, your Co-ED can count for one of your 3 additional members. Your Judge's Chair cannot be an Executive Director or Co-ED.

The 2026 Local Competition Season opens September 1, 2025 and all organizations are strongly encouraged to run their competitions by December 31, 2025 to avoid issues with NY weather and allow maximum preparation time with your titleholders. Organizations that need until early 2025 to hold their competitions will need to contact Sloane for approval. Your competition venue must be located in your region of eligibility. Dates are reserved on a first-come-first-served basis and we do not allow competitions to have the same date if their regions of eligibility overlap.

List each title you intend to award, the region of eligibility for the title, and the scholarship that accompanies it. You can award up to 3 Miss titles and 3 Teen titles in a single competition. Each scholarship is a minimum of $100. If you would like to crown a 4th titleholder you will need written permission from Miss America.

Rules regarding regions of eligibility:

• Areas of eligibility must be contiguous, meaning all counties must share a border with at least one other county in the region to form a single continuous region. You cannot have outlier counties that do not join up with the rest of your eligible area. EX: you cannot have a Miss Hudson Valley program that includes only the Hudson Valley area, and then tacks on the city of Rochester.
• If you are offering Teen title(s), the area of eligibility must match the Miss Titles.

If you are offering more than one title (Miss or Teen):

• No more than two areas of eligibility are allowed in a single program
• The area of eligibility must be either exactly the same for all titles or completely distinct from each other with no overlap.
• Overlap will be permitted only if one of your titles is open State wide.

It is strongly recommended that titles have the same eligible counties for the following reasons:

• If you have two distinct areas of eligibility you will essentially be running two competitions simultaneously and will need two auditors spreadsheets. The county where your delegate lives/works/attend school will determine which title(s) they will be eligible for and the cannot compete in multiple competitions.
• If you are running a local where one title is open state-wide and the other(s) are closed to a specific region, individuals who live in the closed region can only compete for the closed title(s). Delegates who do not live in the closed area will only be eligible for the state-wide open title.

Fees are two-part. All local organizations will carry a franchise agreement and pay a fee to the National organization. Additionally, there is a supplemental agreement and fee due to the State Organization, due 30 days before your local competition. Insurance is required for each show you hold (so it is beneficial to crown all your titleholders in one show).

• Insurance - $250 / Show
• Miss Title - $250 each
• Teen Title - $250 each

In addition to the franchise fees above, local directors are solely responsible for the scholarship, sash, crown costs for all of their titleholders. They are also solely responsible for the room & board costs for their Miss Titleholders for the State Competition. You cannot put this cost on your titleholders, nor mandate that they organize their own fundraisers to cover this cost. At the conclusion of your competition the State Organization will collect the first half of the room fee, $250 per Miss Contestant, to hold the hotel rooms. the second half will be collected at workshop. This will be returned to your organization to book the rooms when the hotel has opened reservations.