If you think you've seen everything there is to see, prepared to be proved wrong. Friday at 7:30 p.m. in the Fine Arts Center of Elizabeth City State, Kids First Inc. will host its second Womanless Beauty Pageant.

And though this pageant won't include the usual dolled up women prancing around a stage in ball gowns, that's not to say that there won't be any prancing around in ball gowns; instead, there will be men to take on this role.

File photo (ENLARGE)

Womanless beauty pageants like this one held last year at Knobbs Creek Recreation Center are growing in popularity for fundraising benefits. Men in drag will parade across the stage in the Fine Arts Center of Elizabeth City State on Friday to raise money for Kids First Inc.

If you haven't attended a womanless beauty pageant before, now is the best time to attend. Not only will all the proceeds go to improving the care for abused children at the Kids First Inc., child advocacy center, but the contestants will give you your money's worth. Contestants will include the privileged sheriff's deputies Dwayne Goodman and Ed Web, Deputy Steve Koch, state troopers Chad Allison and Mike Lawrence, investigators William Williams and Jay Winslow, Agent Rodney Parker, and Pasquotank county teachers John Lee, and Heath Shriver; one of whom will be crowned "Miss Kids First."

And though she insists that the contestants are unusually looking forward to the pageant now, the executive director of Kids First Inc., Rhonda Morris, advises that it wasn't easy getting them excited about dressing up in women's attire.

"At first we had to twist their arms to get them to do this, but then they started to challenge one another to the point where they have made it a real competition. And they know it's for charity," says Morris.

Since government funding has been cut, Kids First Inc., needs to raise money to fund the services they provide more than ever. Their child advocacy center located in Elizabeth City provides free counseling, a licensed forensic interview, therapy, and now physicals, for any abused child and their non-offending family members in Northeastern North Carolina, all in a welcoming atmosphere

Elizabeth Jones, a staff member at Kids First Inc., stresses that child abuse is a widespread issue that sometimes goes unnoticed, and Kids First Inc., would like to change that.

"Statistics show that abuse rates are not getting any better, and the general public is usually unaware of that, so hopefully, this event will not only help with the funding the government has cut, but also increase the knowledge that there is a child advocacy center here to help," says Jones.

Among some of the things that the funding from the pageant will support, one is hiring an on-site pediatrician. Travel time for children to receive a physical has been a problem that the program has had to face in that past; the closest centers for physicals have been Greenville or Norfolk, Va., which sometimes has three week long waiting lists. But with the help of funding from this event, Kids First Inc., will hire an on-site pediatrician, Jenny Brown, so that children can take care of everything in one stop, minimizing their trauma.

The goals that Kids First Inc., would like to accomplish can only be made possible through fundraising events like this one. At the womanless beauty pageant, viewers will also have the chance to enter in several drawings for things such as throws, quilts and artwork.

"The pageant is gonna be a blast! If you attend, you will laugh from the time you walk in to the time you walk out," says Morris.

Tickets for the Womanless Beauty Pageant are $5, and can be purchased in advance or at the door. If you don't have time to attend the pageant tomorrow, you can still donate to Kids First Inc., in many other ways, two of which are simply by using a different search engine, or shopping from your favorite stores online. To find out which Web sites contribute to charities, check out the Kids First Inc., Web site, www.kidsfirstcac.org.

For more information about Kids First Inc. or their womanless beauty pageant event, contact the center at (252) 338-5658.