THE STORY
The story of beauty queen pageantry starts in the town of Dhour El-Shweir in 1962. In 1975, the contest was set in the gardens of the Al-Kasouf Hotel and organized by the municipality of Dhour El-Shweir.
Background story of Miss Lebanese Emigrant Beauty:
The story of beauty queen pageantry starts in the town of Dhour El-Shweir in 1962. In 1975, the contest was set in the gardens of the Al-Kasouf Hotel and organized by the municipality of Dhour El-Shweir. This hotel is one of the biggest hotels in the district of Metn, and well-known for hosting Arab crowned heads and princes during its golden era of the 1960s. For instance it hosted King Farouk, whom the municipality honored by giving his name to one of its avenues. The same was done with the late Lebanese President Camile Chamoun. Another celebrity who regularly resided in the hotel is the great composer Mohamad Abdel-Wahab.
The very first beauty contest that was organized in Lebanon happened there in 1935, and it was Jamila Al-Khalil who won the title. Abdel-Wahab composed the music for the song made for her, “Beauty and Youth find their Abode in You”. The lyrics were written by Al-Akhtal Al-Saghir who personally attended the pageant and was taken by the beauty of the elected queen therefore composing a poem for her.
The municipality of Dhour set up an annual pageant contest in 1962 and with it intended to honor its sons and daughters who had emigrated and dispersed throughout the world and to preserve the ties between the emigrant youth and the motherland. This was especially important regarding the emigrant girls who are the mothers of the future and on whose shoulders befalls most of the responsibility of establishing the Lebanese family unit even in the countries of the diaspora.
As for the Miss Lebanese Emigrant pageant’s panel of judges, it was the very same panel that supervised the Miss Lebanese pageant, and presided by Raymond Lwar in whose days Georgina Rizk was elected Lebanon’s beauty queen. She went on to be elected Miss Universe. The presidents of the Lebanese Republic have encouraged these events starting with president Camile Chamoun and going on to President Sulaiman Franjieh and President Elias Hrawi. This was a summary of the Hotel and the Municipality of Dhour El-Shweir that’s hosting the event.
