Tons going on with the Miss Texas Scholarship Pageant. I can’t decide what to tell you first…

Okay, heads wins. We’ll go with the local angle. The annual pageant, for years and years held in Fort Worth, is packing up its sequins and moving to…Arlington! Isn’t everything? First the Cowboys, and now Miss Texas. Actually Miss Texas will beat Da ‘Boys because the pageant is held in July, way before football season. Look for the new Miss Texas to be crowned at the University of Texas at Arlington’s Texas Hall.

The actual dates are up in the air because–again, this could be exciting–it could be televised this year. So, if it is televised, the finals will be July 3. If it’s not televised, the finals will compete with fireworks on July 4. Pageant people seem to be excited about the switches, and happy to be working with the City of Arlington.

And the other piece of Miss T info is that Rebecca Robinson, the current, four-lingual Miss Texas, will depart for the big Miss America Pageant Thursday. Just to make Bert Parks mad, it will be held again this year in ‘Vegas. Even though she did sing the national anthem at The Cotton Bowl earlier this month, she’s a tap dancer.

TLC is the network carrying the Miss America Pageant. Meanwhile the network’s running a pretty silly show “Countdown to the Crown” on Fridays until the pageant, which is scheduled for Jan. 24. If you watch the show, you can vote for your fave.

Should you want to send Rebecca a note of good luck, Lydia Hall, Miss Texas pageant VP and associate director, says now’s the time. Write to Rebecca Robinson–Miss Texas, c/o Planet Hollywood Resort & Casino, 3667 Las Vegas Blvd. South, Las Vegas, NV 89109.

Times change. Death and taxes still only two things you can count on.

Miss America, once upon a time, always was crowned the weekend after Labor Day in Atlantic City. Years ago, it was a way to extend vacationing along the boardwalk. Bert Parks singing, high heels with one-piece swim suits–tradition! But in our new millennium, we crown Miss America in January in Vegas with the help of–what else?–reality TV. Throw 52 young women together, and we get to play pageant judge.

So our cute, smart, wonderful Miss Texas, Rebecca Robinson, will be showcased tonight on the first installment of the TV show, “Miss America, Countdown to the Crown,” at 9 p.m. on TLC. Evidently we get to vote on who we like.

I’ve had the pleasure of spending some time with our tap-dancing Miss T, and I can tell you she is a winner. Her TLC bio claims that she’s “bilingual,” but that misses her languages by two. Rebecca speaks FOUR! That blows that dumb-blonde stereotype all to pieces, doesn’t it?

Just as the Miss A TV show takes off, we’re on a roll for the local pageants. Heather Edwards Bruce, herself once a runner-up to Miss Texas, tells me the Miss Southlake and Miss Teen Southlake Pageant is set for 7 p.m. Saturday (Jan. 3) at Carroll Senior High School in Southlake. Admission is $15.