CARNIVAL QUEEN ANNOUNCED

Delighted Shelley, from Gosden Road, beat off stiff competition to be crowned the 2003 queen and was overcome with emotion as carnival president Freda Hughes told her the great news.

"It feels great, although it hasn't really sunk in yet," admitted Shelley, "I have always wanted to do it and I expect the next year to be a lot of hard work as well as lots of fun."

Shelley is in year 10 at Littlehampton Community School, where she is studying for GCSEs in drama, music, German and food studies.

Her hobbies include dancing, music and shopping and she would like to study leisure and toursim when she has completed her GCSEs and hopes to become a holiday rep when she leaves college.

Judges included Littlehampton Gazette receptionist Carole Keen, Carnival Queen incumbent Carly Johnson and Littlehampton Mayor Wendy Squires.

They were particularly impressed with Shelley's bubbly personality, smart appearance and winning smile.

And the judges were also impressed with Nicola Watson and Tara Moore, who were crowned 2003 Littlehampton Carnival Princesses.

Seventeen-year-old Nicola is in her first year of a three-year hairdressing and beauty therapy course at Chichester College.

She was a member of the Starliners cheerleader squad and is now in the process of setting up her own squad.

When she has completed her studies, she would like to work on the cruise ships.

"It's a great way to see the world and get paid for it," she laughed.

And she said she was genuinely shocked when she found out she was going to be a carnival princess.

Sixteen-year-old Tara Moore from Dorset Close is in year 11 at Littlehampton Community School where she is deep in revision for GCSEs in drama, sociology, French and ICT.

She says she has no career plans at the moment and is keeping her options open but she said she would like to go into the sixth form in September.

"It would be nice to take a year out and go to university but I'm not absolutely sure at the moment. I'll see what happens," she said.

Busy Tara works at St Francis nursing home a few evenings a week and is also a volunteer at the Wire Project and went on the Romania trip where she helped with the Livewires playscheme over there.

Freda was over the moon with this year's carnival queen and princesses and said she was looking forward to them representing Littlehampton over the coming year.

"They are three smashing girls, and they are already getting on really well with each other,which I'm really pleased about," she said.