I'll bite: try a pageant board. My favorite one isn't geared so much toward preparation as toward pageant news, but the posters there will be infinitely more helpful in answering your questions:
http://www.voy.com/215218/
Know that MAO is very different from MUO. MAO is much more community, scholarship and whole person oriented. They pride themselves on the millions of dollars in scholarship money given out annually, and require both a talent and platform for their contestants.
MUO typically is much more modeling and entertainment-oriented.
My advice is to talk to the directors of your local pageants to see how supportive they are of new contestants. Some local pageants do a lot of training and prep work because their contestants are primarily new to pageantry and come from the local community. Other locals are mainly feeders for experienced girls to win their way to another shot at the state title and the pageant itself won't offer much guidance.