BESIDES family and friends encouraging her to go for it, says 19-year-old Karen Duke, she’s always had a thing about the Miss Guyana Universe pageant.
“I like pageants,” the five-foot-four Capricornian says. “It was also a desire of mine to enter Miss Guyana Universe contest.”
Born and raised at Bagotsville, on the West Bank of Demerara, Karen is the only child for her mother, Dorothy, a vendor at the Stabroek Market. Dad, Keith, is a mason and lives at Uitvlugt, on the ‘West Coast’. She is the sixth of his ten children.
A Primary School teacher, she says: “I love children but I really don’t want to remain a teacher. I would like to become a lawyer some day.”
Her hobbies are listening to music and dancing. She also has a flair for drama. “For as long as I can remember,” she said, “I have been participating in school plays.” She also likes sports, especially cricket, and watching television. It’s an addiction with her, she says. Karen has been told this often enough by relatives. She particularly enjoys the series CSI (Crime Scene Investigation), and CSI Miami: “Anything that deals with investigation and crime; I’ve always had a passion for that.”
As to what she thinks of her chances now that she’s sized up the competition, Karen said: “I have a very, very fair chance; I’m not scared or anything of the other girls. In everything I do, I put my everything into it. I also work very hard, and I always try to come out on top. Most times I do. And that’s precisely what I expect from this.”
Both her parents, she said, as well as her nine siblings are all very supportive of her in this venture. “They keep telling me: Karen, you have to bring home the crown.”
And so are her pupils at La Grange Primary. The first time they saw her photograph in the newspapers, they said to her: “Miss! Yuh tu’n super-model now!”
Now, if they don’t see her in the papers, they ask: