Spice Isle girl captures Caricom crown in tight contest
By Afeefah Stuart
Stabroek News
July 12, 2004
Soft-spoken, intelligent, classy and definitely beautiful all in one package describes 21-year-old Miss Grenada, Thea Duncan, who walked away with the first ever Miss Caricom International 2004 crown in a tight contest with Miss Guyana Kaye-Anne Hall.
Clad in a close-fitting fuchsia and champagne pink dress with a simple shredded-effect bottom and diamante accessories, Duncan was quite clearly the pick of the nine competitors and she continued her extraordinary performance from the swimsuit and question and answer segments held earlier in the week.
Guyana's own Kaye-Anne Hall, a surprise to many, closely jostled Duncan and the two created a stir in the almost-packed National Cultural Centre when the judges declared a tie and called them back on stage for a deciding question.
It was at this point Hall lost the crown because of her obvious nervousness as she faltered twice in answering the question. Duncan, however, was absolutely flawless and there was no surprise when she was announced as the queen.
Nineteen-year-old, Tanika Muslar, Miss Belize won the second runner-up position.
A shocker was the failure of the very cheeky and saucy Miss St. Lucia to make it into the finale three. This could have been due to the fact that although she answered the final question she repeated herself.
This young woman, Portia Chery, the oldest of the nine and an international model, had the crowd behind her from the time she made her way to the stage and it was obvious that she enjoyed herself.
Miss St Vincent, Zenobria Brito was the other delegate named in the final five.
The pageant kicked off at approximately 9 pm when young Margaret Vieira sang the National Anthem. The contestants then came out in between performances of dances and drumming and gave spicy and catchy introductions of themselves and their respective countries. Miss St. Lucia at that point sent the crowd into fits of laughter when she said: "With a touch of creolese and English I am Portia Chery from the island of sex and sass..." At that very point she bonded with the audience who were behind her right down to the end. "Chery Berry" and "Cherry juice" were some of the names chosen by the crowd for Miss St Lucia.
While the girls were introducing themselves, dancers from various groups who depicted Guyana's multi-faceted culture did their thing.
The delegates after introducing themselves to the audience and the judges then returned to the stage with dancers from the Georgetown Dance Theatre to do their opening piece.
They then came back on stage and displayed their swimsuits, which they first wore for the swimsuit segment of the pageant held at Castellani House on Thursday night.
After a 20-minute intermission the nine beauties appeared looking splendid in their evening gowns. First up on stage was Duncan followed by Miss Belize who chose a fitted, baby blue dress which was complemented with blue accessories and displayed her outfit elegantly on stage. Miss Guyana impressed the audience when she came out on stage with her dazzling, rich cream dress which hugged her curves perfectly. Her hairstyle made her look queenly and she wore silver accessories.
Ludline Dejoie, Miss Haiti, who refused to smile, still managed to look dashing in her lilac dress and she took her time and moved across the stage. Twenty-year-old Dyanti Wongsopawoo, Miss Suriname, had more of a 'prom' effect as she appeared on stage in a gold brown flair dress. Miss St. Vincent wore a cream and silver dress that was well displayed while Miss Trinidad & Tobago, who looked very beautiful, wore a mauve and blue strapless dress.
Making their way down the stairs of the makeshift stage the girls were assisted by dapper looking young men in black suits.
After parading in their evening gowns the girls were then serenaded by Eddy Neblett, a young man, who recently released a gospel CD.
At this stage, Miss St. Lucia, Miss Guyana, Miss Grenada and Miss Barbados were locked in a tight contest.
Barbados however did not make it into the top five and hew downfall would have been her poor performance during the question and answer segment last week.
Famous actor Danny Glover, who was also the Chief Judge for the occasion, asked the young women the final question. Glover, before asking the question, told the girls that they could take as much time as they wanted in answering.
The final question was: `As Miss Caricom what would you do to convince young people in Caribbean to become active in the fight to eradicate HIV/AIDS.'
Miss St. Vincent said she would inform young people to practise safe sex. "...practice safe sex, keep one partner and everything will be OK". Before completing her answer the young beauty stopped and restarted her answer and quite amazingly the members of the audience gave her the chance to re-focus.
Miss Belize thought that using her platform, which is poverty, would be the key to helping to eradicate HIV/AIDS. "First you have to deal with the root of the problem, which is poverty, use protection, abstain or think about what you are doing, you have to be active in the fight to eradicate HIV/AIDS", she said.
Miss St. Lucia who was very creative said that the youth's attention span is limited and that using entertainment to send the message to young people would be the best idea. "Preaching to young people feels like a lecture. With entertainment they might actually listen to the message about HIV/AIDS," said cheeky Chery who however, repeated herself.
The seemingly long-winded, Miss Grenada started off by cautioning that HIV/AIDS is entirely and completely preventable, "Young people will realise I have to make a decision.
If I become Miss Caricom International, I will be a positive role model, help to make something of the young people's lives", said Duncan. Miss Guyana said she would open an AIDS charity that would tell about the effects of HIV/AIDS. "Although I would want to say abstain I think that the practise of safe sex will be the best method since it is clear that we cannot control the actions of the young people, they must have strong, loving relationships."
Tension then crept in and it was at this stage that the judges called for Miss Guyana and Miss Grenada to return to the stage to answer another question because of the tie.
This question, which was also asked by Glover was `Since this is the inaugural Miss Caricom pageant, if you are crowned tell me how it can be used as a catalyst to bring Caribbean people together?'
Miss Guyana said "win or lose we will have a task of giving back and to represent our country". She said this after faltering and had the crowd groaning.
Miss Grenada answered: "Well this pageant helped us to interact especially about our different platforms and as such if I become Miss Caricom International, I will speak to other people in the Caribbean about the things we are doing and the things that we can do."
Minutes after she was crowned by the reigning Miss Guyana Universe Odessa Phillips, Duncan was on the second floor of the National Cultural Centre meeting with the media for an impromptu press conference.
The 21-year-old student of the Miami Dade University hopes to continue with her work to fight HIV/AIDS. Since the beauties' first appearance, which was on NTN channel 11 on Wednesday night, Duncan had impressively outshone the others with her intelligence and poise.
She is fluent in Spanish and Italian and is an accomplished artist and winner of the Madeleine Albright Public Policy Scholarship. Duncan has won a new car and US$5,000.
The judging panel included Glover; New York State Senator, John Sampson; New York-based, Dr. Theophilus Lewis; New York-based Guyanese, Sybil F. Chester; corporate attorney-at-law in New York, Sharon Telford-Thomas; Chief Executive Officer of Universal Airlines, Chandra Harpaul; Emmy-winning journalist for Fox 5 News in New York, Bill Mc Crary and Standford Solomon owner of King Solomon's Enterprise, who sat in for actor Leon `Leon' Robinson who was not present due to a missed flight in South Africa.
The Miss Caricom International pageant was undertaken by the first ever Miss USA/Guyana, Monica Sanchez, Senator John Sampson's Community Liaison Officer, Carol Trim-Bagot, local designer Patricia Coates and others.
Trim-Bagot said that the Miss Caricom International Pageant would be held in Suriname next year.
Journalist Mondale Smith hosted the show while the Mingles' Sound Machine provided live entertainment.