Belikin brings out 2003 calendar

It’s that time of year when your beat up old wall calendar is about to be replaced. And for many Belizeans–especially men–the calendar of choice is the one published by Belikin Beer. So get ready guys; take your last look at Maria Jeffrey, because Kimberly Haughton is coming in January.

Jacqueline Woods, Reporting

The young ladies, all eighteen and older, are not professional models…but you’d never know it from their looks on camera.

Jeremy Spooner, Photographer

“I find that Belizean girls were very good. You know, they get relaxed and a different personality comes out when we take pictures of them.”

The shoot for the 2003 Belikin Calendar started in June and by late October the work was completed. It was the second time that photographer Jeremy Spooner of Spooner’s Photo Lab was hired to do the job.

Jeremy Spooner

“Well, it was just much fun as it was last year. We shot more girls this time. There were eighteen young ladies, and of course only eleven got chosen. I believe we are using one girl twice on the calendar.”

January is Kimberly Haughton; February features Christine Frampton, March Nisha Humphreys, April Megan Fletcher. Astry Burgos appears in May. June is Nadine Lopez, July is Sandra Gutierrez, August Leila Pandy, September Kimberly Haughton returns, October is for Amalia Fuentes, November, Tracy Robateau and December belongs to Isela Duran. The pictures make it look like it was an easy job, but as the models will tell you, posing for a calendar requires patience…lots of patience.

Megan Fletcher, April

“First of all, you get no sleep. They wake you up at the crack of dawn, actually before, to get ready, because the styling and the makeup takes about an hour and hour and a half, sometimes two hours. You don’t want to get up out of your bed, because it’s very, very cold. You get out there and you have to pose for a camera when you really don’t feel like it, all you want to do is just sleep. It’s very, very hard.”

Leila Pandy -August

“I was the first person on the first day. It was a water shots that we were taking, and we had an audience of about fifteen people and I was so nervous, I kept blabbing, literally blabbing because I so nervous. I was facing them and they were facing me and they are like looking and staring, so I was very nervous.”

By the way, Megan Fletcher and Leila Pandy are sisters. Both ladies say they are thrilled that they were both chosen for the calendar.

Leila Pandy

“Yes, it came as a surprise. There were twenty-five girls. We made twenty-seven and weren’t really sure if we would have gotten a month. But we got it.”

Jacqueline Woods

“So when you all received the news, how did you feel?”

Megan Fletcher

“Most naturally, you’re a little ecstatic, excited to be one of the top eleven out of twenty-eight, I think.”

Jeremy Spooner

“We had to cancel quite a few shots due to the weather. Also a lot of the ladies that came along for the shoot are students or they are working. So, we have to accommodate them by shooting on the weekends or when we can work around their schedule.”

The work was conducted at various locations across the country including Caye Caulker, San Pedro, Placencia and Five Sisters Falls in the Mountain Pine Ridge. Jacqueline Woods for News 5.

Just in case you think that beauty and brains are incompatible, we note that Kimberly Haughton, who rules January and September, has just been recognized internationally as receiving the second highest score in this year’s Cambridge A level literature exams. She already is the recipient of one of Belize’s two open scholarships. The official launching of the 2003 Belikin calendar is taking place as I speak…at the Bellevue Hotel.