Six contestants vie to be Ms. Y 2008

It’s an event that has become a Belizean institution. On Saturday night thousands of fans will flock to the Belize City Centre to cheer on their favourite contestants. News Five’s Ann-Marie Williams has a sneak preview.

Ann-Marie Williams, Reporting
They’re not you typical beauty pageant candidates but these six over sixty ladies all want to be the next Ms. Y.

The idea of crowning a Ms. Y was born fifteen years ago. The first pageant took place at the Y.W.C.A.’s headquarters on St. Thomas Street and played to a standing room only audience. When it was all over, sixty-two year old Antolina Davis’s life changed markedly. Today she’s seventy-seven and remembers all too well what it was like.

Antolina Davis, 1st Ms. Y, 1993
“Being the first Ms. Y, everybody was so nice and friendly and greeted me. It was like a new introduction into society because I had just come back from the states come home to live. Everybody remembered me and after that they always remember me.”

That very night pageant organisers realised the event had outgrown its venue and for the next two years it was held at the Bliss Institute. Two years later, the Bliss also proved too small to hold the legions of fans and in 1996, the little pageant that could, found a permanent home at the Belize City Centre.

And that’s where the competition heats up this Saturday night at seven-thirty. Belizeans are invited to see the ladies compete in casual wear, the evening gown competition, question and answer and the hilarious talent segment.

We found trainer Birdy Francis hard at work with the ladies.

Birdy Francis, Pageant Trainer
“When you give dance combinations, if you’re not used to that, or you haven’t taken dancing it’s kind of hard. Every year I try to make a different opening production. Last year we did the 1960’s; we did a James Brown “I Feel Good” and they did the twist and all that. So this year I was trying to do something different and I decided to take something from the roaring twenty’s. So they’re doing the Charleston.”

Ann-Marie Williams
“What about the curtsy, you find that a lot of them have difficulty going down?”

Birdy Francis
“Everybody has bad knees. So what I do, I want them to be happy in this rehearsal, I want them to have fun. So I don’t force them to do it the way I would do it but what I do is let them go down as far as they can.”

Going down may be the least of Irene Vernon-Novelo’s problems as she has the hearing disability from birth but is confident that she has the tools to overcome it.

Irene Vernon-Novelo, Ms. Y Candidate
“I know the speakers are there so I’m not worried about it. When I practice I look at the others so I could see what’s going on if I can’t hear.”

For sixty-one year old Hilary Crichton, a former teacher who now resides in Ladyville, entering the pageant has been a long time coming.

Hilary Crichton, Ms. Y Candidate
“I thought about entering it long ago but I was a bit too young. Then I decided it would be a good thing as a as a senior citizen, by getting into this project, I would be contributing as being a model—maybe not a youthful model—but a senior model to all Belizean girls and women.”

Joyce Flowers, former community promoter with the Belize Organisation for women and Development, is making good on a promise to her children.

Joyce Flowers, Ms. Y Candidate
“Anytime I get sixty I gwein inna Ms. Y.”

Ann-Marie Williams
“Why?”

Joyce Flowers
“Because from the time Ms. Y start, I always come dah the pageant and I just enjoy seeing the ladies doing their thing. I wanted to try it.”

And Flowers is trying her hand at a drama aptly titled “Stand Up for Your Rights”.

Joyce Flowers
“For me it gets better everyday. When I first started it was kinda like … I got cramps trying to go down and all that but everyday it gets better. While I’m at home, as soon as I get a little time I just do my practice right.”

In 2002 Belizean singers/songwriter Shirley Ferguson did all the right things. She won the pageant and feels it was one of the best decisions of her life.

Shirley Ferguson, Ms. Y 2002
“I’ve been always active but after I won Ms. Y. I was much more active. I had the opportunity to go to P.G., I crowned Ms. Marin in Corozal, I went to the Miss Teen Pageant; it’s too numerous to mention. I don’t remember what all but I travelled a lot and I did a lot of stuff here in Belize.”

Rosenell Gough is lucky to have survived two strokes and at seventy-nine, the oldest of the contestants, she’s working on her moves.

Rosenell Gough, Ms. Y Candidate
“I want the younger children or the younger ones to see what an old person could do because they like to say you’re old and you’re old lady.”

Moren Baptist, as churchgoing as her name implies, is the mother of ten children. She says the best way to give back to the Y.W.C.A. is to enter the pageant.

Moren Baptist, Ms. Y Candidate
“To help them to build up the Y; win, lose, or draw we will help the Y anyway so that is my thing for getting into this pageant.”

Ann-Marie Williams
“You want to win the pageant though?”

Moren Baptist
“Well everybody wants to win. You know the saying says “everybody want to go to heaven but nobody wants to die”.”

Ann-Marie Williams
“So are you putting in the work to win since you want to win?”

Moren Baptist
“Well put it in as far as I can go. I’ll do my best.”

After fifteen years, the Ms. Y pageant is still the largest fundraiser of the Y.W.C.A., an administration that has been serving the community for fifty-two years. This year, General Secretary Sonia Lenares is hoping the event will continue to succeed, as the Y is in the middle of a major expansion.

Sonia Lenares, General Secretary, Y.W.C.A.
“It’s an old building. From 1960 it was built and we were fortunate to get funding through the Japanese Small Grant Project to assist us with part of the rehabilitation process and the Y needs to find the next portion of the money to complete it. The money that we will raise Saturday night will use specifically to complete the refurbishment of this project. To assist us in completing it because we are looking at over one hundred and fifty thousand dollars that the Y needs.”

We’ll see you on Saturday night. Ann-Marie Williams, for News Five.

Y.W.C.A. Belize will host for the first time, in September, an international Ms. Y pageant featuring candidates from across the United States.