Ms. Y crowned in 10th anniversary pageant
It’s one of Belize’s most popular pageants, complete with lovely ladies and Brukdown music…but best of all, it’s for a good cause. This year the YWCA celebrated ten years of entertaining audiences with their annual fundraiser and as usual, the contestants did their best to wow the crowd. Jacqueline Woods reports.
Jacqueline Woods, Reporting
The Belize City Centre may not have been packed to capacity, but the people who attended the annual Miss Y Pageant were treated to four hours of entertainment.
One highlight of the evening included the introduction of former Miss Y’s crowned since the pageant was first held in 1993. This year, six contestants vied for the title. The seenagers, who are between the ages of sixty to eighty-two years old, were on the stage not necessarily to win, but just to have fun and raise some much-needed cash for the YWCA.
At the end of the competition, sixty-year-old Shirley Bowen Ferguson walked off with the title. Ferguson says she did not really want to enter the pageant but she did so to support the YWCA’s role in the lives of young women in the community.
Shirley Bowen Ferguson, Miss Y 2002-2003
“If we could educate our youths more, you find they could get a better job to better themselves, than going out there and steal. So I think step that I take is the Y has a programme where it helps the kids going up to adults. And I said if we work along with the Y, we’ll be able to do these things to help educate these young girls.”
Ferguson admits that while she wasn’t out to win, being crowned was a great feeling.
Shirley Bowen Ferguson
“I was very, very excited. I heard some of the contestants say, “I feel eighteen years younger, sixteen years younger.” I always knew that I was this age, but when I got that crown on my head, I felt like I was only eighteen. I was excited, I felt like I was floating in the air; I was very, very excited.”
Miss Ferguson, a mother of thirteen children, says during her reign, she will work with the YWCA to improve the lives of Belizean children. Jacqueline Woods reporting for News 5.
Proceeds of the pageant are used to support the programs of the YWCA in Belize.
