By: Nat Nyuan-Bayjay, interlink2004@yahoo.com (231-6-402737)

*All photos by Nat Nyuan-Bayjay

The long-delayed and much awaited Miss Liberia 2009 Pageant was finally staged Saturday night, May 9, 2009 at the historic Centennial Memorial Pavilion in Monrovia (at an unusual venue) with Miss Grand Bassa County (Shu-rina Wiah) being named the Queen that will ably represent the nation’s image at the upcoming Miss World Beauty Pageant while Miss Bong County (Layal Kazouh) and Miss Maryland (Warti Robinson) finished as the first and second runners-up respectively.

The Miss Liberia Beauty Pageant is an annual event which brings face to face the very best of young, beautiful and most of all intelligent Liberian ladies from a cross-section of the country’s 15 political subdivisions. However, this year’s event involved only six contestants from Grand Bassa (Shu-rina Wiah), Bong (Layal Kazouh), Maryland (Warti Robinson), Grand Kru (Christine Doe), Lofa (Beteyea Evans) and Margibi (Tina Bargaye) Counties after three others had withdrawn initially due to what the event’s organizers termed as personal reasons.

Miss Shu-rina Wiah under the watchful eyes of a four-member panel of judges comprising of Mrs. Sharon Cooper, Mrs. Precious Andrews Greaves, Mrs. Veronica Adepuju and Mr. Akin Okoplu, emerged victorious over her five other fellow contestants during a closely contested competition that saw the Centennial Memorial Pavilion probably experiencing for the first time in recent months an event that was characterized by charm, real modeling, talents display, intelligence exhibition by the contestants and song and dance performances by some of Liberia’s best local artists during a glamorous night as hosted by the Miss Boss Lady International and sponsored by Comium-Liberia.

It was a night of grief, sorrow and pain-swallowing as well as a night of joy, excitement and celebration. But between these two different sets of feelings were two kinds of tears to compliment for each of these different moods: tears of sorrow and tears of joy. It had to be unfortunate for those who shared the first and bitter kind of tears despite their enormous effort simply because, like in all competitions, there must be just one winner. Of course, the fortunate ones had to share the second and sweet kind of tears because they were the ‘chosen’ ones (the winner and the first & second runners-up).

The event

The ceremony began with a red carpet event which was about three hours behind schedule and continued with the contestants’ first appearance in their culture costumes. Held under the theme “Women of Substance”, each contesting queen presented a potential Liberian woman as her “woman of substance”, further providing brief explanations of their choices. Miss Grand Bassa County told the audience that Liberian veteran musician Miatta Fahnbulleh was her woman of substance while Miss Bong County choice Madame Suakoko and Miss Maryland picking Madame Mary Brownell as hers. The committed educator Hester Williams, Sister Lauren Brown and Cllr. Janet Davidson were praised by Miss Margibi, Miss Grand Kru and Miss Lofa Counties respectively as their women of substance.

Thereafter, they made four appearances to include them appearing in swimming suites, African designed costumes, the talent section and evening wears as the female-dominated panel of judges watched keenly and took notes. Intriguing and notably among these appearances were the Talent and Evening aspects. During the talents section the contestants displayed individual talents depicting varying messages as dramatized by them. Many observers in attendance strongly believed that it was this section that really enhanced the chances of the eventual winner who was so outstanding during hers. Dramatizing a stop-rape campaign by using the much-loved and ever-popular Kanvee Gains’ “You Will Carry My Load” gospel music, Miss Grand Bassa County emerged from behind the curtains with a load on her head bearing inscriptions like Stop Rape and Stop Sexual Abuse as she spoke on gender equality. “What men can do, women can also do”, she cautioned her fellow ladies while underscoring the essence of female independence.

First and Second Runners-up Miss Bong and Miss Maryland Counties both demonstrated dramas that contained patriotic and nationalistic messages. Other exhibited talents included dramas of cautions against the deadly AIDS virus and education, as well as the courage to be persistent regardless of physical disabilities as demonstrated by the contestants of Lofa, Margibi and Grand Kru respectively.

Then came another important and nerve breaking aspect of the night when contestants had to choose from among series of questions two each. Admiringly, the queens all did well in answering them to the best of their abilities and to the delight of the audience, though there were some murmurs during this stage from one or two directions of the audience which is a usual happening at events of such nature.

Answering the question “What was your most life-challenging and changing moment?” Miss Margibi replied: “Honestly, this Miss Liberia Contest was my most life-challenging and changing moment”. For her part, the soon-could-be queen Miss Grand Bassa said that contributing her quota to the rebuilding process of war-torn Liberia could be her major aim in response to the question: “What does winning the Crown mean to the Liberian youths?” Other questions included what change entitles them as a contestants to the much used word ‘role model’, what was their thoughts about UNMIL’s scaling down of her troops and what does Miss Liberia mean to them.

The Event was organized by the Miss Boss Lady International Incorporated. Its founder Miss Barkue Tubman, widely known as Miss Boss Lady thanked all those who helped to have made the Competition a success, adding: “Quitting was not an option for me”. She then cautioned whoever that was to be crowned to devote a whole lot of work towards the Crown and warned that being Miss Liberia goes beyond the ordinary.

Acting Minister of Information, Culture and Tourism Cletus Sieh on behalf of the government expressed delight over the successful staging of the Event and hoped that the Queen will ably represent Liberia. The Miss Liberia Competition is held under the auspices of the Ministry of Information, Culture and Tourism which renders the Liberian Government’s support to the Competition.

Winning the Crown means Miss Grand Bassa now owns a 2009 Renault car plus other prizes like trips to London and South Africa where she will represent Liberia at the Miss World Beauty Pageant, scholarships, shopping spree from Siata Styles Boutique, an Ecobank bank account with $500 and has become the face of Comium-Liberia.

briefly About the winner

Miss Shu-rina Wiah (Miss Grand Bassa) is a 21-year old student who is studying public administration at the African Methodist Episcopal University (AMEU). She desires to become a lawyer, with focus on defending the rights of women and children. In the future, she would like to use her voice as a concerned citizen to serve as ambassador on behalf of young women. Shu-rina participated in last year’s Miss Liberia Pageant and was unsuccessful; however, Ms Wiah said she had a whole year to develop her negatives and build her skills which made her sure of winning this year’s crown. She felt it important to not give up on herself as she added: “If you don’t succeed try and try again”. Her hobbies are modeling, singing, reading and going to church.