WITH the red carpet rolled out and foyer chandelier lit, The National Cultural Centre (NCC) last Sunday evening ushered in a crowd of exuberant spectators for the return of the Miss World (Guyana) 2022 pageant.

The event which, returned after a three-year hiatus, was promoted to be the pageant of the season with 10 brilliant beauties vying for the highly coveted, newly designed bejewelled headwear.
The show was certainly not one to miss, but if you did, we got the all the BUZZ of the night’s unfolding.

Of course, before we dive into the proceedings of the night, we must introduce the queen who copped the Regia Lily crown and will be representing Guyana on the international stage.
Andrea King, the 25-year-old project manager at telecommunications company, GTT, hail from Region Four (Demerara-Mahaica).

The holder of a bachelor’s degree in Business Administration and Management, and former student of The Bishops’ High School, it was King’s night to be crowned.
Greeted with thundering applause, King, who was already set to win a number of side prizes including most popular delegate on social media, graced the stage donned in a baby pink blush rhinestone gown, with what appeared to be chiffon draping. This was her moment. Her coronation. Her crown.

Surely the envy of the stage that night, King entered the NCC a princess, and exited a queen, copping also the prizes for the Multimedia Challenge, the Head-to-Head Challenge, and the Talent Segment.

Delivering a rousing keynote address, King, with fist thrusted into the air, issued a battle cry of patriotism, stirring up the NCC crowd in a moment that appeared to transcend the grace and poise usually associated with this leg of the competition, but still meeting the moment.

King was brought to tears on stage as she reflected on her journey, her support system, and why she was taking on a challenge that would undoubtedly catapult her to the world stage. Her platform? Financial literacy for the nation’s youth- not the novelest idea, but certainly still relevant.

It was her strategic approach to networking with financial technocrats that set her idea aside as one of the better thought out. However, did it capture the prize?
Not against delegate number five, Naina Pai who copped the “Beauty with a Purpose” prize for her books-on-wheels initiative to increase literacy in Region Five (Mahaica-Berbice).
Surprisingly, two delegates, numbers three and six, surprised the crowd a tad with their proposed projects. For delegate three, Malinda Ho-A-Lim, the concept of “gender decorum” still has some persons baffled.

It was, however, delegate number six, Shannan Sooklall who, astonishingly, did not raise a single dollar for her platform project – an announcement which left the crowd stunned, especially since some of her competitors had raised close to $1 million.

FAN FAVOURITES
While King was crowned the queen, she surely did have a tough competition as there were some fan favourites of the pageant who were well supported by their pockets of supporters in the NCC auditorium.

Chants and screams flooded the floor, and rained down from the balcony as delegate number seven, Arian Richmond, and 10, Trevlind Harry made their appearances.
It was not surprising that King, Richmond, and Harry were named the top three delegates by the extended panel of judges. Harry later emerged as the winner of the pageant’s Top Model competition.

The crowd, in-person and on social media, was lukewarm to many of the fashion choices.
But there was one delegate that stood out, unfortunately for missing the mark of the concept behind the Evening Gown segment.

Relating to ‘she-who-shall-not-be-named’, it’s relating important for high intensity events like pageants to have strong support systems. This could, perhaps, avoid the conflating of “gown” and “cocktail dress”. There’s always next year. Stay strong, girl!

The fashion aside, while certain sections of social media were ecstatic that King was crowned, others were edge and were prepared to die, figuratively speaking, on the Richmond hill.
Certainly, Arian Richmond deserves credit for her exceptional delivery, her concise message, and her clever appeal to emotion during her final speech. Nothing less is expected from the daughter of one of our nation’s well known English teachers.

There’s also no doubt that her platform project will be continued as she has already done that level of children’s advocacy and support for years.

PLOT TWIST?
In usual pageant fashion, when a queen is crowned, first and second runners up are also named.
Many of us know the “if the queen cannot perform her functions…” advisory that is typical for pageant winner declarations. This year’s competition, however, only saw the crowning of the queen.

The reason? Based on an announcement by the pageant’s director on coronation night, if the queen cannot continue her reign for whatever reason, her shoes will be filled by any of the other nine women so decided by the organisation.

After carrying out a tiring three-year reign, certainly no fault of her own, Joylyn Conway can now rest her head as she hands the crown and the throne to a new queen—a King, Andrea King.
May her reign be uninterrupted and glorious!