Shanae Heber is the new Bartica Regatta Queen

AMBITIOUS, determined, and down to earth are just a few adjectives that can be used to describe the recently crowned Miss Bartica Regatta 2023, Shanae Heber.
In an interview with this week’s Buzz, the 21-year-old beauty shared her journey to the Regatta crown.

Heber, a born Bartician grew up in close knit community of Bartica (Cuyuni-Mazaruni) but moved a lot around between her home and the capital city Georgetown, Region 4, due to her parents who were living separately. She attended the Beach View Nursery School in Bartica for two years, then transferred to St. John’s Baptist Primary and later to Three Miles Secondary, where she spent two years.

Due to her unconventional upbringing, Heber moved to Georgetown and continued her education at the School of the Nations for two terms, but due to some family and financial issues, she had to move back to Bartica and once again enroll at Three Miles Secondary. Even though she didn’t like the idea of going back and forth with her parents, she didn’t have much of a choice.

Heber’s mother, Auset Gaia, wanting the best for her daughter, finally made the tough decision of sending her to live in Georgetown in the hope of her getting a better education and better opportunities so that she can have a successful life.

When she was in third form, she moved back to Georgetown and attended Mae’s Secondary, where she completed her secondary education and gained 12 subjects at the Caribbean Secondary Education Certificate (CSEC) Examination.

After successfully completing her CSEC Examination, Heber said that she felt lost for a moment and wasn’t sure what career path she wanted to explore, but one thing was sure: she wanted to further her education.

Initially Heber wanted to study chemical engineering, but the University of Guyana (UG) wasn’t offering that programme so she opted to study petroleum engineering after considering Guyana being one of the fastest growing economies in the world due to the oil and gas sector.

In 2019, the Bartician beauty with brains started her university studies in petroleum engineering, completed her Associate of Science in 2021, and is presently on the verge of completing her Bachelor of Science. Even though Heber has so much going on in her life at the moment, she is also pursuing her Bachelor of Business Administration at the UG.

“As a little girl, I always saw my mom, who was a fashion designer, designing different gowns for girls who were a part of the same pageants. I saw that and envisioned myself being on the stage and competing. My mom also competed in the Miss Bartica Regatta in the 90s, and she was the first runner-up, and I believe my interest in pageantry stemmed from those days of seeing all of that,” she said.

While she was a student at the Three Miles Secondary School, Heber wanted to compete at a pageant that the school was supposed to have had but for some unforeseen reason the pageant was cancelled. After that, she decided that she would apply to be a contestant in the 2019 Miss Bartica Regatta, but due to the COVID-19 pandemic, her dream was once again shunned.

She thought maybe pageantry wasn’t for her after being disappointed more than once, but according to her, last year she saw a young lady who competed at the Miss Jamzone 2022 pageant, and that reignited her interest to try once more, which she did after making a promise to herself to follow her dreams.

Earlier this year, the coordinator for the Bartica Regatta reached out and asked Heber if she was interested in participating in the pageant, and she agreed, even though it was very challenging for her. Having to focus on her studies and work, Heber travelled from Georgetown to Bartica every weekend so that she could be a part of training and rehearsals. She explained that the major cons that she was faced with leading up to the pageant were, of course, having to travel the long distance, which was not only tiring and stressful, but it was also very expensive, and having to study and stay focused on her work.

She also noted that she reminded herself that she made the choice to enter the pageant, and she must deal with all the challenges that came with it rather than complain about them.

According to Heber, “this pageant allowed me to enhance my skills and my strengths in communications, as well as meet with the different girls and realise that they share the same passions as you and are just as determined to impact social change in society. I also recognised that we were given an opportunity to advocate for issues that you believe affect your community and the country as a whole.”

Finally, Heber said that she has always been passionate about seeing women come to the forefront of today’s society. According to her, this pageant gave her the opportunity to lend her voice to what she believes in and what she wants to advocate for.

In sharing some advice to other girls who want to follow in her footsteps, she said, “I know that there are a lot of stigmas attached to pageantry, especially in the recently concluded one, where people criticised me for one reason or another because I won. I would like to let other girls know that everyone is not going to like you and when you are doing things for yourself, you are going to be faced with haters and people who just don’t like you for their own reasons. But I want to say to any young woman or girl who is working hard to get themselves accomplished: when you are at the top, you become the topic, but you have to put on your alligator skin and focus on your goal and where you want to be.”

Heber hopes to continue being a part of pageants, but her career goal is to be a production engineer and work with ExxonMobil or Schlumberger in the oil and gas sector.

“I want to be at Guyana’s forefront when it comes to natural resources and development, and being a production engineer will give me an opportunity to produce those resources and also ensure that we use them for the benefit of our country and the people. Generally, I just want to fulfill the purpose or purposes that I was created for in my life, and we as women are capable of achieving so much more than just being housewives or childbearers,”she said.