For four years St. Michael’s College has been selecting a queen but this year’s Miss St. Michael’s will reign alongside a Mr. St. Michael’s. That’s right, this year the school will be selecting both a Mr. and Miss. The pageant is part of the school’s fundraising efforts. And that in itself isn’t news, what is news is the message of this year’s pageant – it is gun violence mixing right in with pomp and circumstance. Keith Swift visited the school today to find out about this strange fusion.
Keith Swift Reporting,
On February 9th 2008 Deandre Zetina – a waitress at the Putt Putt Bar and Grill was murdered during a gang shoot out. Zetina was also a student at St. Michael’s College and since her death - her seat in the fourth form class has been vacant. It is a daily visual reminder of the scourge of street violence, which hit close to home for her classmates.
Georgia Griffith, Pageant Coordinator
“We had a student that died in a Putt Putt incident as well and so we thought that it was very important for us to have some type of campaign against violence.”
And that campaign will be in the form of a pageant - the Miss and Mr. St. Michael’s College. We met 7 of the 8 contestants this morning – and they say it’s not about beauty – it is about the message.
[Contestants Introducing Themselves: Sylvano Sutherland, 18 years old; Shenique Gentle, 15 years old; Kacey Reynolds, 15 years old; Darren Benguche, 16 years old; Justin Gill; 18 years Old; Tishawn Sabal, 17 years old; and 16 year old Stephanie Thurton.]
And while the message is positive – pageant coordinator Georgia Griffith assured us that the show will be entertaining…something like a party for a cause.
Georgia Griffith,
“Many times we look at the television and we see that young people are being killed but it is not until there is somebody close to you that is killed that you can actually relate and I think it was a real shocker for the student population and we decided that we had to do something to reach the young people because we are saying, put down the gun,’ but that is not reaching them. So we decided if we take this pageant and make it be something that they love and incorporate that non-violence message, maybe they might come out and stop the violence.
We decided to add ‘Mr.’ because as you know, it is the not the females out there killing each other, it is the males and we want other young males to see that there are positive roles models. We have positive males that are willing to do positive things and set an example. So we had to incorporate the males in this pageant.”
The pageant is Friday night at the bliss center and show time is 7 p.m.
The 4th contestant for Mr. St. Michael’s College is Ian Wade. It will cost you ten dollars to get in and again show time is at 7 p.m. at the Bliss Center.
