The following Miss Miami Gardens can be topped tonight because the Miss Miami Gardens Scholarship Program returns to the stage on the Betty T. Ferguson Leisure Advanced on Saturday, March 14. Doorways open at 6 p.m. and the pageant begins at 6:30 p.m., bringing the neighborhood collectively for a night that celebrates scholarship, service, expertise and management.
However the Miss Miami Gardens Scholarship Program represents greater than a crown. It represents alternative.
The pageant was initially created in 2007 by then–Miami Gardens Councilman Melvin Bratton Sr, who served as a decide throughout the Miss America system. After witnessing the scholarship alternatives and profession doorways this system opened for younger girls in different communities, Bratton believed Miami Gardens — a predominantly Black metropolis — deserved entry to the identical platform.
On the time, girls of coloration had been considerably underrepresented within the pageant world, and Bratton noticed the scholarship competitors as a option to develop entry to schooling, management improvement {and professional} alternatives for younger girls locally.
The pageant ran efficiently from 2007 by 2011 beneath the diretion of Tamilla Mullings and Ula Zucker, however the financial downturn ultimately pressured the Metropolis of Miami Gardens to discontinue funding for this system. When Bratton termed out of workplace, there was not a sitting elected official advocating for the city-funded initiative, and the pageant quietly went dormant.
For greater than 12 years, the Miss Miami Gardens crown sat vacant. That modified in 2023, when WSVN Anchor Taveres Jones, who has roots within the pageant business, stepped in to revive the scholarship program and produce the chance again to the town.
Since its return, the pageant has as soon as once more change into a platform for younger girls to showcase their voices and management whereas competing for scholarship funding and the prospect to advance to the Miss Florida stage.
Contestants competing tonight can be judged throughout a number of areas of competitors together with On-Stage Dialog, Health Put on, Expertise and Night Robe, whereas additionally highlighting the neighborhood service initiatives they’ve championed all through their preparation for the pageant.
Every delegate has spent months making ready not just for the competitors itself, but in addition for the accountability of serving as a neighborhood ambassador.
In keeping with Dr. Niesha Mack Massingill, the brand new Government Director of the Miss Miami Gardens Scholarship Program, the pageant repesents greater than fancy robes and fairly faces.
“The Miss Miami Gardens Scholarship Program is about way over crowns and titles,” Massingill stated. “It’s about investing in younger girls who show management, compassion, and a dedication to serving others. These delegates symbolize the brilliance, expertise, and promise of the subsequent era.”
The night may even characteristic a spoken phrase efficiency by acclaimed poet Rebecca Phoenix Vaughns, including a inventive factor to this system.
The Metropolis of Miami Gardens, beneath the management of Vice Mayor Robert L. Stephens III, serves because the Title Sponsor, serving to present scholarship assist for the younger girls collaborating in this system.
Tonight’s pageant may even crown Miss Miami Gardens’ Teen together with extra titleholders.
For a lot of contestants, tonight marks the start of a journey that might take all of them the best way to the Miss Florida stage — and probably to the Miss America crown.
For Hy-Lo Information Founder Janey Tate, the pageant holds a particular place in her private story. Tate was topped Miss Miami Gardens in 2011 and stays the one titleholder within the pageant’s historical past to position within the Prime 15 on the Miss Florida Pageant, the statewide competitors native winners advance to. The Miss Florida Pageant is a part of the Miss America Group, which means this native competitors represents the very first step on the journey towards changing into the subsequent Miss America. The pageant offered Tate the prospect encounter to community with then CBS 4 Miami Reporter, Sharrie Williams, who emceed the pageant in 2009. From that connection, Tate was given a reccomendation from Williams. It allowed her to realize certainly one of her first information internships at CBS 4 Miami, which helped to launch her profession in journalism.
Hy-Lo Information Founder, Janey Tate, as then Miss Miami Gardens 2011. Picture Credit score: J Love Images.
Hy-Lo Information is proud to function a media associate for this 12 months’s scholarship pageant, and we’ll be on the bottom tonight protecting the competitors and introducing the neighborhood to the younger girls competing for the title. To assist carry the neighborhood into the expertise, Hy-Lo Information additionally gave away seven tickets to the pageant, giving native residents the chance to attend and assist the contestants as they take the stage. We’ll assist introduce the neighborhood to the younger girl who will carry the Miss Miami Gardens title into the subsequent chapter of this system’s legacy.
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