“I started this pageant with a one-track mind, aiming to win,” said the new Jamzone queen, 21-year-old Lavonia Springer days after she won the coveted crown.
Copping the 2008 Jamzone crown – and car – did not pose much difficulty for this pageant veteran, who hails from the ancient county.
Sitting at her desk at the Ministry of Tourism and Commerce, Lavonia took some time out to tell The Scene a little about herself and what it would feel like to roll on her own wheels – well soon anyway, since the lady can’t drive. She plans to learn soon though, and offers to teach her have been coming in real fast, Lavonia related.
Rolling back the curtains a few years Lavonia tells us of her childhood years growing up in New Amsterdam, Berbice. Although she grew up with only one brother her house was always full of people from the close-knit community, and she learnt to defend herself from an early age.
Lavonia wrote the Common Entrance Examination and copped a space at Presidents College where she said “a different experience” awaited her. Her six years spent there honed her skills in public speaking and allowed her to vividly express her outspoken nature – Lavonia made full use of the opportunities she was given. “I was always outspoken, even if my opinion differed from that of adults, I would still make myself heard,” Lavonia told The Scene.
Lavonia made her entrance into the pageant world at the tender age of thirteen. She had gone home one August vacation and her mother was organising a Miss New Amsterdam Emancipation pageant. She was asked if she wanted to enter and did just that, more or less for the fun and because there wasn’t much else to do at home in the country waiting for the school term to start again.
Well as the story goes she won that pageant and moved on with her mother to enter the Mother and Daughter Pageant, where they placed first runner-up in the senior’s category. “I felt comfortable on stage, it was all within my comfort zone,” she says about the modelling and strutting her stuff on stage.
After finishing school Lavonia returned to Berbice where she took up teaching and also worked as a customer service representative. It was somewhere around this time when Miss Guyana Universe franchise holder Odinga Lumumba and his team sojourned in New Amsterdam scouting for pageant contestants. She was spotted, and after giving it some thought and soliciting her mother’s blessings, she took the plunge and entered up for the pageant in 2006.
“My gosh… that was quite an experience,” she told The Scene. It was a big jump too; most persons would try their hands at the teen pageant before deciding to go for one at the top level. “But I was confident that I could do it,” Lavonia said.
She was the youngest contestant and that proved a bit of a challenge, but she also had a great sense of humour and a willingness to learn fast which propelled her to cop – not the crown which her heart was set on – but the second runner-up spot. Not bad for an 18-year-old who had stiff competition from the other contestants who had a lot of ‘pageant experience.’
After the pageant Lavonia moved to Georgetown where she took up a post at the Ministry of Commerce as a research assistant – a job which she enjoys very much and which allows her to have constant interaction with people – one of the things Lavonia says contributes to her public speaking skills and her strong stage presence.
She had not planned on doing any more pageants after the shot at the Miss Universe crown.
It took Jamzone to change her mind.
Being quite honest with The Scene Lavonia said that her motivation for entering Miss Jamzone was the chance of – yes, you guessed correctly – driving her own car!
“I was at home cleaning and saw the ad for the pageant, she said “and I thought to myself ‘why not?’”
She asked her brother who was visiting at the time what he thought of the idea, “he said why not and so I went ahead and sent my application.”
She related to The Scene that from the time she entered the pageant she began “staking out” the other contestants to judge their strengths and weaknesses and to see who would present the strongest competition for her. It was quite competitive and despite being in pageants before, the training and the routines the girls were put through did come across a little bit tough. But all the tough days of concentrating and staying focused did not deter Lavonia from gaining a gold medal – in the form of a car.
She also said that her consistency in performance through every segment of the pageant contributed to her emerging the winner.
The crowd support on pageant day was also an extra boost.
In comparing the two pageants – Miss Guyana Universe and Miss Jamzone – Lavonia says that they are both very different from each other and she had more fun with the latter. “With Jamzone I was allowed to be myself, while with Miss [Guyana] Universe you were are forced to play a role.” She said that the Miss Guyana Universe pageant demands that you be “modest, conservative and elegant, while with Jamzone “you explore who you are… the public sees your personality and support you [or not] because of that,” Lavonia said.
And what is the next step for this lovely lady you may ask. Well… while she says that her days for local pageants are over, a walk on the international catwalk is up next. Lavonia will represent Guyana at the Miss Tourism pageant sometime next year. “I am excited and expecting a lot of adventure,” she says. She is a good friend of last year’s Jamzone winner, Christa Simmons, who was at the Tourism pageant in April and is taking tips to prepare for the international stage.
“Pageants build your confidence level and even if you don’t come away with the crown you still walk away a winner,” Lavonia told The Scene. Well let’s wish this lady the best and hope she walks away a winner once more. (melc_1301@yahoo.com)
