Miss WRHS Pageant  - Houston Home Journal - January 24, 2006

 Miss WRHS crowned

01/24/06
By MKE GEORGE, Houston Home Journal
 

Beyond all the glitz, the glamour and the glow of the spotlights, a beauty pageant is really about the stories behind the show.

Amelia Torres, who was crowned Miss Warner Robins High School 2006 at the Warner Robins Civic Center Saturday night, was shocked and nearly speechless when her name was announced before the crowd, but was quick to remember the woman she says made it all possible – her grandmother and namesake, Amelia Sosa Torres.

“I never met my grandmother,” Amelia said. “But when I was sitting backstage before the show, I was trying to find some meaning behind the number I was assigned.

“Then suddenly, I realized that the number eight is the day of my grandmother’s birthday.”

A senior this year at Warner Robins High, Torres was one of 18 young women who competed in Saturday’s pageant. Some 35 students from the school auditioned for a spot, according to Libbet Turner, one of the pageant’s coordinators.

Amelia, the daughter of Roberto and Graciela Torres, is involved with a number of activities, including one-act plays traditional Mexican dancing, and mentoring. She’s currently involved in two productions at WRHS: one of the main leads in “Rumors,” a Neil Simon farce; and a spot as the gatekeeper in “The Wiz,” a Broadway musical version of the “The Wonderful Wizard of Oz.”

“It just proves to me that miracles can happen,” Torres said. “That if you work hard enough, good things can happen to good people.”

Torres, who also one the talent portion of Saturday’s pageant, saw a roar of applause after performing a recognizable moment from television history, the “Vita-meata-vegimin” bit from “I Love Lucy.”

During the speech and evening gown portion Saturday night, Torres focused on her plans for the future. Torres said she plans to follow in the footsteps of her humanities teacher, Cerelia Sipe, who she called an inspiration. Torres plans to attend either Valdosta State or the University of Georgia, majoring in secondary education. Torres eventually plans to come back to Warner Robins High School to teach humanities herself. Sipe was one of the first to congratulate Torres after Saturday’s pageant.

Turner, a WRHS Spanish teacher, has been involved with the pageant for 19 years, nearly as many years as she has worked at the high school. Turner said that planning for the next year begins almost immediately after the pageant.

“As soon as the pageant is over, we start talking about themes for next year,” she said. “We really start gearing up at the start of the school year.”

In November, the 35 girls who tried out for the pageant were interviewed and evaluated, and a panel of judges whittled their number down.

This year’s pageant has special meaning for Turner and Tonya Hawthorne, a former Miss Warner Robins High School and Miss Warner Robins who now teaches honors and AP Biology at the school.

This year’s pageant was dedicated to the memory of Joanna McAfee, a 6-year-old girl whose life was taken in late December by a rare and aggressive form of childhood cancer called rhabdomyosarcoma. Joanna’s mother, Misty, was a longtime teacher at Warner Robins High School. Turner, a friend of the family, says she can still remember Joanna’s bubbly and bright personality.

“She was such a little princess of a girl,” Turner said. “She loved ladybugs and frogs.

“She was a dainty thing, but she would always jump up to chase a butterfly, or to chase a bug, just to touch it.” The Joanna McAfee Childhood Cancer Foundation, a non-profit group, has been formed to raise money for sarcoma research. To find out more information, visit www.supportcancerkids.org, or www.prayforjoanna.org.

Turner said dozens of students at Warner Robins High helped raise money for Joanna during her illness, and organizers say the pageant was a perfect forum to remember her.

Each of the 18 young women who competed Saturday shared a little of their own story Saturday, some showing remarkable courage, candidly discussing everything from fighting scoliosis, a condition that affects the curvature dealing with a grandmother’s troubles with smoking. One girl even spoke of her father’s recovery from prescription drug addiction.

More than $2,400 in scholarships was handed out last year to the queen and her court. This year’s winners were also honored with flowers, plaques and gift certificates.

“I hope I can use this opportunity to be an example,” Torres said. “I hope that I can grow from this.”