Kingston, Jamaica: The journey towards crowning the 2018 Miss Jamaica Festival Queen is reaching fever pitch as the last four parishes, Clarendon, Westmoreland, Manchester and Trelawny anticipate their coronations this Saturday, June 23 and Sunday, June 24. These four parishes will join the other nine that have already crowned their most intelligent, culturally-aware, poised and empowered contestants, who will represent their parishes at the national coronation in August.
Clarendon and Westmoreland will stage their coronations this Saturday, June 23 at the Glenmuir High School in May Pen and the Sean Lavery Faith Hall in Savanna-La-Mar respectively, both beginning at 8:00 pm. While Sunday, June 24 will see Trelawny’s coronation at the Historic Falmouth Cruise Port, Falmouth and Manchester’s coronation at the Bishop Gibson High School, Mandeville, beginning at 8:00 pm and 7:00 pm respectively. Tickets for the various coronations may be purchased at the relevant parish office, or at the gate of the event.
“After experiencing nine beautifully executed coronations right across the island, we are even more excited to crown these last four Parish Queens, so that we may finally introduce Jamaica to 13 of the most talented and influential young women in the country,” said Interim Executive Director at the JCDC, Mr. Orville Hill.
“Each of these young women is bursting with promise and the JCDC is just as ready to give them a platform on which to make their contributions to nation building. The sooner we complete the Parish Coronations, the nearer we will be to crowning our newest 2018 Cultural Ambassador.” Hill continued.
St. James was the first parish to crown their queen, Chris Ann Douglas on Sunday May 27. They were followed by Portland on Saturday, June 2 where the crown was awarded to Jessica Hartley. Sunday June 3 saw St. Ann crown Shanice Smith and St. Catherine crown Stacy-Ann Nelson.
Both St. Mary and St. Thomas crowned their queens on Saturday, June 9, Ackera Sherokie Gowie and Shameika Harris respectively. While Sunday June 10 saw Leneka Rhoden walking away with the Miss Kingston & St. Andrew crown.
The last two parishes to crown their queens were Hanover and St. Elizabeth, who crowned Shantae Grant and Kimberley Buckeridge respectively, both on Saturday, June 16.
The Miss Jamaica Festival Queen Competition is a signature programme of the Jamaica Cultural Development Commission (JCDC), an agency of the Ministry of Culture, Gender, Entertainment and Sport. The programme focuses on leadership, appreciation of the role of women, creative talent and culture and community involvement and has produced some outstanding queens who have continued to make a significant contribution to building ‘Brand Jamaica’ beyond their reign. Some of the more notable past queens include Dr. Marsha Barnett, Jennifer ‘Jenny-Jenny’ Small, Jacinth Hall-Tracey, Dahlia Harris, Krystal Tomlinson and Kaysia Johnson.
