With her sleek black hair and model looks, she walks on to the stage to show that beauty and brains can go together. But in a few, brief minutes in the question and answer round, she proves she knows more about the price of baby oil than crude oil.
So are beauty pageants dim or dazzling? And is it better to think big instead of thinking beautiful?
The Guardian went to find out, after two Bahamian beauty contestants, Rashanna Thompson and Aquella Plakaris, picked up the major prizes in last week's Miss Commonwealth Triple Crown pageants.
"The pageant is a good thing," said Nassau-based George Francis, 40. "But it doesn't matter if someone thinks you are beautiful because at the end of the day, it's brains that matter.
"In terms of people wanting to know what you are about, it's beauty that draws them to you, but at the end of the day, education is what matters."
Middle-aged Alice Morley echoed that view. She felt massaging the brain was more important than having a facial. "In the end, there has to be some level of education," she said.
After all, beauty fades but knowledge is eternal. Finding the right job is more important than buying the right lip-gloss, according to our poll.
"Beauty doesn't count, but they feel that it counts and then they are as dumb as bats," one woman, who refused to be named, said.
"They tend to use beauty for the wrong stuff. Instead, get them jobs, education, let them participate in something that will send them to school . . . get them into school . . . to finish school."
But there were others polled who preferred glamour to geeks.
"Now a days, beauty is a way to get jobs, and it also makes you keep your job. A smart girl may not be good looking, while you may have a good looking girl that may just be a little slow," said Chris Saunders, 20. "In business, they want them beautiful."
While many believe education is the key to success, a young businesswoman said looking the part will unlock all the right doors.
"Beauty opens door for you at the end of the day," she said. "We are a vain society."
Others believe that entering pageants is one way young women can build their characters.
"I go for the pageants because that helps to bring out the shyness that is in some women," John Smith, 75, a construction worker said. "Young girls at times are so shy they can't even approach a person."
But whatever it is that pageants contribute to the lives of young women, the words of Nelson Mandela at his 1994 inaugural ceremony in South Africa are worth remembering.
Mandela said: "Our deepest fear is not that we are inadequate. Our deepest fear is that we are powerful beyond measure. It is our light, not our darkness that frightens us most.
"We ask ourselves, 'Who am I to be brilliant, gorgeous, talented, famous?' Actually, who are you not to be? Your playing small does not serve the world. There is nothing enlightened about shrinking so that other people won't feel insecure around you."
By: LAURA MATTHEWS, The Nassau Guardian
