While Miss Antigua & Barbuda 2015 took her last walk, it wasn’t her stunning outfit or beautiful smile that kept the attention of the crowd, but the content of her spare no punches pre-recoded speech.
Before saying her last goodbyes, Asha Frank, who represented Barbuda in the pageant last year, said she hopes her successor has a more active reign. This is not the first time Frank has publicly expressed disappointment in how her reign was handled, but the fact that she chose such a time and outlet to register her feelings was new.
She said while she is thankful for Prime Minister Gaston Browne’s belief in her, it is unfortunate that others didn’t share in his vision.
The 2015 queen, who won the Miss Barbuda pageant before entering Miss Antigua and Barbuda, wished her successor well and said she believed the 2016 winner would fare better since she would be coming from Antigua.
She was also disappointed that she was not given an opportunity to represent the country in the Miss World or Miss Universe competitions as queens in the older iteration of the event have. The pageant was rebranded last year, and its co-chair, Vanda Neale Gardener, says Frank unfortunately did not enjoy the spoils of her win, as the first show served more like a testing stage.
“With everything new, you go through teething stages, and there were a lot of things that needed to be put in place that weren’t, and it wasn’t anything deliberate on the commission’s part. It’s just that we’re still sorting it out,” she said.
In spite of Frank’s disappointments during her 2015/16 reign, she still played the role in whatever way she could. The current Miss Antigua Barbuda, Leanna Ann Norville says the former queen was one of her supporters. “Asha is a very nice person and she always encouraged me along the way.
“When I met her, she was actually asking me for advice, because she was entering shows for the first time, and I have entered many shows before. This year I was actually asking her for advice, and you know, she just motivated me,” Norville told Observer media after beating 5 contestants to take the crown last night.