As the lights were turned off one-by-one Saturday night at the Carl Perkins Civic Center and stage workers began deconstructing the Miss Tennessee Volunteer set, there was still a different energy in the room.
Jada Brown had just been crowned Miss Tennessee Volunteer.
Brown’s win made history because her portrait will be the first one to be hung in the Miss Tennessee Room at the Civic Center that highlights all the pageant winners who’ve been crowned in Jackson.
That’s a history that goes back more than seven decades to when Miss Tennessee first came to the Hub City and had the pageant for the first few years at Rothrock Stadium.
And while that history is certainly worth noting, let’s not overlook the history for Lane College too.
Miss Lane College sent a queen to the Miss Tennessee pageant for a period of time years ago but ultimately pulled itself from the ranks of the local pageants in the Miss Tennessee organization.
Then in 2018, Miss Lane College was back among the contestants for the crown.
And a year later when the inaugural Miss Tennessee Volunteer pageant happened at the Civic Center, Lane College ultimately had gone with the Volunteer organization that had welcomed them back to their pageant a year before.
In the five years since Lane returned to the pageant stage, the queens from Jackson’s HBCU have progressed to the point of being competitive. There’s been a preliminary winner in the past when Carmen Wilson won her talent competition last year.
But competing for the ultimate crown isn’t something Lane had done much in the past few years.
Brown was the first Miss Lane Volunteer to advance on finals night past the initial finalist round of 16.
So for Lane to come away with the crown in this competition is comparable to a couple years back when the Lane women’s basketball team got hot at the right time to win the SIAC tournament championship at the end of the season.
But to those who watched the competition, Brown’s victory wasn’t a surprise.
The Tampa, Fla., native had a presence that garnered a lot of positive reaction to her throughout the week.
Her talent of signing to the song, “This is Me,” struck a chord with the audiences and judges, and the way she carried herself through each portion of the competition showed that Lane has taken notes and worked hard to prepare its candidate for the pageant.
Travis Franklin Jr. and Darlette Samuels are the pageant directors for Lane, and they put together a quality plan for Brown to follow to win the crown.
Congratulations to Brown for the win and to Lane College for the recognition you will get from this win.
Brandon Shields is the managing editor of The Jackson Post. Contact him at brandon@jacksonpost.news. Follow him on Twitter @JSEditorBrandon or Instagram @Editorbrandon.
