Pri­ma­ry school mu­sic teacher La­toya Ash has been crowned Ms Mag­nif­i­cent Mom Beau­ty Pageant win­ner at the Cas­ca­dia Ho­tel, St Ann’s.

From a field of 13 re­silient women, Ash was sashed and crowned the new brand am­bas­sador of the ti­tle just af­ter 2 am on Sun­day.

The show, or­gan­ised by trav­el agent Lyn­don Ross, was in­tend­ed to pro­vide ladies who had as­pi­ra­tions of be­com­ing pageant per­son­al­i­ties but had not had the chance to do so ear­li­er in life.

Ross said this was his sec­ond year host­ing the com­pe­ti­tion and urged busi­ness spon­sors to join forces in or­der to em­pow­er more women to re­alise their full po­ten­tial.

He said, “There is a great de­sire for moth­ers want­i­ng to step aside from all their du­ties and have a mo­ment for them­selves. In some cas­es, many of them would have missed the op­por­tu­ni­ty to en­ter the Miss Uni­verse and Miss World pageants be­cause of moth­er­hood. I want more sup­port from busi­ness­es to achieve a high­er lev­el of pageantry.”

Ross is al­so the agent for the youth­ful MJ (Michael Jack­son) Im­per­son­ation Chal­lenge and sev­er­al karaoke com­pe­ti­tions.

Ash, 35, said the prepa­ra­tion for the com­pe­ti­tion was new to her, and she spent a lot of time ded­i­cat­ed to the show. She said, “Pub­lic speak­ing was a chal­lenge, and I would love to help young moth­ers and men get over men­tal ill­ness us­ing the plat­form. Be­cause I have been a vic­tim of men­tal health for years, and this is one of the ar­eas (the pageant) that helped me and al­lowed me to come out.”

Ash al­so won the Best Tal­ent and Best Celebri­ty Im­per­son­ation awards. Meguel­la Si­mon, Miss San Fer­nan­do, walked away with the Miss In­tel­li­gence, Best Mod­el, and Best In­tro­duc­tion awards.

Jael James, Miss Barataria, was award­ed the Most Ded­i­cat­ed, Miss Con­ge­nial­i­ty, The In­cen­tive Award, Best Make-up, and Best Evening Gown awards.

The com­pe­ti­tion start­ed with 40 con­tes­tants to 20, then 13, and even­tu­al­ly end­ed with five moth­ers vy­ing for the ti­tle. The top five were Deb­o­rah-Dale Pierre (Miss Green­vale), Meguel­la Si­mon (Miss San Fer­nan­do), An­gel Prud­homme (Miss Laven­tille), and Jael James (Miss Barataria), first to fourth run­ners up, re­spec­tive­ly.