San Ignacio/ Santa Elena Clarifies Queen of the Bay Selection Controversy

There is some upset in the twin towns of San Ignacio/Santa Elena over the selection of the Queen of the Bay representative.  Several persons have taken to social media expressing concern over what they say was lack of preparation by the pageant’s coordinator in the twin towns, resulting in a hand-picked candidate.  The Queen of the Bay pageant has been a staple on the national celebrations calendar for decades.  While for some there is little significance and importance to the event, for others it is a part of Belize’s traditions that should be upheld.  Love News spoke with the pageant’s coordinator for the twin towns, Tanisha Clare, who explained what really happened in the selection process for the twin towns.

Tanisha care, SI/SE Coordinator: “We started early with the four delegates that we had and throughout that time some of the delegates fell out, some more came in. So we actually had seven young ladies who applied and who were training before the deadline of the selection of the delegates, which was May the 15th. And Miss Tinaya Castillo, who will be representing us for San Ignacio /  Santa Elena she stuck it out with the training, very diligent, very cooperative, and she just kept coming to the rehearsals. I believe that the best thing to have done was to just focus on the young ladies who were practicing already and go about doing the selection from there.”

Reporter: There are people who said that the selection process was shady, not transparent, what do you have to say to those ? 

Tanisha care, SI/SE Coordinator:  “Well, to me it was not shady because we did have applicants. These would have been the same young ladies in the pageant which we would have still done the same training that we have done with them and the selection would have been with a panel of judges. That’s the only difference. But with the trainer and myself, we watched how these young ladies rehearsed and we decided that since Ms. Tinaya stuck in it that long and up until that point no pageant was going to be held we felt like she was really doing a good job. So to make me, him, and his mom throw a whole pageant, that wouldn’t have made any sense.”

Reporter: So you said it was seven applicants, and in the end it was only her ? 

Tanisha care, SI/SE Coordinator: “Yeah.  And then about May when we had,  two of them left, Ms. Tinaya and a next young lady but the mayor has always said that if you have two young ladies it doesn’t make any sense you actually have a pageant. So just focus on those two and pick the one that we think would represent well. But the other young lady she fell out. With all the posting and stuff from Facebook I would like to tell the Belizean community like when a news station would put out something and the general public just jump on the post and comment whatever they want to comment. Like my name was on the post and I’m pretty sure that a lot of people in Belize know who I am. There’s not one individual in the entire country who took the time out and gave me a call or reach out on Facebook and ask Miss Tanisha what was the problem, you know ? Well it’s very transparent, I did all the communication between the council, the mayor, the national committee with everybody. So on our end it’s very transparent. But to the public, when someone puts out a post that is like that, then it makes everyone feel like, oh they’re doing stuff shading. But it’s not.”

According to Clare, while there was not direct political interference, there was the issue of the pageant committee which was made up of members of the previous town council.