How a rural girl became Mrs Universe T&T

In­nis Fran­cis

Weigh­ing in on the va­garies of ge­og­ra­phy and the chal­lenges faced by a young girl grow­ing up in hum­ble cir­cum­stances in Ma­yaro, Meguel­la Si­mon now car­ries a crown that ap­pears sim­ple to wear, borne with pride and de­ter­mi­na­tion, yet heavy with the hopes of a na­tion.

A 44-year-old moth­er of one with a pas­sion for phil­an­thropy, Si­mon is a sec­ondary school teacher, ca­lyp­son­ian, and com­mu­ni­ty leader serv­ing on sev­er­al cul­tur­al and ed­u­ca­tion­al boards. Beau­ty pageants were the fur­thest things from her mind as a child; she was more at home climb­ing fruit trees and play­ing crick­et in open spaces.

As an adult, Si­mon left Ma­yaro to pur­sue a Bach­e­lor of Ed­u­ca­tion at the Uni­ver­si­ty of Trinidad and To­ba­go (UTT), fol­lowed by a mas­ter’s de­gree in Car­ni­val Stud­ies and lat­er a mas­ter’s in Ed­u­ca­tion at The Uni­ver­si­ty of the West In­dies (UWI). En­cour­aged by peers, she even­tu­al­ly ac­cept­ed the chal­lenge to don heels, wear a sash, and rep­re­sent both com­mu­ni­ty and coun­try. She steadi­ly built an im­pres­sive pageantry ré­sumé, plac­ing con­sis­tent­ly among top con­tes­tants—in­clud­ing mul­ti­ple sec­ond run­ner-up and two first run­ner-up fin­ish­es—and be­com­ing the first black woman and first woman of colour to place in the top five of an in­ter­na­tion­al com­pe­ti­tion in its 48-year his­to­ry.

Si­mon now steps in­to the role of Mrs Uni­verse Trinidad and To­ba­go, hop­ing to bring home the in­ter­na­tion­al ti­tle when she trav­els to Sri Lan­ka in Oc­to­ber.

Mrs Uni­verse Trinidad and To­ba­go was first rep­re­sent­ed by Alvea­da Meah in 2023. Now the lo­cal fran­chise hold­er, Meah en­cour­ages ma­ture women to pur­sue their dreams.

“I opened the door for oth­ers to fol­low by se­cur­ing the lo­cal fran­chise,” she shared, ex­tend­ing the op­por­tu­ni­ty to women will­ing to rep­re­sent their coun­try.

But Si­mon’s jour­ney bears lit­tle re­sem­blance to the tra­di­tion­al pageant sto­ry. Un­like many girls who dream of a beau­ty stage, she once as­pired to be­come a doc­tor, get mar­ried, and have chil­dren. She de­scribed her­self as a skin­ny tomboy who did not be­lieve she fit the im­age as­so­ci­at­ed with pageantry.

Pur­su­ing her stud­ies, Si­mon checked off all but two items on her life list. She did not be­come a doc­tor, nor did she mar­ry. In­stead, she be­came a moth­er and a ded­i­cat­ed sci­ence teacher at Mara­bel­la South Sec­ondary School. She al­so won the 2020 vir­tu­al Ca­lyp­so Queen com­pe­ti­tion with her song Stop the Vic­tim Blam­ing.

Af­ter she came out a failed com­mon-law re­la­tion­ship, her daugh­ter be­came her biggest sup­port­er.

She said, “My re­al in­tro­duc­tion in­to pageantry came through my daugh­ter. At the age of six, she de­cid­ed that her ca­reer path was go­ing to take her to be Miss Uni­verse, and for her ca­reer day at school, she dressed the part. As any good moth­er, I set out to learn as much as I could so she could re­alise her dream. I en­tered her in a Lit­tle Miss Con­fi­dence Pageant, and to en­hance her ex­pe­ri­ence, I en­rolled in the se­nior as­pect of the com­pe­ti­tion, not fo­cus­ing on com­pe­ti­tion but on gain­ing knowl­edge so I could help her.

“Af­ter that ex­pe­ri­ence, how­ev­er, she de­cid­ed that she didn’t like it any­more, and life con­tin­ued as usu­al with me just be­ing a hard-work­ing mom and ed­u­ca­tor. Life was sim­ple, and I was hap­py. That was un­til I found my­self strug­gling in a con­sum­ing re­la­tion­ship where I con­vinced my­self I was still hap­py, even though I did not recog­nise my­self in the mir­ror. At 38, I won­dered what I was go­ing to do. A sin­gle moth­er again? I felt old and un­at­trac­tive. I had al­lowed some­one else to de­fine who I was, un­til I re­gained my iden­ti­ty.”

As she re­claimed her iden­ti­ty, Si­mon found re­newed pur­pose through pageantry and ser­vice. She em­braced the poise re­quired for an Eman­ci­pa­tion pageant, earn­ing awards for Best Evening Gown, Best Cul­tur­al Wear, and Most Pho­to­genic Del­e­gate, while fin­ish­ing as first run­ner-up.

“I felt alive again and dri­ven, and, in my heart, I kept think­ing about my daugh­ter and how I want­ed to nev­er al­low her to see me in such a melan­choly state again. And guess what, I start­ed to en­joy pageantry. I be­gan look­ing for com­pe­ti­tions that I could en­ter, but every­one said that there was noth­ing for women my age,” Si­mon said.

Feel­ing con­fi­dent, she en­tered the Miss Mag­nif­i­cent Mom San Fer­nan­do com­pe­ti­tion, where she placed sec­ond run­ner-up.

Si­mon said, “Even though I was not the win­ner, I was proud of my­self. From Mag­nif­i­cent Mom, the next year, aid­ed by my daugh­ter and stu­dents I teach, they in­sist­ed that I en­ter the Mrs Uni­verse Trinidad and To­ba­go Pageant. Now, this was be­yond my imag­i­na­tion, the pos­si­bil­i­ty of rep­re­sent­ing Trinidad and To­ba­go. Plac­ing first run­ner-up lo­cal­ly meant that I was go­ing to make the im­pos­si­ble pos­si­ble; I was go­ing to rep­re­sent the coun­try at Mrs Woman of the Uni­verse in South Ko­rea. This girl was now sail­ing be­yond the shores, and with pride and joy, I rep­re­sent­ed, leav­ing the mark as the first woman of colour to make it in the top five in the 48 years of the com­pe­ti­tion by plac­ing sec­ond run­ner-up and re­ceiv­ing a spe­cial award, Mrs Su­per Star.”

To­day, Si­mon con­tin­ues to cham­pi­on sis­ter­hood, re­silience, and em­pow­er­ment. She car­ries her ti­tle with re­spect for fel­low queens while re­main­ing ground­ed in her jour­ney. She is prepar­ing to rep­re­sent Trinidad and To­ba­go again as Mrs Uni­verse Trinidad and To­ba­go in Sri Lan­ka this Oc­to­ber. For her, pageantry is not sim­ply a com­pe­ti­tion but a plat­form for im­pact and change.

She said, “To the rur­al girl, don’t just see the shore­line; aim for what’s be­yond the hori­zon. To the woman who feels like she’s los­ing her­self, don’t let oth­ers de­fine you. To all moth­ers, beau­ty does not fade with moth­er­hood. To the ma­ture woman, don’t let age out­line your beau­ty and your lim­its. To the woman who is in an abu­sive re­la­tion­ship, it’s time for a turn­around.”

Beau­ty pageants were once de­signed pri­mar­i­ly to judge con­tes­tants on phys­i­cal ap­pear­ance. Mod­ern pageants, how­ev­er, em­pha­sise “in­ner beau­ty”, recog­nis­ing per­son­al­i­ty, in­tel­li­gence, ap­ti­tude, moral char­ac­ter, and char­i­ta­ble work.

“While pageantry was ini­tial­ly not some­thing I as­pired to, I nev­er con­sid­ered my­self glam­orous. My per­spec­tive to­day is that all women are glam­orous.

“If my jour­ney en­cour­ages even one woman to stop defin­ing her­self through some­one else’s lens, then the crown be­comes more than a ti­tle; it be­comes a tool for trans­for­ma­tion. I in­tend to go be­yond the crown by us­ing my plat­form to ed­u­cate, to share my sto­ry, and to let my voice be heard through var­i­ous means, in­clud­ing my mu­sic. Every­one can look out for a song that will be re­leased be­fore my de­par­ture to Sri Lan­ka,” Si­mon said.