by Ed Bryant
Includes Photo: Caption: Shauntay Hinton
Shauntay Hinton is a happy, gloriously beautiful, well-spoken young lady of 23. A senior in Broadcast Journalism at Howard University in Washington DC, she is also this year's Miss USA. It's a long way from Starkville, Mississippi, her childhood home.
Most young ladies who place in the big beauty pageants start early, and are seasoned veterans by the time their big day comes. Not Shauntay. She saw a televised competition, thought "I can do that," and entered on line. A year later, the crown was hers. Unconventional? She's unconventional.
Shauntay, who calls Oprah Winfrey her role model, credits her two grandmothers, "extraordinary women," she calls them, with being her biggest positive examples. She told me how one of them even returned to college, in her late 60s, "to get her degree and live out one of her dreams."
Shauntay doesn't have diabetes, but both her grandmothers did, and both died from its complications. Now the "Miss Universe Organization," sponsor of the Miss USA competition, raises funds to fight breast cancer and ovarian cancer; but it also allows its winners to choose a charity goal of their own. Shauntay chose diabetes.
I asked her about the impact of diabetes on the African-American communities of the deep south, and she spoke of how, in rural areas, the poverty is reaching all-time highs -- causing real problems for folks who have trouble paying for their medications. But that's not the only problem.
"We don't pay enough attention to diabetes, compared to other conditions," she says. "With early detection, we can nip these things in the bud. There's a lot of new technology."
"The main message I want to get out," says Shauntay, "is to urge people to take better care of yourself."
She's not carrying her message alone. Insulin manufacturer Eli Lilly and Company helped out, by sponsoring Shauntay's trip to the ADA convention, so she could further her education about diabetes, and become a better spokesperson for the condition.
I found Shauntay Hinton well-prepared, well-spoken, engaging and intelligent. She's ambitious ("Oprah is almost as ambitious as I am," she says), and there's every reason to believe she'll succeed. During her reign, she'll go a lot of places, make a lot of appearances, and help spread the word about diabetes, and what we can do about it. Three cheers for Miss USA!