Tara gets a Platinum welcome

St. Lucia’s representative at the Miss Universe 2012 Pageant, Tara Edward, returned home last Sunday to a quiet but dignified welcome.

Platinum Travelers Club liaised with the local Franchise Holder, Joan Johnson, the St. Lucia Tourist Board Reps at Hewanorra International, Airport Security, Customs and the Sandals Lounge, to organize a VIP welcome for Tara. Platinum Travelers Club is the premier luxury transportation service provider on the island. The company made available to Tara, one of its chauffeur-driven luxury cars for her transfer from Hewanorra.

A bit jet-lagged but in good spirits, Tara was surprised and elated at the special treatment. Tara described her Miss Universe experience as “a lot of hard work and very eye-opening.” She gushed: “There’s so much more that I want to do now. Being part of Miss Universe makes you want to move forward and do more with yourself and you grow so much from the experience that you don’t realize it until the last few days.”

Tara says being a part of Miss Universe 2012 was “absolutely amazing.” She said: “I made friends and got close to Miss Sweden and my roommate, Miss Ethiopia.  All the girls were beautiful and friendly.”

Reflecting on the experience, Tara says the competition was very tough: “We had no idea who would make it to the top sixteen and all the girls were very eager on the night of the Show.”

Though she didn’t make it to the Top Sixteen, Tara said: “I think I did well. I got a lot a lot of love, especially from the Philippines and the supervisors of the Pageant. I’m happy to say that a lot of people know about St. Lucia. I met so many people who have been to St. Lucia and had good things to say about our island, and that made me feel better.”

Tara’s advice to other young women aspiring to represent St. Lucia at Miss Universe is: “it’s not easy, work hard, stay positive, remain humble and just be ready to work and to represent St. Lucia to the best of your ability.”

For now, Tara is basking in her Miss Universe experience. She hopes to enrol at Monroe College early in 2013 to begin taking advantage of her Scholarship.

Also on hand to welcome Tara home was her Manager, Joycie Mederick, who Tara as “very humble and very open to learning…so it made my job fairly easy.” She said Tara has had international exposure prior to Miss Universe, so she was quite comfortable with certain aspects of the pageant. In the final analysis, Joycie says she is very proud of Tara because in spite of the constraints that she encountered, she did pretty well. Joycie also thanked Platinum Travelers Club for extending its VIP Airport Transfer Service to Tara.