by Yaya Mavundla

February is known to be a month of love around the globe, but in Daveyton on Friday, 7th February 2014 it wasn’t the case.

Lesiba Mothibe hosted the annual pageant Miss Valentine at Two Tone Lounge in Basothong section Daveyton matching the standard to what any other top-notch pageant would be like.
Six contestants from the area contested for the title.

The pageant was schedule to take place at 19:00 but due to unforeseen circumstances the show started two hours later.  Thankfully there was a cash bar and it kept a lot of people occupied as they quenched their thirst.

When the event eventually kicked off, people got very excited. The MC for the evening was the bubbly Xoli Ntsebesa, who welcomed everyone who was at the pageant. She mentioned and thanked all the sponsors and people who were involved in making the pageant a success.

In the first category, contestants had to introduce themselves to the audience.

Kgomotso “Cuteness” Mashapa, 22 who later on in the evening took the Miss Valentine 2014 title, failed to properly introduce herself, leaving her fans very disappointed.

Thabo Menu, 19 who was the 1^st Princess and Miss Personality, was so shy to the extent that she could only say ‘Good evening my name is Thabo also known as Miss T” and the MC requested that she introduce herself again. On her second attempt you could still tell that she was not comfortable.

The 2^nd Princess was the bubbly Kats Kgope, 19 impressed the audience with her lingerie presentation and answered her question like any well trained Miss S.A would answer her question.  She however but did not impress with her evening gown as it wasn’t fitting well and kept falling and exposing her breasts.

Despite so much work put in by the organizers, there was a problem with the running of the programme and the music was not what the contestants had rehearsed to. Tensions were high and the MC used unprintable language. She later apologized for being unprofessional.

Ndumiso Nhlengethwa, one of the judges caused further confusion by abandoning his duties and going backstage to give contestants new instructions.  He did not communicate the changes with the organizers and MC and that confused everyone as well as the audience. The judges table and DJ did not understand why they expected one thing but contestants were doing the other. Lesiba Mothibe did not take that too well.

During the intervals Glam Diva who was the audience favourite, performed two songs by Beyonce – “Girls, Run The World” and “End of Time” which are very popular within the LGBTI events.

Nathi Dlamini, who did a Lebo Mathosa performance, dedicated it to all the people who did not like drag queens. “This performance I’m about to do is dedicated to everyone who does not like us drag queens but pretends to be our friends” she said.

Sicka Star-ban Jones and Major Short were also amongst other performers for the night.

The audience had their own favourite contestants during the event. When it was time for judges to ask all the finalist questions, most contestants couldn’t answer. One contestant responded by saying “I would like to change my personality and fashion because I do not like it” to the question “If you were to change something about yourself tonight at this pageant what would it be and why?”.

The answer was received with mixed emotions by the audience; some of the people in the audience couldn’t help but laugh.

After the crowning, Kgomotso “Cuteness” Mashapa was so overwhelmed by emotions. She could not verbalise her feelings. It was her first pageant win in all her pageant history. When asked about how she felt about the win and experience she described it as amazing. “I’m so happy, this is amazing, thank you so much” she responded.

Lesiba was happy with the result and the production and during her interview she said “I’m glad that everything went according to plan, yes there will always be things that you are not happy about when hosting such events but today I’m happy and the response is positive so far.
I would like to thank Two Tone Lounge for allowing us to host such an event at their venue. Zanele Muholi for sponsoring the prize. Candice Nkosi for doing the girls Make-up and everyone else who was involved”, she concluded.

Right after the pageant the white draping on stage was ripped off and a massive party started and everyone partied like they are at PRIDE.

Previous by Yaya

2014 Feb.11: What to get your partner this Valentine’s Day