Kerikeri catwalk just the start
Fourteen-year-old Okaihau College student Tohu Harris has been heard to say that her mum, Hiraina Mitai-Harris, pushed her into the Miss Teen Far North pageant in Kerikeri on Saturday night. It’s a charge that Mum doesn’t deny.
“I pushed her into it to build her confidence,” Mrs MitaiHarris said.
“She has said that she entered to please Mum.”
The teenager was also egged on by her older cousin, 17-yearold Charlotte Chapman-Kete, but confidence may not have been lacking even before she stepped on to the catwalk at the Turner Centre.
She has plans to attend Brigham Young University in Hawaii, to study digital arts, and would then like to work in fashion and design in London.
Meanwhile Tohu had some high-powered backing on Saturday night. Her mother had Facebooked her family in Hastings in the hope that someone would be able to find an evening gown, and one of the clan, Miss Universe NZ contestant Jewel Harris, came up trumps, dispatching a gown she wore in the pageant in Auckland.
Meanwhile a number of theories have been offered to explain the remarkable success enjoyed by the hamlet of Mangamuka Bridge on Saturday night. Charlotte won the Miss Far North title, with her first cousin Sharon Edmonds-Chapman as runner-up; Tohu, another cousin, was crowned Miss Teen Far North; and a third cousin, Blue Hill, was named Miss Personality.
Charlotte, Sharon and Blue all attend Broadwood Area School, and work after school at the Mangamuka Dairy, which is owned by Charlotte’s proud mum, Eliza Chapman-Kete, who had a simple explanation for the family’s success.
“I think they’re just naturally beautiful here,” she said. (Mrs Mitai-Harris reckoned her daughter had inherited all sorts of qualities from her father, but her beauty definitely came from her maternal line).
Mrs Chapman-Kete said Saturday night was her daughter’s first beauty pageant — the closest she had been before was competing in Rockquest in a school band — and she was normally more at ease in gumboots than high heels, but that hadn’t stopped her from winning the Miss Catwalk title.
Preparation for the pageant included walking up and down Mangamuka hill to “trim her legs,” she added.
Her daughter could represent the Far North in Miss Earth NZ, but that would depend on study commitments.
Charlotte planned to study hospitality management at QRC Tai Tokerau in Paihia next year.