Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: THURSDAY, September 28, 1995 TAG: 9509280009
SECTION: NEIGHBORS PAGE: S-1 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: ELLEN DAVIES SPECIAL TO THE ROANOKE TIMES
DATELINE: LENGTH: Medium
Desir, a second-grader at Roanoke Catholic School, was one of five youngsters nationwide who won a chance to edit Barbie, Magazine for Girls, for a day this summer. She also won what her mother calls a New York City "trip of a lifetime."
In her entry for a contest sponsored by the magazine, Mattel Toys and Payless Shoe Stores, Desir wrote about "things I like to do with my Barbie, and me, and all about the magazine.
"I wrote about making Jell-O Barbie - using a Barbie-shaped cake pan. I wrote that I wanted to be an editor, because it is like what I want to do when I grow up.''
Desir said her mom, Dawn Lewis, helped her come up with activities to send to the magazine.
Barbie, she said, "is fun, and it's like she is a real person. You can make her do anything. You can make her be like you are or whatever you want her to be when you grow up."
The opportunity to be an editor at Barbie Magazine - if only for a day - made winning the contest even more exciting for Desir, because "it is my favorite magazine."
"The magazine tells you different things about Barbie, and it tells you different stories about Barbie and about girls. I really wanted to win,'' said Desir, insisting the trip "was the most fun ever."
And she has a Barbie scrapbook to prove it.
"We got to go to a real editor's meeting," she said. "We saw how everything worked ... and we helped them by telling things that we liked about the magazine."
While the magazine was interesting, New York City was even more exciting, according to Desir.
"[New York] was way bigger than [Roanoke], except there are no mountains, but lots of tall buildings everywhere," she said of her first trip to the Big Apple.
"We got to ride in a limousine, and we took a carriage ride in Central Park, which is really big."
The trip "opened up a whole world [that] who knows if I could have ever shown her," said Desir's mom, who works full time and is studying social work at Radford University.
Lewis, also a Barbie fan, said the doll and the trip have had a positive impact on her daughter's life.
"It gives her an outlet for her to play-act the emotions that she has, and that is productive," Lewis said.
"When [Desir] is angry with me, I will catch her play-acting with her Barbies, and I kind of just smile and walk away," said Lewis. "Let the Barbies yell; that's OK."
Lewis pointed out that Barbie is not only a fashion model, but also a doctor, firefighter and lawyer. "I think there is a magic world of Barbie, but I don't know why or where it comes from.
"Desir is able to be more than one Barbie, more than one character, so therefore she can explore role models of who she might want to be." said Lewis, adding,
the magazine's staff became role models for the winners.
Elsye Spiewak, editor of the bi-monthly magazine, said the theme around Barbie is: "We girls can do and be anything, and Barbie can do and be anything."
Since the magazine is for girls, why not have girls participate in creating the magazine?" she said.
"[Barbie] gets a lot of negative press sometimes, because people just see her as a plastic, good-looking doll, and they don't understand the whole concept behind her," said Spiewak.
Desir's interest in Barbie dolls is not unique, she said. "It's amazing how into Barbie they are. It's like following a family history. It becomes part of their lives."
"I think [the visit to the magazine] changed a lot of their lives," Spiewak said of Desir and other four winners.
Besides her interest in dolls, Desir said she likes to read and write stories and is involved in Brownies and cheerleading. She owns other dolls, but she insists she plays mostly with Barbies.
"Some people might just like Barbie, and some people might just love her," she said. "I love her."
by CNB