THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1996, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Sunday, June 23, 1996 TAG: 9606210225
SECTION: CHESAPEAKE CLIPPER PAGE: 10 EDITION: FINAL
SOURCE: BY ERIC FEBER, STAFF WRITER
LENGTH: 120 lines
Thomanita L. ``Nita'' Booth, one of the youngest young women to win the Miss Chesapeake competition, used her stage savvy and performing prowess to capture the crown.
The 17-year-old Indian River High School graduate will leave today for Roanoke where she will compete with four other Chesapeake hopefuls (see related story) and young women all across the commonwealth for the title of Miss Virginia, a preliminary to the Miss America Pageant held annually in Atlantic City.
The daughter of Elaine McDaniel won the 1996 Miss Chesapeake Pageant in the spring. Although the competition is open to ages 17-25, the pageant title is usually won by someone in their early to mid-20s.
But relying on an incandescent smile, boundless energy, lots of natural talent and drawing from performing experience that included a four-year stint as a Mouseketeer on the Disney cable television channel's ``Mickey Mouse Club,'' Booth won the pageant's talent and swimsuit competitions and the overall title of Miss Chesapeake 1996.
Not bad for a first attempt.
In fact, winning the city title and her high school pageant last winter were dreams Booth held for many years.
Spurred on by the pageant wins of her friends Kenyatta Brown, a former Miss Williamsburg, and Tracy Blizzard, who won the Miss Portsmouth Seawall, and her family's own recent history, Booth decided to give the pageant a whirl.
``After watching my friends compete in their pageants, I knew I wanted to do something like that, too,'' Booth said. ``And years earlier my aunt competed in both the Miss Chesapeake and Miss Indian River pageants. No matter what I did I always had this dream of winning those pageants.''
Booth said she had hopes of simply placing in the recent Chesapeake pageant.
``Never in a million years did I think I would win,'' she said. ``There were just so many other girls with a whole lot more experience. And they were all so very talented.''
But so is Booth.
Her performing career began when she was a 3-year-old sitting with her mom at choir practice.
``I would sit there and try to sing the words very loud,'' she said. ``Later my mom would teach me the words so I could sing along. My family then started teaching me to sing. My whole family was talented. Everybody in the family sang.''
Full of desire to hit the stage, thanks to her family's tutelage, she joined the Center Stage program, a Norfolk-based children's performance troupe. From there she joined On Cue Productions, another young person's performance program, and finally hooked up with the Hurrah Players regional children theater.
``When I was very young, my grandmother would help me learn my lines until I finally learned how to read,'' Booth said. ``After that I learned how to read music when I was about 7 or 8.''
Booth studied voice and later began to work with one of the area's most loved and successful voice teachers, Emma Harris.
``With Mrs. Harris you learn how to breathe, you learn diction and clarity,'' she said. ``She works hard and makes sure you know how to perfect a song. She worked with me for the Miss Chesapeake Pageant. After I won that she told me we had to go back to work again.''
Besides working with Harris, Booth has had an extremely busy schedule graduating from high school and taking additional classes at the Portsmouth campus of Tidewater Community College. With school over she said she's finally gotten the opportunity to fully concentrate on all the work necessary to prepare for Miss Virginia.
She said she worked hard with Brown, now a history teacher at Indian River High School, and Shaun Edmonds, an English teacher at Indian River, on her pageant interview.
``Kenyatta (Brown) shared her pageant experiences with me so when I go to Miss Virginia I won't go in there blind,'' she said. ``They both grilled me in mock interviews so I would know how they feel.''
Booth said she's been working out to maintain tip-top physical shape needed for the pageant, has been busy rehearsing her song ``There's a Winner in You'' for the talent competition, has been devouring print and television news to keep up with current events and trends for the interview and has been working with a local seamstress designing her pageant wardrobe.
For her pageant platform, a cause and community action plan required by each contestant, Booth will champion ``Inspiring Youth With Art.'' She said she hopes to implement, hopefully with help from the Chesapeake Fine Arts Commission, a program where talented children who can't normally afford it, be given the opportunity to take valuable arts classes and training.
``I see and talk to kids every day who always ask me, `How do I get involved?' and it takes money to take special arts classes,'' Booth said. ``Talented kids need these special classes and training to hone and perfect their talent. The arts will help at-risk kids stay off the streets and help teach them disciplines they'll need in life.''
Booth may be nervous about the pageant, but she is confident in her stage ability, thanks to the four years she spent as a Mouseketeer with the new edition of the ``Mickey Mouse Club'' or ``MMC,'' as it's now called.
``The experience with Disney was a whole new world,'' she said. ``It was nothing I was used to. But I did meet a lot of famous people and learned a lot about performing and behind the scenes production which I'm very interested in. It made me discover that I was in love with the technical aspect of music production.''
Booth plans to enter Hampton University in the fall, where she will major in mass communications with an emphasis on music studio production and technology.
All of that interest developed after she became a ``Mickey Mouse Club'' veteran. She partly thanks Hugh Copeland, Hurrah Players director, for her Disney experience.
She said she was with the Players when Copeland, keen on spotting young talent, suggested that Booth and a couple of other promising members of the troupe travel to Washington, D.C., to participate in regional auditions.
After several call backs and screen tests, she was finally signed at the age of 12 to a four-year contract as an official new Mouseketeer on the Disney cable television channel. She had to move to Orlando, Fla., where the show was taped.
For four years Booth sang, rapped, acted, did comedy and danced on ``Mickey Mouse Club'' episodes. During that time she also participated in a ``Mickey Mouse Club'' record album tour and performed in a USO European tour as a Mouseketeer.
Although the series has now finally ceased producing new episodes after eight years, the program is still broadcast on the Disney Channel. Booth can still be seen on a daily basis.
She now hopes the next time she appears on television she'll be a Miss Virginia winner. ILLUSTRATION: Photo
Thomanita L. ``Nita'' Booth
Miss Chesapeake by CNB