Pageant News Bureau - Lissa Mariel Brown

None of us is "only human." Every person on earth is as varied as life itself, thanks to a legion of ancestors stretching back to antiquity. Every person has some distant forebears who were wise, some who were foolish. Some who were gorgeous, some who were unappealing. Some who were righteous, and some who were wicked. Some who looked very much like us, and some we would never recognize. Whatever kind of people they were, a little of each of them still lives in us.

When you take that broad view of humanity, labels mean very little. But we still like to use them. We fill out countless forms defining ourselves as white, black, Asian, Hispanic, Teutonic, Slavic, Semitic, other, etc. "Please check only one box."

Some people are very unhappy with all this labeling. But we think there's nothing wrong with it, as long as it's done in moderation. After all, if there weren't so many categories of people, there wouldn't be so many varieties of pageants.

Lissa Mariel Brown fits beautifully into many categories: Black, Latina, African-American, Panamanian-American, Southerner, college student, broadcaster, cheerleader, petite model. She fits so beautifully that she has competed in a remarkable range of pageants.

She's Ms. Nubian America 2002, a title that combines the names of a contemporary superpower and an ancient African kingdom. She was Miss North Carolina Belleza Latina 2001. She has been been queen of her sorority, homecoming queen of Georgia State University (a huge, mostly white school), a finalist at Miss Petite Georgia. She has been a swimsuit winner, a fitness winner, second runner-up at Miss Black Georgia and first runner-up at Miss Georgia Bronze. (Or was it the other way around?)

That's a lot of boxes to check.

Of course, like all good beauty queens, she is also a high achiever, a dedicated volunteer worker, a girl with a future. But what we really like about her is her crowns.

Yes, Ms. Brown has worn many crowns. Large ones, small ones, some with a blinding glitter, some with a mellow glow. And she likes to wear them with all sorts of clothes: swimsuits, gowns, sweaters and jeans.

Did you ever hear of the "corona effect"? PNB scientists first postulated its existence a few years ago. The theory is that when a young woman has worn enough crowns, there is a faint crown-like aura that can sometimes be detected above her head. When we look at Ms. Brown, we see this aura.

We don't see any label. But who cares?

What do you call a beauty?