‘Without your teachings’
Navajo Times | Donovan Quintero Vanessa Litson from Shiprock, smiles as the Miss Northern Navajo crown is fitted onto her head Friday night to become the 2015-2016 Miss Northern Navajo at the Phil L. Thomas Performing Arts Center in Shiprock.
Grandparents prominent in new Northern royalty’s lives
Navajo Times | Donovan Quintero
Vanessa Litson from Shiprock, smiles as the Miss Northern Navajo crown is fitted onto her head Friday night to become the 2015-2016 Miss Northern Navajo at the Phil L. Thomas Performing Arts Center in Shiprock.
SHIPROCK
Navajo Times | Donovan Quintero
Newly crowned Miss Northern Navajo Teen Nicole Keeswood from Shiprock, N.M., waves to the crowd on Friday at the Phil L. Thomas Performing Arts Center in Shiprock.
Girls in the Northern Agency have two new role models following the coronation Friday of Miss Northern Navajo and Miss Northern Navajo Teen.
The coronation came after a weeklong, emotionally charged competition that pitted seven young women against each other in a friendly clash for the crown. Emerging as champions were Vanessa Lister, who took the title of Miss Northern Navajo, and Nicole Keeswood, who will serve as Miss Northern Navajo Teen for the coming year. Both winners are from Shiprock.
Lister, 19, is Mexican clan, born for the One Walks Around clan. A 2014 graduate of Shiprock High School, she is now studying radiology at Pikes Peak Community College, in Colorado Springs, Colo.
She participated in the pageant even though her grandfather was sick. In an emotional speech after she was crowned, Lister spoke of her relationship with him.
“This competition was really hard on me,” she said. “My grandpa is in the hospital, and I just want to be there and show him my crown.”
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Highway 264,
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