Shayla Bond, Saginaw’s 2023 Miss Juneteenth, pledges to serve as a role model. She achieved her honor in a weekend pageant tied to a second annual parade and downtown festival.
“I wish nothing more than to help other black girls believe in their beauty and power, despite being in a world that doesn’t always see it,” she wrote in her pageant entry outline. “It’s important to see people who look like us as examples of success.”
Shayla is a 2022 graduate of SASA, the Saginaw Arts and Sciences Academy, who begins her freshman year this fall at Eastern Michigan University. She aims to pursue a career in the field of psychology.
After she received her crown in front of a Horizons Center audience of 200, she added, “For the pageant my chosen platform was to support the arts in our community. I decided to work with the Saginaw Art Museum in their efforts to preserve art in its many shapes and forms. After attending a school with such heavy emphasis on the liberal arts and coming to understand how that use of expression can be so important, I want to help bring that understanding to other people.”
She selected a poetry format. A video can be found on Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/1191192902/videos/1002807251076474/
The daughter of Robert and Shannon Bond took a year off after SASA to contemplate her future, taking note of skyrocketing college costs and aiming to put her expenses and credit hours to maximum value.
“I didn’t want to go and waste money,” she simplifies.
She moves on to explain, “During my time away from school I made it a point to research possible careers and really weigh pros and cons. I spent the year working and saving money for this upcoming fall at school.”
Shayla has strongly considered teaching and still has not ruled out the classroom, but she says low wages are steering her away. (This no doubt will gain nodding acknowledgement among the educators, too numerous to name, who helped to guide her along the way.)
Her research has shown “a need for psychologists,” as mental health emerges on the issues agenda, both nationally and locally. Shayla would see this as an alternative form of teaching. She adds that many of her peers are interested in performing community and public service types of careers.
The Miss Juneteenth Pageant was part of a second annual weekend parade and downtown festival. Kimora Kinnard of Carrollton High School achieved Miss Teen Juneteenth and Lauryn Newton was named Little Miss Juneteenth.
