A phone call from Chancellor Martin, the inspiration of friends and a genuine passion for the Winston-Salem State University community all led to the election of Mignon Turner to direct students under her reign as Miss WSSU in the fall.
Turner, raised in Burlington, showed off her talent at the Miss Winston-Salem State University pageant with an impressive performance of Tai Kwon Do, in which she holds a black belt.
“I was really excited,” she said. “Running for Miss WSSU has been a dream of mine since my freshman year.” Turner admitted she was nervous, this being her first pageant. “I’m not a competition person.”
This young lady is apart of the varsity cheerleading squad but said that is more of a family atmosphere, therefore it’s different. The day after the pageant, Turner, who is a junior mass communications and Spanish double major, was voted in by a landslide to be crowned Miss WSSU, and she hopes to follow in the footsteps of Rolanda Patrick.
“Rolanda was great; she was a wonderful queen,” said Turner. “I think she was an inspiration.” Other people Turner considers vital devices of motivation and encouragement include Spanish professor Michael Brookshaw, SGA President Kristie Swink and Chancellor Harold Martin. She said: “The mass communications students are really inspiring. When I look at the leaders on campus, the people who do most of the speaking, the people who do all the organizing, a lot of those students are mass communications students.” These students inspire her to do well in the major as well as in the community.
Turner has shown her pride for the university by involving herself in activities that support the school’s events through athletics, SGA and sorority life since she entered the institution in 2000.
When asked why she decided to run for Miss WSSU, she said, “I have such pride for the school that I wanted to represent this pride in the community as well as on campus.” Turner acknowledged that she is proud of her school and the educational experience she is receiving. “I think that the outside community should see that students here are very proud in our university,” she said. Turner feels strongly about the whole perception of historically black colleges and universities (HBCUs) and wants to inform students in grade school that they can have an educational experience equal to or better than that of a very prestigious institution.
“I want to go out into the community and speak to high schools and middle schools, [and] talk to those students about the importance of attending HBCUs and tell them about the great opportunities they have.”
While students are under the supremacy of Turner during the 2003-04 year, she has a load of a plans and ideas that she thinks will better the university as whole. One of her campaign activities was going dorm to dorm, making students aware that they were free to talk to her about the changes they wanted implemented next year. She understands that she can’t represent the university well without the suggestions and opinions of students.
“That was really good because a lot of the suggestions that the students gave me were things that I would like to work on for next year.” One amendment Turner would like to make involves the transportation, or lack thereof, on campus. She would like to use one of the vans or buses to take students with no vehicles on frequent trips to Wal-Mart or the movies on the weekend.
“It would show that we’re trying to reach out to them in other ways than just forming activities. We want to make sure they’re taken care of within the educational arena as well as the social aspect.”
Turner also plans to develop a stronger unity among all the organizations on campus who sometimes have animosity toward each other. There could be workshops pertaining to fund raising, budget planning, or activity planning, where the queen or another from the organization would come to represent it as a whole. Someone who is a professional on the matter would give council and techniques on how to have a fulfilling year.
“I think that would give the organization the opportunity to not only increase their activities and fund raising capabilities but also the opportunity to work together and unify their members in their organizations.”
Turner also wants to establish more activities to build communication skills. She thinks that many of the student speakers at shows on campus do not speak as well as they should.”Our speech class is great at WSSU, but maybe we need to have speech classes outside of class.”
This could be a collaborative effort with increasing the communication between faculty and students. Turner said that if the faculty would have the students more involved with the plans, as far as speakers, students would be more interested and willing to participate if they feel like they were involved in the planning process.
The issue of going out into the neighboring grade schools with the other university queens is yet another plan.”Rolonda had the queens involved in community service activities. That’s something I’d also like to continue.”Turner pointed out that even after coronation, the queens are just as important and that they should represent their individual organizations just as she would the entire school.
“The more positive people we have, just like the queens and kings showing their leadership skills, the higher our approval rate of WSSU, and more people will believe in our school as a great school for higher education,” Turner said.
Upon graduation, Turner would like to attend Georgetown University to achieve her master’s in international affairs, and then receive her doctorate in public administration. One day she would like to work for a school system with international education. Even more, she hopes she will still have room to work for an embassy or the United Nations.
Expressing her desire to also help unite communities through nonprofit organizations in her future career, Turner is clearly eager and willing to embrace and work with WSSU, adding that, “The best thing about a leader is being able to help others become leaders.
Contact Janell J. Lewis at jlewis@thenewsargus.com.