Free Teens USA held its 3rd Annual Mr. & Miss Free Teens USA Royal Pageant Competition on May 5 at Passaic County Community College in Paterson, NJ. Nine contestants competed for top prizes in the King, Queen and Princess categories.

Competing for King was Alan Akins 15 years old from the Clair Memorial Club in Jersey City. The 5 contestants for Queen included Shaquirah Griffin, 15, from the Higher Call Church Club in Jersey City; Dominique Hart, 17, from the Doles Center Club in Mt. Vernon; T’naiya Kearney, 16, from St. Peter’s Club in Newark; Nicole Paterson, 15, from Seminary Baptist Club in Paterson; and Tonia Ford, 14, Clair Memorial Club in Jersey City. The 3 contestants for Princess included Tatianna Corselli, 13, from the Nepperhan Community Center Club in Yonkers; Fanny Sesay 12, Clair Memorial Club in Jersey City; and Shanell Marsh, 11, from the One Nation Under God Club in Yonkers.  

The pageant judges for this year’s competition were Alonzo Moody, Director of the Paterson Department of Youth Services Bureau; Mrs. Barbara Gardner, a Community Realtor from Bergen County, NJ and Cynthia Jackson, Municipal Court Judge from Jersey City, NJ.  The contestants were judged on Content, Creativity and Delivery for their essays and Purity/Modesty, Creativity and Delivery for their performances.

Many in the audience expressed how difficult it was to determine which of the contestants gave the best speeches or performances.  In the words of the co-MC’s Jamal Johnson and Ashley Robinson, “I wouldn’t want to be a Judge”. The 2007 Mr. & Miss Free Teens USA winners will be announced at the 9th Annual Free Teens USA Banquet on Sunday, June 10th at the Hilton Hotel in Fort Lee, NJ.
Read essays from this years competition.

Following are several of the speeches given by this year’s contestants:

Dominique Hart
Doles Center Club, Mt. Vernon, NY
Contestant for Queen

Picture this. You’re in a race. Within this race are many distractions. Think about your own personal distractions.  Some of yours might be hangin’ out with the “in” crowd, having the cutest, or just cute, boyfriend, learning the latest dances, etc. Then I want you to think about your goals. Some of your goals may include being the top student in your class, graduating college, or even becoming Mr. or Miss Free Teens USA yourself.  All of which are good, but it has to be important and have meaning to you so that those very same distractions do not steer you down the wrong path causing you to not finish the race (in this case, your goals).
 So many people that surround me everyday of my life are not as careful about their sexuality as they want to be or as they try to be. They think that it is a cool and dandy until something negative happens to them, such as, becoming a fulltime parent instead of remaining a fulltime student. When this happens, they begin to feel like “Whoa is me” or “Why did this happen to me?” When consequences like this come into effect, it is even more motive for me to abstain from sex until marriage.
I understand that abstaining from sex will be difficult. But I would rather not worry about anything in terms of infections, pregnancies or anything of that nature. I do not want the burden, nor do I want to stress about if “I am healthy or not.” You have to admit it, when you are free from guilt, you feel light, carefree and careless. You can focus on tasks given to you; you do not have to worry about anything because you have done no wrong. But when you are the opposite, everything in terms of yourself is opposite. You feel depressed, always stressed out about something you did in the past that might end in bad consequences for you.
For me personally, I do not want to be apart of any statistic that is not in my best interest for myself or my future. Besides if I followed the crowd and the world, in the end, they will not be there to help me along when something bad comes my way, like HIV or AIDS for example. So if I know certain things like that are going to happen, if I pursue that road of premarital sex, then why I would do that in the first place.
I don’t know about anyone else but I love my body, my life and my future that I am continuing to plan for my wellbeing. So anything that does not correspond to my initial plans, then it is not something I want to do or even be apart of. Staying healthy, positive, and pure is all I want for myself, my future family. The only way I will continue that or even pass this practice on is start now when I am a young adult. The earlier I begin to practice this beneficial habit, the better off I will be if I continue to do so. Besides I want to be a great role model for my children when I grow up to be a wonderful mother, like my mother, who doesn’t anyway?

Fanny Sesay
Clair Memorial Club, Jersey City, NJ
Contestant for Princess

I choose to be abstinent because I love my body. I choose to be abstinent because of emotional damage caused by sex. I choose to be abstinent to stay healthy and strong. Why do I choose to be abstinent? There are millions of answers. I have the great honor of telling you my answer to the question:

My body is one of my top priorities. I have to dress modestly and respect what happens to me. Going around having uncommitted sex is not respecting my body. I want to save my gift for the right one who will love me for me and will cherish my gift as much as I do.

Emotions cause horrible things, like suicides and massacres. To protect myself from such things I choose to be abstinent. No one wants to feel hurt, especially me. Who wants to be depressed? But these are the side effects of early sex. Your heart is broken into tiny pieces when you are used for sex.

I want to be healthy for my future husband–without any diseases. While I’m abstinent I am avoiding all diseases caused by sex, such as deadly HIV, incurable STD’s, and many, many more. Some people may say some diseases are curable. Well I say no disease is curable. There’s still the guilt of getting that disease and paying to get it out of your system. The disease may be curable physically, but it’s still there emotionally. So it’s like it never went away.

I have chosen to refrain from sex until marriage because I want to live a long and happy life.  If I have sex before marriage it would cause me to not be able to fulfill my life long dreams.  I want to be a successful leader.  Sex before marriage will make it harder for me to do things that teens do.  Like have fun, because I could get pregnant and become a parent.  I could cause my health to be bad.  Like have AIDS, Gonorrhea or Chlamydia.  Some of the other bad things is that I could die at a young age or pass the STD’s on to other people.

I have chosen to refrain from sex until marriage because it can mess up my future.  You aren’t supposed to have sex until marriage because you will given up your freedom to be a Free Teen.  Free from all the problems that people that have sex have.  I have dreams and they include a happy home with a mother and a father for my future children.  A dream of being healthy until I am older.  A dream of being free from all of the problems that come along with being sexually active before I am old enough.  Free Teens has taught me that positive information can be helpful in positive decisions.  With this information it has shown me that it is a great choice to refrain from sex before marriage.

I have chosen this for my life and it is the most positive thing that I have ever done.