When Tamara Henry, a local Santa Monica television personality, debuted the Green is Gorgeous Interactive eco-contest, Miss America 2010 decided to go green. In the months since then, people from across United States became part of a live online interactive experience; discussing environmental issues and voting for their favorite Miss Green.
In the end, 26,000 votes were cast in the contest and Henry interviewed the top five Green candidates.
“I was really impressed with their answers,” Henry said. “They knew what they were talking about with the environment. It was great hearing them deliberate on whether their state had geothermal energy or wind power.”
Kristina Samby, Miss Wisconsin, won the Green is Gorgeous award. MacKenzie Green, Miss Washington D.C., won the H.O.P.E. Award (Healing Our Planet Earth) for her work with green issues. Green was helping the White House to go green with her platform “Let’s Talk Trash.” The other Green is Gorgeous winners were Miss New Hampshire, Miss Oregon, Miss Alabama, and Miss Washington.
“What does being green mean to you?” was Henry’s favorite question and the most able to bring out the contestants’ personalities. She explained how this simple question enables a broad arena of answers from different perspectives and expertise, depending on the person’s line of work.
Henry is a news anchor and reporter for Santa Monica City TV 16, featuring positive news and interviewing city leaders about issues that impact the community. She is also host of Green T with Tamara, a webisode series about the environment which she created about a year ago and airs on Stay Tuned TV.
From 1991 to 1994, Henry competed in the Miss Arkansas pageant and placed in the top 10 twice. She was also the winner of the Fruit of the Loom “Quality of Life Award” and the Community Service Award for the program she created entitled “Promoting Health Through Whole Person Wellness” which was an inspirational program about mind, body, spirit, and Earth.
Competing in the Miss Arkansas Pageant earned Tamara scholarship money toward her Bachelors Degree in broadcast journalism, “My main mission in life has always been to combine spirituality with entertainment,’ said Henry.
“What we did at Green-with-Tamara.tv was using the contestants to showcase, inspire, and educate America,” said Henry. “People in Los Angeles and Santa Monica live in a little bubble which is nice and wonderful, but if you get to taste the nation and find out what it’s like where the farms girls live and so on, you really learn a lot,” said Henry.
MARISSA BOJIUC
Mirror Contributing Writermarissa@smmirror.com
Contact Marissa Bojiuc
marissa@smmirror.com
