Vanessa Nettingham, who will graduate from Eaglecrest High School May 27 with a 3.8 grade average, and who has a special affinity for the cartoon character Tweety Bird, dominated the 2006 Sigma Pearls Debutante Cotillion by being crowned queen and walking away with the event’s three top awards.
The Irma V. Simpson Visionary Award, the Sigma Pearl Scholarship Award and the Royal Sapphire Leadership Award were presented to her at the conclusion of the annual rite put on by Sigma Gamma Rho sorority’s Aurora alumnae chapter, Theta Zeta Sigma. Simpson, who started Sigma Gamma Rho’s Denver chapter 55 years ago, was a special guest at the cotillion.
The daughter of Larry and Devyn Nettingham of Aurora also is the recipient of the sorority’s 2006 Excellence in Leadership Award for supervising the debutantes’ participation in Coats for Colorado, one of several service projects the 11 debs completed before their presentation last Sunday at the Renaissance Denver Hotel. The debutantes collected 175 coats to be distributed to low-income Coloradans through the KMGH-Channel 7-sponsored Coats for Colorado drive.
Vanessa’s goal is to become a sports broadcaster and she hopes to land a media internship for the summer. Come fall, she heads to Fort Collins to major in technical journalism at Colorado State University. Her advice to other teens is “never let temporary people cause you to make permanent mistakes” and she enjoys spending time with, and adding to, her collection of 30 Tweety Bird items.
“She just shines,” observes Ollie Smith, who chaired the ball.
The Sigma Pearl debutante class also included two Daniels Fund scholarship recipients (Kiyasha Newson and E’vone Starks) and a Boettcher Scholar (Michelle Smith).
A senior at East High, where she is vice president of the Black Student Alliance and a student representative for the Collaborative School Committee, Newson has been a competitive bowler since she was 7. She acknowledges the sport doesn’t always receive the respect it deserves, but says it’s fun, good exercise and has enabled her to see some of the world. She traveled to Australia as a People to People Sports Program Ambassador and to California, where she won her division at the National Bowling Association Western Regionals, and can be seen on a Disney Channel segment on bowling.
Kiyasha is the daughter of Roslyn Washington and will study marketing and advertising at CU-Denver. Being a debutante was “a lot of work, but it was interesting and fun. And tonight it makes me feel all glamorous.”
E’vone Starks is the daughter of Danny and Paula Starks and has been accepted by the University of San Francisco, the University of Rochester, DePaauw University, the University of Denver, Regis University and Rhodes College. She’ll graduate from East, where she was captain of the volleyball team, with a GPA of 4.045.
The team made All City this year, and E’vone has been invited to play on the All State team this summer.
Boettcher Scholar Michelle Smith, daughter of Reuben and Anella Smith, will graduate in the Top 10 of her Gateway High School senior class and is the school’s 2006 inductee into the Academic Hall of Fame. She’ll be a biochemistry major at CU-Boulder, with the goal of becoming a neonatologist. She’s also a musician and dancer, serving as first chair cello in Gateway’s student orchestra and dancing with Aurora Dance Arts and Colorado Ballet. Michelle was on the varsity poms squad and the girls swim and tennis teams.
Les and Marianne Franklin’s granddaughter, Danielle Stark, also was presented at the cotillion. She’s a senior at East, will major in business at Florida A&M and has spent the past two years working as an intern with Denver Clerk and Recorder Wayne Vaden. Her mother, Shellianne Franklin, is proud of her daughter’s 3.0 GPA. Danielle plays flute in East’s concert band and volunteers at fundraisers hosted by the Shaka Franklin Foundation for Youth.
Arika Varney is graduating from East with a 3.2 GPA. She is first soprano in East’s Honor Choir and a cheerleader,and has received a $4,500 scholarship to Oakwood College, a Seventh-day Adventist school in Huntsville, Ala. She’d like to earn a law degree and devote her time to putting an end to stereotypes and the degradation of black women in America.
Kristy Henderson and Jasmine Mathes are members of the first graduating class at the new Cherokee Trail High School in Aurora.
Kristy is the daughter of Marcus and Adriana Henderson, has played basketball since she was 5, and hopes to continue wearing that number on her college jersey. In her junior year at Mullen High, she scored more than 300 points and, as a senior at Cherokee Trail, had 400 points and was selected to the all-conference first team. She is being courted by several schools, including Georgia State, and is expected to sign a national letter of intent soon. Jasmine, the daughter of Jocelyn Mack, is the co-founder and president of Cherokee Trail’s Multicultural Student Alliance and founder of the school’s Youth Advisory Board. She’s trying to decide between Arizona State and Ball State, but she knows she will major in broadcasting and continue with track and cheerleading. She is captain of the national champion Colorado Showstarz cheerleading squad and has been chosen four times to travel to Hawaii to be a part of the Pro Bowl cheerleading team. She also has won several national cheerleading honors.
Vanicia Goodman, daughter of Barbie McGhee, is a Smoky Hill senior who tried out for “American Idol” and has performed at the Cleveland School of the Arts and the Rock ‘N’ Roll Hall of Fame. She’s also a clothing designer and will attend the Fashion Institute of Design and Merchandise in San Diego. Jessica Drayton, daughter of Tracey and Christopher Drayton Sr., is a member of the French Honor Society at Eaglecrest and will major in journalism at the University of Northern Colorado.
Society editor Joanne Davidson can be reached at 303-809-1314 or jmdpost@aol.com.
