A debutante ball wouldn’t be the same without all the feel-good, fairy-tale traditions like beautiful gowns, exquisite flowers and enough tears to fill an ocean. Even if the girls being presented don’t fit the stereotypes of old.
Case in point: the 44th Debutante Presentation of Beta Rho Sigma chapter of Sigma Gamma Rho sorority. The 13 honorees — though gorgeous and dewy-eyed — included Krystal Green, an up-and-coming boxer; Ealasha Marshbank, who graduated in the top 10 of her East High School senior class, with a 4.1 GPA; Lynnikka Draper, a cheerleader who uses that skill to help keep young lives on the straight and narrow through the Wyatt Edison Open Door Youth Gang Alternatives; and ShaTawna Young, the Colorado representative to the Youth Crime Prevention Watch of America.
Encouraging teens to become strong, accomplished women is a sorority hallmark, a point leaders bring home year after year.
Debutante coordinator Carol Reagan-Heru told this year’s honorees to go ahead and take a chance and strive for something out of their comfort zone: “Hindsight is always 2 0/20, and 20 years from now you will be more disappointed by the things you didn’t do than by the things you did do.”
Wanda Beauman, the chapter basileus, or president, added: “Your skills … surpass the norm. The talents you demonstrate speak volumes about the gifts that you have been given, and about the choices that you have made to better yourselves and to serve those around you.”
Belmar Event Center in Lakewood was filled with proud moms, dads, grandparents, siblings and friends as Adam Dempsey introduced the Class of 2008: Reiko Anderson, Michel’le Barlow, Angelica Castaneda, Sonja Harley, Aerial Harper-Martin, Katharine Kelly, Dominique Mitchell, Dayaunna Rhymes, and Jasmine Young, plus the aforementioned Green, Marshbank, ShaTawna Young and Draper.
Detailed information on each deb can be found by visiting .
Society editor Joanne Davidson: 303-809-1314 or jdavidson@denverpost.com
