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daily nebraskan
tuesday, november 11, 1980
Miss Black UNL winner lust couldn't believe it'
By Paulette Brown
The Miss Black UNL Pageant came off
successfully Sunday evening for Judy Hen
derson, a 22-year-old junior in accounting
and psychology from Omaha, when she
was crowned Miss Black UNL.
Her coronation concluded a pageant in
which 1 1 contestants vied for the crown in
front of a receptive audience of more than
200 people.
Henderson is a former ASUN senator
and a member of Alpha Lambda Delta and
Phi Eta Sigma, both honors societies in
which a 35 grade-point average is required.
Henderson is also a member of Zeta Phi
Beta sorority and works for Lincoln Tele
phone Co.
Henderson, who was surprised by the
award, said, "I don't believe it-it's just like
on TV."
The pageant originator, Joanna Lovett,
a 23-year-old Little Rock, Ark., graduate
student in elementary education was first
runner-up.
Song to mother
The pageant was a combination of
talent competition, question-and-answer
session and peronal interviews with judges.
Henderson played guitar and sang an
original tune dedicated to her mother.
When Henderson was young, she said, her
mother told her she could play but would
have to stop playing when she was older
and "get on with serious business."
Henderson delivered an original speech
entitled, "Yesterday, Today and Tomor
row: A Message to My People," in which
she traced black heritage from slavery, the
Jim Crow days to now.
Henderson often repeated "no more
mourning" to her summation "that a
bright future awaits blacks."
'Love has no color'
When Lovett was asked, "What are your
views on interracial marriage?" she replied,
"People should not be bound by race,
color or creed because love has no color."
Cheryl McAfee, second runner-up, a 20-year-old
architecture junior from Wichita,
Kan., did a song-and dance routine from
the black opera Porgy & Bess.
McAfee said her goal "is to be a well
known architect." McAfee was asked,
"How would you encourage black students
to be a part of black organizations on cam
pus?" She replied: "I would disseminate
enough material concerning the organiza
tions and their objectives."
Normalee Murray, third runner-up, a 20-year-old
animal science major from
Jamaica, performed a dance entitled "A
Black Woman's Lament."
Murray was asked, "If you were a black
mother, with the dearth of black culture
depicted in the media, how would you pro
ject black history to your child?" She re
plied, "I would do it through drawings,
books, music and any ther means at my
disposal."
Chains imposed
Lateefa Hale, a 23-year-old elementary
education major, read "Let Our People
Go," a history of "blacks once having
physical chains imposed on them to how
the chains have now been put on our
minds, and how we have to come to accept
ourselves as who and what we are."
Sharon Rosser, a 23-year-old business
teacher education major, was asked, "What
is the number one quality you feel a black
man should possess?" Her answer, "Re
spect for his woman ."
Carla Johnson, 17, was the youngest
contestant. The freshman broadcasting
major sang Barbara Streisand's "Every
thing." Johnson said the song "sums up
what 1 want in life."
Lavetta Chamberlain, 23, a senior busi
ness education major, read "Changes, My
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Daily Nebraskan photo
Judy Henderson, center, is congratulated by Leslie Washington,- left, and Joanna
Lovett, right, after being crowned Miss Black UNL Saturday.
Man," a study of the fallacies of relation
ships between black men and women.
Deresa Oliver, 20, a junior community
health major, was asked, "How would you
go about protecting the black community
from policy brutality?" Oliver said, "I be
lieve we shoud arm ourselves and form
black vigilantes."
Heidi Lynch, 20, a junior broadcasting
major, said, "It's not what you have, but
what you do with it while you have it."
Jacqueline Dixon, 18, a freshman
human development major, did a dance
pantomiming God creating man. Prior to
performing, she said, "I hope everyone can
see how great God is through my performance."
The panel of judges included John
McCaa from WOWT, an Omaha television
station, Michael Jones, a reporter for
KETV in Omaha, and Tommi Jackson, a
professor of English at UNL.
Writer's newest is 'whimsically melancholy' diary
f - v
I ' J
I fx'-
Richard Brautigan
By Michael Zangari
Initially nosing through Richard Brautigan's new book,
The Tokyo-Montana Express is like spending an evening
with a brilliant but senile aunt. You wait out the longer
meanderings of her mind for the gold nuggets you know are
therc And you don t regret a moment spent.
Structurally, the book is made up of first-person
vignettes journal entries in form from Brautigan's visits
to Montana and Japan. There are a few short stories tos
sed in too, but they are erratic and oddly placed.
The vignettes reads like highly-personal dreamscapes,
odd moments out from Brautigan's personal universe. He
picks out the tiniest detail and pokes at it with non sequit
urs and mixed metaphors at times, and with blinding clar
ity at others. Brautigan's prose is sparse and even simplist
ic at times. This can make reading deceptively loose.
What holds this collection together is Brautigan's voice.
The farther you get into the book, the more personal
the voice becomes. It's like reading the diary of a stranger.
It has a whimsically melancholy air about it. You begin to
feel a personal bond with the man and his infatuations
failed businesses, people he will never know-getting old
er. The flaws in the book become blanks, quizzical spaces
in the overall portrait he is painting. Areas of shadows. It
is true to the form of the book. Who would want to be re
sponsible for everything they put in their journals?
Brautigan offers all unashamedly for exactly what they
are. He is quietly funny and blatantly self-indulgent . To my
mind, that is what makes the book work, hor all the emp
ty spaces in this book, it is a personal record and a glimpse
behind the curtains thrown up in Brautigan's other novels.
With his outrageous person gone. Brautigan stands
alone. He approaches few big issues, just the day-to-day
visions, like a string of pearls through one man's mond.
He is a man who can spend hours lost in the sad
smile of a stranger and hate the smugness in the smile
of another. A man who has a keen sense of loss and
watches the passage of time.
The subject matter is wide. Sample titles read like a
bizarre verbal kaleidoscope: "Skylab at the Graves of
Abbott and Costello," "Clouds Over Egypt," "Shrine of
Carp." "The Irrevocable Sadness of Her Thank You," to
name a few.
Bratigan's vision is sharp, and directed at the wind in
this book . It h diffuse and sensitive reading,
personal
Poet-author Richard Brautigan will be at the Ne
braska Bookstore, 1135 R Street, Friday between
noon and 1 p.m. to sign copies of his latest book.
The Tokyo-Montana Express.
Brautigan is probably best known for his book.
Trout Fishing in America, a loose collection of his
prose-poetry. He is the author of a wide variety of
novels, including The Abort it m (a 1966 Romance,
A Confederate General from Big Sur, The Haw k
line Monster, (a Gothsc Western), Sombrero Fall
out, (a Japanese novel), and Willard and His Bowling
Trophies and Dreaming of Babylon. He has also
done several volumes of poetry.
