Miss Cayman Returns to Hero’s Welcome

By Stuart Wilson

Tahiti Seymour, the reigning Miss Universe Cayman returned home to a hero’s welcome at the Owen Roberts International Airport (ORIA) in the Cayman Islands on December 2nd after competing at the recent Miss Universe contest held in Thailand.

Scores of well-wishers, Miss Universe Cayman Pageant Committee Members, along with family and dignitaries joined in the celebration to welcome the beauty queen as she graced the tarmac after deplaning.

The 22-year-old then took some time to speak with the media about her experience at the Miss Universe Beauty Pageant, as well as the next phase of her reign:

“The experience in Thailand was over a month long. I believe it was the longest Miss Universe competition in history but we did a lot of firsts for Cayman and Cayman deserved it all.

“I trained in Hong Kong and in the Philippines for three months prior to the competition and made a courtesy call to the United Nations World Food Programme, I also launched a book at Miss Universe. It was a journey, and an adventure,” she remarked.

Tahiti said she is currently partnered with the Cayman Islands Government for their food security campaign with my Zero Hunger Universe advocacy platform and from there will be working to populate the calendar for the year ahead.

“The goal is to make sure I am making an impact in the community during my reign - while I still have my title - and making sure it lasts beyond the sash,” she noted. 

She said her professional aspirations included dabbling in travel food journalism, along with her passion project Zero Hunger Universe; a global campaign for equitable food access.

“I will be continuing with that, as I really feel like I walk in my purpose more and more every day through that, in addition to getting more into the creative fields.

“I have an emerging presence in modeling, and acting so I definitely would like to place some  there as well,” she said.  

“It feels really good to be back home. I’ve been away for three months and being in Cayman, I always feel grounded and connected to my roots whenever I come back home. I can’t wait to start getting more active in the community,” she exclaimed.

Tahiti will be working with the Minister for Planning, Lands, Agriculture, Housing and Infrastructure to do community engagement using her skills and influence to make an impact for small island states around the world.

“With Zero Hunger Universe what I’ve done is taken my love for journalism and made it a travel through journalism experience and it’s also a book that is available online for free because everyone should be able to understand what zero hunger is, what food security is.”

She noted that the endeavour was officially launched at the Miss Universe judging panel.

Upon making her way to the welcome area, Miss Universe Cayman was greeted by cheers and chants of the familiar song, “My Caymanian Girl”, led by Native Son Darrell Dacres, who serenaded Tahiti with his guitar, along with the crowd gathered in the gallery at the airport.  

Miss Universe Cayman Islands CEO & Director Derri Dacres explained what it meant to have an ambassador like Tahiti at the helm for the year ahead.

“Tahiti is an amazing ambassador. Each year we try to set the bar up a notch and she has definitely followed that trend. She is very incredible and we are very happy to have her as an ambassador and she did an outstanding job at Miss Universe.

We are looking forward to working with her throughout the year as a Committee. She kicks off her reign here this weekend when she will be assisting the Lean On Me Charity with delivering food items and groceries, as well as vouchers to families in need across the Islands.”

The Director added that Tahiti would also be appearing on Daybreak this coming Monday and has a very busy year ahead.

“We have a great Committee who definitely have their work cut out for them with Tahiti because she is so dynamic. It takes a village to make this happen and we also have great volunteers to assist. We work together as a team,” said Mrs. Dacres.

She explained how the profile of Miss Cayman had grown over the years and why it was important for Cayman to continue to support the development of the young women who are the future leaders of Cayman in many instances. 

“We have gotten a lot of visibility over the years from our title holders going off to Miss Universe, The Pageant has over 2 million followers on Instagram and several million across all of their social media Channels. Our followers are creeping up as well.

“It’s a great tourism product and we want to encourage the Ministry of Tourism to continue to buy-in on this amazing platform.”