Sto­ry and pho­tos by

Rishi Ra­goonath

Janay Bernard, Miss Barataria, was crowned Lit­tle Miss Pleas­antville Queen 2026 at the Pleas­antville Com­mu­ni­ty Cen­tre on Sat­ur­day, Oc­to­ber 17, fol­low­ing an evening show­cas­ing tal­ent, con­fi­dence, poise and el­e­gance.

The nine-year-old pupil of Sa­cred Heart Girls’ Ro­man Catholic School in Port-of-Spain im­pressed the au­di­ence in her yel­low princess gown, com­pet­ing against five oth­er del­e­gates: Amaya Har­vey of Plai­sance Park, Fo­lasade Brien of Pleas­antville, Heav­en Rouse of Clax­ton Bay, Ar­i­an­na Sandy of Aripero and Emil­iana Lawrence of Co­coyea.

Rouse was named First Run­ner-Up, while Brien se­cured Sec­ond Run­ner-Up.

Bernard al­so cap­tured sev­er­al spe­cial awards, in­clud­ing Most Im­proved Del­e­gate, Miss Pho­to­genic, Miss In­tel­li­gence, Best In­tro­duc­to­ry Speech, Best Tal­ent, and Best Evening Gown. Rouse won Miss Con­ge­nial­i­ty, Miss Pageant Spir­it, Best Self-Pre­sen­ta­tion, and Best Spir­it of Pleas­antville Wear, while Sandy re­ceived Most Tick­ets Sold and the On­line Peo­ple’s Choice Award.

Af­ter win­ning, Bernard said the vic­to­ry was un­ex­pect­ed.

“It feels great and ex­cit­ing! I am very hap­py and grate­ful. It is a dream come true, and I feel proud. I did my best, and I won. I want to thank every­one who sup­port­ed me and be­lieved in me. It was a sur­prise; I didn’t ex­pect to win be­cause the oth­er girls were tal­ent­ed in their own ways”.

She iden­ti­fied fac­ing the large au­di­ence as her biggest chal­lenge but said her moth­er’s en­cour­age­ment helped her over­come her fears.

“The most chal­leng­ing part of the show was the au­di­ence. There were a lot of peo­ple, but I over­came my fears by watch­ing my mom­my (Shan­ice Camp­bell-Nicholls), who was al­ways smil­ing back at me.”

Bernard cred­it­ed her moth­er for sup­port­ing her prepa­ra­tion and build­ing her con­fi­dence.

“My mom­my in­spired me the most. She en­cour­aged me, helped me prac­tise, and taught me to be­lieve in my­self. She sup­port­ed me every step of the way, and I am very thank­ful to have her by my side”.

Look­ing ahead, Bernard hopes to be­come a den­tist.

“My favourite sub­ject in school is math­e­mat­ics, and when I grow up, I would like to be­come a den­tist. I want to help oth­ers smile beau­ti­ful­ly”.

She al­so hopes to use her ti­tle to en­cour­age kind­ness, self-be­lief and sup­port for chil­dren in need.

Pageant di­rec­tor Aaliyah Lewis thanked every­one who con­tributed to the in­au­gur­al com­pe­ti­tion’s suc­cess, prais­ing the six del­e­gates for their ded­i­ca­tion and courage.

Lewis en­cour­aged them to view the ex­pe­ri­ence as the be­gin­ning of fu­ture op­por­tu­ni­ties, re­mind­ing them that their worth ex­tend­ed be­yond a ti­tle or crown.