California Girl is the first African-American to win the Cinderella International Woman Crown

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
(Free-Press-Release.com) August 6, 2004 --

The Cinderella Scholarship Pageant has long been established as one of the most revered youth development programs in the world. Cinderella, founded in 1976, to date has awarded over one million dollars in awards and scholarships at the local, state, national, and international levels. The Cinderella International Finals were held July 2004 in Las Vegas, Nevada, at the state of the art Cashman Field Theater. This week long grand adventure filled with themed parties, excitement and "Cinderella Magic" had in attendance close to 350 young ladies, from a dozen different countries around the world, aged 3-27. This was a special year for a delegate from the state of California who took home California's first Overall International crown since 1979. Singing "My Man's Gone Now" from Porgy and Bess, Lana Henry of Chino, California won the coveted title of 2004-05 International Cinderella Woman. She is the first African-American woman to ever win this International crown in Cinderella's 28 year history. Miss Henry takes home a prize package worth close to $10,000. Not only will Miss Henry have an opportunity to serve as a role model for young girls everywhere, but she will also represent Cinderella Pageants at various functions. Miss Henry's participation in the Cinderella program has been sponsored by business owner Chester Stowers of Chester's Frame and Fender, a custom autobody shop in Montclair, California.

Miss Henry currently works as a sworn Deputy Probation Officer at a Los Angeles County Probation Camp, and has been with the probation department for six years. Her personal platform deals with female offenders and youth development issues in programming. She has written a 60 page proposal for special programming for female offenders, and plans to write a book on leadership and female development. Miss Henry has recently completed a Masters of Arts degree in Organizational Leadership and Graduate Certificate in Human Resources, and will begin a Ph.D. program late next year.

In her spare time, Miss Henry enjoys singing opera, tap dancing, surfing the Internet, modeling, and acting. After close to 15 years in the pageant industry, she has started her own consulting, coaching, training, and event planning business called Pageant Style Productions out of Ontario, California. Through pageantry and performing arts Miss Henry has graced stages all over California, New York, Las Vegas, Florida, Washington D.C., Mexico, Japan, and Carnival Cruise lines. Miss Henry is the daughter of Eric Mellby of La Jolla, California, and La Anita Henry of Lancaster, California.





The International Cinderella Woman division is open to young women single or married, ages 18-26, from any where in the world. The competition consist of a one on one personal interview with each judge, a talent segment, casual wear modeling with personal introduction, and evening gown competition with a surprise onstage question.

For more information about Cinderella Scholarship Pageants or to see pictures from Internationals go to www.cinderellapageant.com. To contact Miss Henry or to inquire about scheduling her to speak, perform, MC, Judge, or be a guest at your next event write to Misspageantstyle@aol.com