TUCSON, Ariz. — It was Seafha Blount's first pageant.
So when her name was announced as the new 2008-09 Miss Native American University of Arizona here Feb. 23 before more than 100 people, Blount could only burst into tears of happiness and bliss.
"It was so nerve-racking standing up there waiting," recalled the 24-year-old Yurok Indian holding her hands to her face in relief. "When I heard my name, I just wanted to run around and give everyone hugs."
The controlled Blount did not run around giving everyone hugs, but she "tried hard to stay calm and just soak up the moment," she said. She then hugged the four other contestants, all Navajo, and accepted her silver crown, adorned with turquoise stone.
Blount, a graduate student in the Wildlife Conservation and Management program at the UA, comes from the Frye Family of the Ah-pah Village on the Yurok reservation in northwestern California.
The pageant not only showcased the contestents' talents, but it also tested their respective cultural and traditional knowledge.
For Blount's contemporary talent, she discussed her experience as a Native woman in the science field. She combined "spoken word," similar to poetry, with a collage-like piece from a class titled, "Conservation for Culture: Perspective of a Yurok Woman."
She did not need a kitchen to start and then complete her traditional talent. Blount made acorn soup, called "Key-go" by the Yurok, in front of the audience and judges to carry her into the last part of the pageant, the impromptu question.
"Whose life have you changed in the last three days?" asked one of the judges.
"That was a hard question," Blount recalled, covering her face again, adding that she had been busy preparing for the pageant and the upcoming UA powwow.
Blount's answer: She informed the crowd how she had been bringing awareness of the Yurok traditions to her significant other.
"I remember thinking that no matter what, I had given it my best shot," she said of the final moments before the winner was announced. "I knew that whoever won would do a good job."
Since her win, Blount, as expected, has been a busy woman.
"It's only been a couple of weeks," she said, "but it's been really hard. Once you accept something like this you have to accept all the responsibilities."
In addition to being a full-time graduate student, researching her thesis, Blount also holds positions as the UA Wildcat Powwow Society treasurer and a board member for a wildlife management group on campus.
She also tutors undergraduates in science at the Native American Student Affairs office, one of four ethnic student support centers on campus, which works with more than 500 Native undergraduates, nearly 200 graduates and a handful of Ph.D. students.
Though Blount has no specific platform, she and first attendant Amanda Bahe, a Navajo from Chinle, Ariz., plan to work together to stress the importance of education in the Native communities surrounding Tucson, namely, the Tohono O'odham Nation and the Pasqua Yaki Nation. A trip to Bahe's hometown on the Navajo Reservation is also on the agenda.
Immediately after being crowned, men and women approached Blount "giving me their idea of what Miss Native U of A should be like," she said, adding that the idea of uniting all Native students and creating a bond was frequently suggested.
"There is a whole staff of people dedicated to that," she said, referring to NASA, the Native American student center. "I'll already be affecting that, but that's a pretty big thing to accomplish. It's a great idea, but it can't be accomplished by one person."
Whatever task Blount plans to take on, she'll "be fine," as long as she gets in her daily siesta, she said. "I'm just planning on having long days for a long time."
[Editor's note: reznet reporter Candace Begody was one of the contestants for Miss Native American University of Arizona.]