Samson First Nation teen wins pageant

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Sixteen-year-old Raven Buffalo from Samson First Nation is Miss Teen Alberta.

It's been a busy time for the ambitious student ever since winning the title on April 2. Pre-pageant, too, there were daily rehearsals in Edmonton. The girls learned the opening number that they danced on pageant night at Dance Alberta. There were photo shoots at places like Edmonton's Water Park and there were other functions designed to give the girls exposure to the public.

Buffalo's sister-in-law was the one who pointed her in the direction of the pageant and who showed Buffalo's pictures to pageant organizers who encouraged her.

Buffalo said she was "not doing anything with my time," so she "jumped in headfirst" to get the experience.

"Not doing anything" involves a keen interest in sports, however. Buffalo is in Grade 11 at Wetaskawin Composite High School, where her favorite sport is basketball and where she is paricipates in the school badminton team. Previously she won a bronze medal at Victoria for baseball in the Indigenous Games and a gold medal for hockey in the Native Provincials for Alberta. Lots of track medals too.

This was her first pageant, and the win, from among 26 contestants, was a surprise. " I wasn't expecting it at all," said Buffalo. She adds she just entered for the experience and the chance to meet new girls. She estimates about 12 of the contestants were Aboriginal. "When they announced my name, I can't really describe the feeling," she said. "I could feel the tears coming, but I held them back."

Over the year of her reign, Buffalo expects to be doing public speaking, mostly to younger children. "Helping them stay motivated," she says, "and letting them know there's better things out there than drugs and alcohol, and just trying to turn them off stuff like that and turn them on to sports, getting involved in the community."

The young winner spoke at Ermineskin Junior High school recently, at the request of a police officer who asked her to get involved as a role model in promoting drug and alcohol awareness for the DARE program.

"I see this as an opportunity that's going to open a lot of doors for me. It's going to help me make something of myself." She adds that in the long term she hopes to be able to give back to her community and is considering a career as an architect, but for now she can simply show others that "I come from the same place as them," and they have the same ability to succeed.

Her advice to other youth is "Seize the day, every opportunity that is given to you."

Buffalo is from a family of four sisters and three brothers. "There's a lot of Buffalos in Hobbema. I have a lot of cousins and aunties and uncles. I had a lot of support from them." She says they had confidence she would win even when she herself didn't believe it.