It had been five years since Trinidad and To­ba­go last had one of its beau­ties rep­re­sent the is­lands at the Miss Uni­verse Pageant, but Tya Jané Ramey re­mind­ed the world of who we are, daz­zling the judges to be among the top 16 cho­sen for the se­mi-fi­nal at the show on Sat­ur­day night.

Eco-friend­ly Unit­ed States fash­ion de­sign­er, mod­el, and sewing in­struc­tor R’Bon­ney Gabriel even­tu­al­ly won the 71st edi­tion of the com­pe­ti­tion held at the New Or­leans Ernest N. Mo­r­i­al Con­ven­tion Cen­ter, New Or­leans. Gabriel fin­ished ahead of 83 oth­er women from around the globe through an as­sess­ment of per­son­al state­ments, in-depth in­ter­views and var­i­ous cat­e­gories, in­clud­ing evening gowns & swimwear.

Venezuela’s Aman­da Du­damel and the Do­mini­can Re­pub­lic An­dreí­na Martínez com­plet­ed the top three.

How­ev­er, Ramey’s feat was the best fin­ish for T&T since 2006, when Ken­isha Thom fin­ished in the top 10 at the pageant in Los An­ge­les, USA and had been among the Top 10 best na­tion­al cos­tumes.

In a me­dia re­lease yes­ter­day, T&T Miss Uni­verse pageant co­or­di­na­tor Crowns and Sash­es stat­ed that Ramey al­so fea­tured on sev­er­al high­lights through­out the com­pe­ti­tion for her mes­sages on women’s rights and the en­vi­ron­ment. Her swim­suit cape was a hand-paint­ed piece by lo­cal artist Hay­den Geeawan, fea­tur­ing the To­ba­go Brain Coral, which is great­ly af­fect­ed by glob­al warm­ing.

“This re­mark­able cape was fea­tured in the show’s of­fi­cial high­lights and is ex­pect­ed to be auc­tioned in the near fu­ture. The Na­tion­al Cos­tume, Madame Pier­rot, an ode to tra­di­tion­al mas, which was high­light­ed by many af­ter the pre­lim­i­nary round, was de­signed and made by Franklyn Jagdeo and Er­ron Sookdeo of Hot Stuff Pro­mo­tions.”

Ramey show­cased many lo­cal de­sign­ers, such as Zadd and East­man, Di­anne Carl­ton, Charu Lochan Dass and Koo­tis Cou­ture, lead­ing up to the fi­nal night of the com­pe­ti­tion.

“Her warmth, in­tel­li­gence, poise and grace were ev­i­dent in the many fea­tures on the Miss Uni­verse of­fi­cial In­sta­gram and Twit­ter ac­counts. She gar­nered much sup­port from the Di­as­po­ra and sparked the in­ter­est of oth­er in­ter­na­tion­al di­rec­tors in Trinidad & To­ba­go.”

Ramey re­turns to Trinidad to­mor­row at 3 pm. Crowns and Sash­es is ask­ing cit­i­zens to wel­come her home with ap­pre­ci­a­tion.