Burnt dress. Deep faith. Father’s guidance. How the new Miss Georgia overcomes obstacles
Three hours before she was scheduled to compete in the evening gown portion of last week’s Miss Georgia Scholarship Competition in Columbus, Miss Rome Ludwidg “Lulu” Louizaire made a mistake that threatened her chance of winning.
She accidentally burnt the bottom of her dress while steaming it backstage at the RiverCenter for the Performing Arts.
“What am I going to do? I’m done,” she thought.
But with a deepened faith developed this past year by devoting time to daily prayer, Louizaire calmed herself. And thanks to heroic help from Lasting Impressions Formal Wear owner Keith Pittman and Miss Rome Scholarship Competition executive director Andrea Pitts, the problem was fixed in time for Louizaire to confidently walk on stage that night.
“I got amazing feedback about my gown,” she told the Ledger-Enquirer. “And it felt beautiful.”
It’s an example of Louizaire’s perseverance to overcome obstacles on her path to success, such as winning the 2024 Miss Georgia title Saturday after finishing as the third runner-up when she was Miss Cobb County last year.
Louizaire, 26, graduated from Northeast High School in Broward County, Florida. She became the first person in her Haitian immigrant family to graduate from college when she earned a bachelor’s degree in strategic communication from Hampton University in 2019.
After working for three years as a customer specialist at Twitter, she now is marketing coordinator for Atlanta-based Pronghorn, which is dedicated to cultivating the next generation of Black founders, executive leaders and entrepreneurs in the spirits industry.
She is only the fourth Black winner of the Miss Georgia crown in the competition’s 79 years. It’s also the first time in the state pageant’s history that the Miss Georgia and Miss Georgia’s Teen winner (Miss Cobb County’s Teen Carrington Manous) in the same year are people of color.
It’s also the first time the Miss Georgia winner and first runner-up (Miss Fayette County Taylor Burrell) in the same year are people of color.
Louizaire plans to use the $25,000 scholarship as Miss Georgia for a master’s degree in marketing at Georgia State University. She previously received $22,000 in scholarships since starting to compete in pageants at age 17.
In an interview Sunday with the L-E, Louizaire discussed her journey as she prepares to represent Georgia in the Miss America competition. Here are excerpts from that conversation, edited for brevity and clarity.
What was your reaction when you were announced as the winner?
“I couldn’t believe it. You work so hard toward something, and then it finally gets here. … You are grateful in the moment, but your mind just kind of blacks out. It started making sense when the crowd and the young ladies were cheering and chanting my name. All these people were saying, ‘Lulu,’ so it really was me. I was just speechless.”
What does it mean to you to be Miss Georgia?
“One of the reasons why I wanted to be Miss Georgia is because it’s important for kids to see beyond themselves. I grew up and always wanted to be in pageantry, but I never thought it was a goal I could obtain because of my circumstances or because I never saw young ladies who look like me (win). Last November, I did a school tour (in Rome, Georgia), and I had this exercise where I asked the children to stand up, say their name and what they want to be when they grow up. Well, one young lady says that she wants to be Miss Rome, and another student in the class yells out, ‘She can’t be Miss Rome; she’s not brown.’ I was in a kindergarten class, so they were learning how to process things, what they see, and to make sense out of it. And for them, they felt like they couldn’t obtain a goal because they didn’t look like me. So I took that as a learning lesson to break down what it means to have a goal and learn that you should never put any limitations on yourself.”
You are the fourth Black winner out of 79 Miss Georgia competitions. How is that significant to you?
“It’s beautiful. It’s sacred. I want to steward this title to the best of my ability. This is a big responsibility to not only represent a state as great as Georgia but also to know the responsibility that I’m one of only four in 79 years.”
How does making that history matter beyond the pageant, in society at large?
“When you have someone like Carrington and someone like me, … two strong and driven and ambitious young ladies like us, it means progress because we’re going to fight for the progress.”
Why do you think you won this year after finishing as the third runner-up last year?
“One of the things I did differently this year was that I did it with Him, versus without Him, so that looked a lot different. … I grew up in church — my dad is a deacon — so I’ve always known who God was, but I never explored Him for myself. This past January, I got Baptized, and for the past three or four months I’ve fasted from secular music, beef and pork and made some other lifestyle changes and just really committed x-amount of hours per week for God, really taking the time to sit in silence, to listen.”
So when you sang “I Believe in You and Me” by Whitney Houston from the musical “The Preacher’s Wife” for your talent in the Miss Georgia competition, who was the You along with your Me that you believe in?
“It was Georgia, to make the right decision, to trust that I will steward this to the best of my ability. There’s a lot of noise in the pageantry world. People were saying (on social media) that we just had Kelsey (Hollis, who is Black, as Miss Georgia 2022), so they’re not going to crown another Black girl now. You should just give up.’ … But I’m a firm believer in hard work and talent coming together, and it’s hard to deny that.”
What motivated you to connect more with your faith?
“As you go through life in your 20s, when you’re losing friends, making friends, finding yourself, walking in your purpose, after a while, you realize there are answers that your friends can’t give you. There are situations that your parents can’t pull you out of. You have to look adversity in the face, and I knew I couldn’t do it by myself, so I sought out to go even deeper in my faith. I wanted to find out for myself the way my parents always felt it.”
What does your faith do for you in your everyday life?
“It’s a stronghold, never shaking and just at peace, no matter what happens. Throughout the (Miss Georgia competition) week, everyone kept saying, ‘You just look different from last year.’ Last year, by Day 2 or 3, I just felt defeated. I pushed through so that nobody saw it.. But I think this year people saw the difference in my posture and the way I interacted with the other young ladies and just presented myself on stage. . . . When I felt like I couldn’t do it by myself, I was doing it with Him.”
Your platform, “Education for Every Student,” what does it do?
“We advocate for equal opportunity and resources for every student, no matter their socioeconomic background. … I partnered with organizations like the Boys & Girls Clubs, and as a proud member of Alpha Kappa Alpha Sorority Inc., we do backpack drives. Working with the Scholarship Plug as well, there’s the legislative advocacy component, so I go to the Capitol during the session and let them know about my platform, being able to speak about the disparities to let them know what I see in the community.”
How did you become the first person in your family to go to college?
“My parents are from Haiti. My mother had nine siblings. As the oldest girl, she had to stay home and kind of tend to the rest of them. … By the time she was 22, she married my dad, and they moved to America. … My dad was a busboy. … Then he started working in a hospital and worked his way up to manager for environmental services at Mount Sinai Medical Center in Miami Beach. … Watching his path, it showed me there’s no excuse for me, having so many resources and opportunities, being here in America, so I should really take advantage of it.”
What influenced you to push yourself to be successful?
“My dad, (Jean), he always tried his hardest to never say no in terms of any goal I wanted to reach. I wanted to be a debutante, but we couldn’t afford it. … He’s just always been a big part of my drive. . . . My mom, (Alvina, who works in environmental services at HCA Hospital in Broward County) doesn’t really speak English, so my dad had to handle most of my school stuff. He really made no excuses. He showed up at every event, every meeting. … When you have a parent that is so involved and so invested, for me, I would be doing him a disservice if I didn’t show up for myself the same way he showed up for me.”
What was it like to win this title in front of your dad on Father’s Day weekend?
“It’s really special. (At the Miss Georgia breakfast after she was crowned), I apologized to him for his pockets because I know this was an expensive year, but I also told him I hope I made you proud to call me your daughter. … Just to be able to look in the audience and see him and perform my talent in front of him, he told me at last year’s Miss Georgia (competition), it was the best time he’s had since coming to America. That made me get teary-eyed because I just know how much they sacrificed. ”
Why do you think pageants are important?
“Pageantry pushes young ladies to not only find themselves but to feel comfortable in uncomfortable situations. This organization has helped me so much with my public speaking. … The tools I learned in Miss Georgia have really helped me show up even better. . . . Instead of looking at pageantry as what it started as, a swimsuit competition, it now is an opportunity where young ladies are learning how to expand their network. They are being stretched to advocate for things they are passionate about. ”
What do most folks not understand about your generation?
“Our fearlessness. One of the things I admire so much about our generation, when we set a goal, we go for it, and we’re not afraid to take risks. … If we’re not happy, we’re not only going to talk about it, but we’re going to take action. I think that’s something most people should adopt.”
Few folks will be on a stage in front of thousands of people and win a competition. But all of us can strive to achieve a goal and overcome hardships. So what’s the greatest life lesson you learned from your journey that anyone could use to help them succeed?
“Patience and discipline. Patience in terms of understanding that all good things take time, and you want to make sure that when you’re asking for an opportunity, if you get it at the wrong time, then you can mess up God’s plan in the long run. . . . Then discipline in terms of being OK with being adaptable. … The changes in my lifestyle, that took a lot of discipline, how I was dieting from certain music to make time with God and listen, saying no to friends, to going out. … How bad do you want it? If you are not OK with sacrificing these things, maybe this is not that important to you.”
This story was originally published June 17, 2024 at 1:45 PM.
