Featured photo: Anna Owens-Wolfe became the first Black woman and the first woman from Flint to win her statewide title. Photos provided by Anna Owens-Wolfe
Written by Tanya Terry
Flint Resident and Ms. Michigan Senior America 2023 Anna Owens-Wolfe became the first Black woman and the first woman from Flint to win the statewide title she currently holds.
She will compete in the Global Beauty Pageant Awards this coming April in Seattle, Washington. The Global Beauty Pageant Awards includes pageant winners and runners-up, as well as directors and other individuals within the pageantry world from around the world! There are 40 categories for the pageant, and there will be one winner among the finalists in each category.
Owens-Wolfe was nominated for the Impact Awards. The Impact Awards are intended for women who have spent a lot of time trying to change the world and circumstances of other people or worthy causes.
In addition, Owens-Wolfe was nominated for the Patriotic Award. She credits being one of the first women during the Vietnam conflict to ever be trained as Regular Military at a time when women could only have jobs as secretaries or nurses for being one of the reasons she was nominated for this award.
Owens-Wolfe was about 48 years old when she first learned of Ms. Senior America.
“I was watching TV, and I saw the Ms. Senior D.C. Pageant,” said Owens-Wolfe. “I thought: ‘This is great! I didn’t know this existed.’”
Owens-Wolfe thought about how much fun competing the pageant would be for several years. Finally, she called to talk to one of the pageant coordinators and got the necessary applications she needed to fill out.
“I never even considered that at 71 I could join a pageant, become a contestant and win,” said Owens-Wolfe.
But Owens-Wolfe was crowned pageant queen.
“It has been a marvelous journey ever since.”
Ms. Michigan Senior America is the senior division of the Ms. America pageant. Contestants must be at least 60 years old.
In the case of Owens-Wolfe, she has accumulated a wealth of unique experiences within her over 60 year lifetime.
“When I was about 8 years old, my father disappeared, and my mother worked as a maid in people’s homes.”
Owens-Wolfe described her father as “an alcoholic” and “very violent” at that time.
Seven years after the disappearance of Owens-Wolfe’s father, the authorities considered him dead, which made her mother a “widow,” though her father showed back up.
Owens-Wolfe told the Courier she felt the fact her father disappeared on the family when she was so young was “a positive.”
“My mother was a strong person. She didn’t have a lot of education, but she was a very intelligent woman and a very capable woman. She believed in education. She also believed in kindness and giving back.”
Owens-Wolfe credits her mother having a very great influence on her life.
While attending high school, Owens-Wolfe helped people who had been neglected and oppressed through a program called Neighborhood Youth Corps. At the time, she said there was a lot of illiteracy in the small coal mining area she lived in. Owens-Wolfe added working in the coal mines was extremely dangerous, did not pay well and led to the deaths of many of the workers.
During the Vietnam conflict, Owens-Wolfe was also inspired to help make a difference as a woman working in a role women were not expected to perform well in by many people as Regular Military.
“A lot of people didn’t think we should be there, and a lot of people didn’t want us there. So, we had to prove we were just as good as the men. We couldn’t fail at anything.”
Owens-Wolfe remembers a friend who had pins in her knees from a previous accident before joining the military. The friend who be in tears from the pain after marching. But like the other women, she did not quit.
When Owens-Wolfe was a police officer in Washington D.C., she was sent to downtown Washington to George Washington University Hospital.
“Then, is when I found that the president had been shot,” she said, referring to then-president Ronald Reagan.
Being part of Metropolitan, D.C. Police Officers, Owens-Wolfe was responsible for looking out for anybody and anything that should not be within close vicinity of the president.
Additionally, Owens-Wolfe helped low-income and very low-income families who could not qualify for regular bank loans through the American Recovery & Reinvestment Act of 2009.
She is currently working to help ensure more homeless veterans and their families can find housing within the city of Flint while continue holding the title “Ms. Michigan Senior America.”
Owens-Wolfe, who pointed out she is both short and dark-skinned, encourages other exceptional women in the area to aspire to win the upcoming Ms. Michigan Senior America pageant. She stressed the goal can be realized regardless of skin complexion, hairstyle or body type, adding there are no height or weight restrictions for the pageant.
For details on the Ms. Senior Michigan Pageant, visit msseniormichigan.org.
