Written by Tanya Terry, with photos provided by Deneatta Hunter,
Deneatta Hunter, 62, of Southfield, was a finalist in the Ms. Senior Michigan 2024, her first ever pageant – and she has an extraordinary story!
“My strengths are just being able to push forward and trusting in God to help me to do the things, the challenges that he’s put before me,” she said.
Hunter strives to be an encouragement to all the individuals around her!
“I’m on a cane,” she explained. “I have limited ability in my neck, but I still wanted to do the Ms. Senior Michigan pageant. “
Hunter has been diagnosed with polymyalgia rheumatica, arthritis and idiopathic intracranial hypertension.
Like many other young ladies, Hunter grew up watching pageants on TV. She’d always felt she could do the same thing as the ladies she saw competing in pageants, but she shared that “life gets in the way.”
According to Hunter, she stumbled upon the Ms. Senior Michigan pageant and immediately felt confident. Soon after, she was filling out the online application and mailing it in.
“I said: ‘I can do that!’ I was like: ‘Let’s go; let’s do this!”
Hunter knew she needed to pray to God for the strength to keep up.
“He showed up and showed out. He let me be able to do it.”
Hunter shared she did not use the cane she normally uses when she walked across the stage in the pageant.
“I was like, ‘thank you Lord! He is the best!’ It helps you encourage yourself, too. I was encouraging myself and other individuals around me.”
Domestic violence was Hunter’s platform in the pageant.
“I choose domestic violence because that was a part of my life when I was coming up as a child. As I continue to grow and become older, I see it and it’s like: ‘Is anybody helping anybody?’ People need to talk about domestic violence because it’s still so horrible. Every time you turn on the TV, it’s something going on.”
Hunter added that the CDC says 41% or women and 26% of men experienced contact sexual violence, physical violence, or stalking by an intimate partner during their lifetime and reported a related impact.
Hunter’s original interpretive poem, which she recited in the pageant, is titled “Why Dad Why.” It tells about her experience from childhood into her teens – and it’s a story of how she, her sister and her mother survived. In it, she shares how hurt, angry and confused she was to have a father who taught her so many things, including how to protect herself, physically abuse her mother. Although Hunter came up with a plan to shoot her dad with his own weapon – in the poem and in real life- her mom comes up with another plan. When her dad left for work, the rest of the family left. This time they never returned. Years later, Hunter’s parents get divorced.
Despite the trauma, Hunter has made a decision to remain overwhelmingly positive!
In her spare time, Hunter enjoys acting in skits at her church: Deeper Life Gospel Center, which is located in Redford. The last play she was in was called “Collard Greens,” and another was called “Sky TV.”
Additionally, Hunter is a caregiver for her aunt and was her mother’s caregiver until she died due to lupus in 2005.
And she has her own business: Lanae’s Cuisine, for which she makes pies, cakes, cookies, candy and food.
Hunter said one of the things she enjoyed most about the Ms. Senior Michigan pageant was making new friends and meeting “wonderful” ladies.
“It was exciting – a new adventure!”
The Ms. Senior Michigan pageant began in 1987.
For more information on the Ms. Senior Michigan Pageant contact: Toni Sanchez-Murphy, MSM board president at 248-420-9857, or Marion Upper, state administrator / contestant coordinator by calling or texting: 810-834-9554.
Why Dad Why?
By Deneatta Hunter
Why Dad why you taught me so much how to ride a bike, how to clean a bathroom, how to make my bed the military way, how to PROTECT myself and more.
I Love you Dad but I don’t Like you very much.
Everything I Learned from you FADED away the moment you left my mom Bruised and Battered.
Mom fought back even though she was Sick but you were stronger. All I feel now is hurt, anger and confusion. Why dad why are you so furious?
When I am older I’m going to help my mom. Well, guess what, I’m older now! When I jumped in between you and Mom to stop your fist from hitting her face, mom YELLED James! your fist stopped right at my face. You grab me by my night shirt, and pulled me close and said, “don’t you ever get in between me and your mother again when we’re fighting.” I kept my eyes gazed on you and said, “don’t you hit my mama anymore!”
I heard what you said to mom as you walked away it’s stuck in my head.
The Bible says, “Fathers do not embitter your children or they will become disheartened.” So, I came up with a secret plan to stop him.
But, Mom figured it out. Mom called me into the dining room and said: “Do you have your dad’s weapon?” First I said, “no,” but Mom knew I was lying. So I told her I hid it because of what he said. Mom asked me to go get it. “If I get it what will you do with it?” I will give it back to your dad. But why. He said he would hurt you with it. I will keep it and when he comes to hurt you I will shoot him dead.
Why dad why? Your own daughter, your flesh and blood, I took a stand, I made a decision, I chose to defend my mom. I am only 14 years old.
I didn’t understand why Mom would give him the gun back, but I did as I was asked and returned it.
Why dad why?
One month later mom wakes me up and says your dad has left for work, get dressed and get your sister; ready we’re leaving. This time we never returned. Mom and Dad divorce some years later.
“The Lord heard my cries when we were in trouble and saved us from our distress.”
Amen!
