Lisa Hanna: Becoming a woman is hard, painful work — the conclusion

BY DESMOND ALLEN Executive editor - special assignment allend@jamaicaobserver.com  Friday, July 17, 2015    

LIKE all the truly anointed, Lisa Hanna had been obedient to fate's unerring, if irresistible command. Hardly more than a girl, she had taken on the world and conquered it. She was Miss World 1993, standing in a place coveted across time by legions of the planet's most beautiful girls. The question going forward now was what does she do with all this glory.

Cuba’s Fidel Castro, who was struck by Lisa Hanna’s
 beauty, encouraged her to go into politics. At right: Lisa
Hanna on the hustings in St Ann South Eastern.

Two weeks after being crowned and being feted as the darling of the international paparazzi, she returned home to a Jamaica mad with pride and 'Lisamania'. Prime Minister P J Patterson sent his personal envoy, Burchell Whiteman to welcome her at the airport, followed by a motorcade. The entire thing was "overwhelming and moving".

But unknown to the cheering throngs, dark clouds were rapidly gathering. When Hanna greeted her father, Rene, on the tarmac, she knew something was wrong the moment she saw him. She dearly loved her father and had been close to him. He said he was fine, perhaps not wanting to ruin her moment. But as she moved on to acknowledge the adulation of the crowd, Mr Hanna suffered a massive aneurism which tore his aorta.

"I remember preparing to get an air ambulance for my dad the night of my arrival, after the Jamaican doctors advised that the Jackson Memorial Hospital in Miami was better equipped to deal with this emergency," Hanna relives the moment.

Lisa Hanna gives all ears to St Andrew Eastern MP
Andre Hylton. (PHOTO: JOSEPH WELLINGTON)

Fretting heavily for her dad, she went to Montego Bay the following morning for that leg of the Miss World homecoming celebrations which was a repeat of Kingston. She then hopped onto a plane the next day to see her dad, who was then out of surgery but strung up in bed. She spent some days with him before seeing him off to Kansas City for recuperation.

Back home, Jamaica was in the throes of Yuletide festivities. After the holidays, she left for Miss World duties in London. It was a year of charity appearances, working with children, doing fashion shows, judging pageants, and jetting across the world.

HANNA... The first day I went in the
 upheaval ceased

Meeting Nelson Mandela

Says Hanna: "The high point of the year, for me, was attending the installation of Nelson Mandela as the first black president of Apartheid-free South Africa. I spent time in South Africa during the election campaign and what a great learning experience it was for me." more