4 area women represent in Ms. Senior Alabama pageants

The U.S. 280 corridor in north Shelby County will be well represented at the Ms. Senior Alabama and Ms. Super Senior Alabama pageants in June.

There are three women from the 280 Living coverage area in this year’s Ms. Senior Alabama pageant, which is for women ages 60 to 69. They are Ms. Senior Hoover Donna Francavilla (who lives in Greystone), Ms. Senior Birmingham Tawana Lowery (who lives in Birmingham off Alabama 119) and Ms. Senior Shelby County Debra White (who lives in Chelsea).

Also, Meadow Brook resident Brenda Wilson will be competing in the Ms. Super Senior Alabama pageant (for women ages 70 and older) as Ms. Super Senior Alabaster because she has been involved in activities at the Alabaster Senior Center.

Both pageants are scheduled to be held at 2 p.m. on Saturday, June 10, at Oak Mountain High School. Admission is $20 for adults and $8 for children ages 3-12.

There are 13 contestants in the Ms. Senior Alabama pageant and seven in the Ms. Super Senior Alabama competition, said Kim Crawford-Meeks, chairwoman of the Ms. Senior Alabama nonprofit and the pageant producer.

The goal is to celebrate women ages 60 and older who best exemplify the dignity, maturity, talent and inner beauty of senior women across the state. The organization seeks women who demonstrate volunteerism and show that it’s never too late to follow your dreams or try something new, Crawford-Meeks said. It also is looking for women who demonstrate that every person has a purpose at all ages.

Here's a closer look at the four women from the 280 Living coverage area who will be competing in June.

MS. SENIOR HOOVER DONNA FRANCAVILLA

Francavilla, 62, has 30 years of experience in radio and TV broadcasting. Her journalism career has taken her around the country and world. She broadcast the news on radio stations in Philadelphia, New York, Boston, Washington, D.C., and Birmingham and worked at TV stations in Washington, D.C., and Birmingham. Most of her career — at least 20 years — was with CBS Radio, informing listeners about major news stories in Alabama, Mississippi and the Florida panhandle.

In 2000 and 2006, she participated in a journalist exchange program between Germany and America and produced a seven-part TV series on Alabama’s connection to Germany. She also has reported from Cuba, Poland, Peru, France, Italy and Spain.

Francavilla also contributed or produced freelance stories to national radio and TV shows and networks. She has written for numerous publications, served 10 years as an Edward R. Murrow judge for the Radio Television Digital News Association and is a graduate of Leadership Hoover, Leadership Shelby County and Leadership Birmingham.

Francavilla founded her own public relations agency, Frankly Speaking Communications, where she produces corporate videos, podcasts and web, television and radio commercials. She is a past president of the Alabama Media Professionals and in 2016 received the organization’s Communicator of Achievement award. She now serves as chairwoman of AMP’s scholarship fund.

In 2018, Francavilla suddenly lost hearing in her right ear, and an MRI revealed a benign brain tumor between her eardrum and brain. She received radiation treatment, but the problems worsened. Then a doctor discovered she had hydrocephalus (water on the brain). Doctors in October 2021 put in a shunt to remove the fluid off her brain, but the tumor grew again. This time, in July of last year, she went to California to have the tumor removed.

Francavilla is still dealing with the aftermath. She can’t hear out of her right ear, has a constant ringing in her ear, must be careful with quick movements and has lost some of her balance. She hasn’t gone back on the air as an anchor since 2018, instead focusing on her health, counting her blessings and trying to encourage others battling dementia symptoms.

“I’m just grateful to be alive, to be walking and talking and able to contribute,” she said. “I feel like I have a second lease on life. … I thought my life was over, and I appreciate it so much more now.”

MS. SENIOR BIRMINGHAM TAWANA LOWERY

Lowery started her life in Anniston but moved to Atlanta after her father got a job there with Delta Airlines. She stayed there through college and a corporate career of about 35 years in the health information technology and telecom sectors but about five years ago felt God calling her to move to Birmingham, she said.

She didn’t know anybody in Birmingham, but upon moving, “my network of friends expanded immediately,” she said.

God birthed within her a desire to start a nonprofit to help women overcome the challenges of life by reclaiming their courage, reconnecting with their calling and moving forward with joy and purpose to make a difference in the world for good.

She has faced a myriad of challenges throughout her own life. She was raised in an environment marked by domestic violence and her mother struggled with an addiction problem, she said. She also was raped at the age of 15 and forced to have an abortion, she said.

She married and went through a divorce, lived as a single mom in poverty and was homeless for a while in the 1980s, she said. She married again, but the second marriage ended in divorce after 25 years. About the same time, both of her parents died, and "I didn't think I could keep going," she said.

But she reshaped her thinking and has been able to bounce back, she said. Now she’s using her nonprofit, Miss Overcomer, to help other women do the same.

“I have a Rolodex of tragedy, and I’m so thankful for it,” Lowery said. Without it, she wouldn’t be in a position to help other women, she said.

Since launching the Miss Overcomer nonprofit in 2020 and relaunching it in 2021 after the pandemic caused delays, she believes she has found her true calling, she said. “I was given birth and put on this Earth for this.”

Miss Overcomer, a faith-based organization, leads 90-to-120-day intensive discipleship programs for women and puts on one-day women’s events. Right now, there are empowerment teams in Hoover, Vestavia Hills, Pell City and Franklin, Tennessee, and this summer Lowery plans to expand to more than 10 teams in places that include Tampa, Florida and Augusta, Georgia.

“I want to make a maximum impact until my very last breath,” Lowery said. “Just because part of life doesn’t work out doesn’t mean they don’t have a future. You cannot quit. You have to keep moving forward.”

MS. SENIOR SHELBY COUNTY DEBRA WHITE

White, 66, originally is from Albertville and grew up in north Georgia and Crossville. After graduating from Crossville High School in 1975, she went to the University of Alabama, where she met her husband.

After he graduated, they moved to Crossville briefly, but then his job with Alabama Power Co. took them around the state to places such as Montevallo, Phenix City, Gadsden and Hoover. However, they spent the majority of the time — 32 years — living in Tuscaloosa, she said. About three years ago, they moved to Chelsea to be closer to their grandchildren. “There’s just something about grandchildren,” White said.

White started out as a stay-at-home mom to raise her children and thoroughly enjoyed that, she said. As her children got older, she worked for an accounting firm for about five years, then took a job in the Office of Development at the University of Alabama and started back to school.

She graduated from Alabama in 1996 with a double major in management and management information services, finishing up just as her son started college. They even took one lab class together.

White went to work as a business analyst for a software development firm in Hoover for about 10 years. “I love computers and still love computers,” White said. “They do exactly what you tell them to do, unlike my children.”

She then did outsourced information technology work with another company for about four years before entering a new season of life where she began taking care of family members who were sick. “It was really just a great experience — crazy times, hard times, but it was really great,” she said.

Now, White is doing the books and some management duties for her daughter’s Blush and Blow Salon in Chelsea.

Over the years, White has volunteered with organizations such as the Make-A-Wish Foundation, the RISE Center at the University of Alabama, the Kids Play Alabama group that helps disadvantaged families with the cost of sports registration, and organizations that raise money for breast cancer research.

A friend encouraged her to try the Ms. Senior Alabama Pageant last year, so she did and is giving it another go this year after enjoying the camaraderie and service with the women. A bunch of them served lunch at a senior center in Fultondale, sang songs at a community center in Birmingham and helped with disabled adults.

“We all have something to give back to our community, and it’s a great opportunity for us to be able to do that,” White said.

MS. SUPER SENIOR ALABASTER BRENDA WILSON

Wilson, 79, was born in Birmingham’s Smithfield community, which was nicknamed “Dynamite Hill” because it was frequently bombed by the Ku Klux Klan during the civil rights struggle.

The granddaughter of a slave, Wilson graduated fifth in her class of about 200 at the all-black Ullman High School and then fifth out of a class of about 100 at Stillman College in 1965. She majored in English and education and minored in art and Spanish.

She taught at Lewis Elementary in Birmingham for three years and Western Olin High School for two years before moving to Illinois to get a master’s degree in design and industrial technology from Illinois State University in 1972. She worked in the art department for 13 years, including some as head of the department, before becoming director of college affairs and community relations for two years.

Wilson then took a job with Department of Defense, setting up a graphic arts studio for military dependents at the Ramstein Air Base in Germany. She met her husband, Bill, and they moved to Washington, D.C., briefly before building a house in Denver in 1990. She did some freelance work for a college and university and did real estate sales from 1999 to 2016, when she and her husband retired and moved to the Birmingham area. Her husband died of pancreatic cancer in 2020.

When she moved here, she got involved at the Alabaster Senior Center, and it became her second home, she said. When her husband died, she got involved with a widows group at Meadow Brook Baptist Church, but she also attends the Guiding Light Church in Birmingham.

She volunteers with a Community Grief Support group, helped organize a program to address gun violence by teaching conflict resolution to K-5 students, and works with the House of Refuge ministry to help unwed mothers in the first year of their children’s lives.

Smith also serves as a mentor to numerous people, participates in the Silver Sneakers exercise and water aerobics program at the YMCA and loves doing artistic portraits of people and animals.

She tries not to overload her schedule but insists on maintaining an active lifestyle.

“Just because you’re retired and in your 60s or 70s doesn’t mean you have to sit down and do nothing,” she said. “It makes me feel good to know I’ve contributed to somebody’s happiness. I will be doing that until my last breath, and if I can do it afterwards, I will.”

For more information about Ms. Senior Alabama or to get tickets to the pageants, go to mssenioralabama.com.

Editor's note: This story was updated at 7:28 p.m. on May 1 to correct the number of women in each pageant. There are 13 competing in the Ms. Senior Alabama pageant for women ages 60-69 and seven competing for Ms. Super Senior Alabama for women ages 70 and older. The nonprofit originally provided incorrect numbers of contestants in each pageant.