Brookell Barber has been named Grand Prize Winner in Black Opal’s True Beauty Model Search.   She becomes the new face of Black Opal and will be featured in a professional photo shoot in New York City.   As the grand prize winner, she will be awarded a $20,000 scholarship, be featured as Black Opal’s top model, and  will receive  a supply of Black Opal products.
She joins 20 finalists selected from hundreds of entrants.
Celebrity judges…including award-winning singer/actress Michelle Williams,  film star and singer Taral Hicks, celebrity makeup artist Lanier Long,  celebrity stylist Andre Austin, highly esteemed writer/editor Marcia Cole, and educator/business executive Evelyn Manson Miller….. helped select the winners.
Each of the 20 finalists, hailing from all regions of the country, will receive a $2, 500 scholarship awarded directly to the college of their choice and Black Opal products.
Brookell, a native of Georgia raised in the Lone Star State, hails from Florida.   “I am so grateful for this opportunity to represent Black Opal and can’t wait to embark on this journey,”  she exclaimed, when hearing she had won the True Beauty Model Search.
Throughout her youth, Brookell has participated in numerous pageants.  Because of her participation, she wanted to ensure girls of all socio-economic status have an opportunity to participate.   She  formed an organization called, “Dazzle Me Beautiful.”   Explains Brookell, ” Each year ten plus gowns, many of which being my own personal gowns, are donated to young ladies living in single-parent households.”

Scholarship winner Brookell will be  attending medical school in a native Georgia this Fall.   She dreams of becoming a plastic surgeon to help children born with physical deformities, like her cousin who was born with a cleft palate.  She plans to continue to model, sing and act.

Read more about the other Black Opal True Beauty Model Search finalists in an upcoming blog.