Describing her win as a dream come true, the newly minted 2025 Jamaica Festival Queen Brithney Clarke says she’s heading into her reign with a laser-sharp focus.

Miss Kingston and St Andrew managed to hold off fierce competition in the grand final and coronation held at Independence Village at the National Arena on Saturday.

She told the Jamaica Observer she’s ready to serve community and country as the work has only just begun.

“When you’re sitting backstage you really have no idea what the outcome will be; you just want to know that you went on stage and you gave it your all… and I did just that, and so I’m grateful to come out the winner, and I’m ready to serve,” Clarke said.

Highlighting that raising the literacy bar for young people is a huge passion of hers, Clarke said she is especially excited to kick her project into full gear as a glamourised ‘dunce culture’ has been steadily infiltrating today’s society.

“My primary community project is Read, Speak, Lead, and it’s a youth intervention and empowerment programme where I will be seeking to empower young people through literacy and public speaking,” shared the new queen.

“I am really passionate about this project because we need to change the narrative. Young people need the confidence to know they can rise above anything. So I will be going into schools, hosting reading sessions with them, and hopefully by the end of the year we can host a grand public speaking competition that will allow them to see themselves in different spaces, especially today,” she said. “We want them to know that no matter what is going on around them, once they’re literate they have the access to information that can help them to go further in life”

Lukie D thrills the finalists in the 2025 Miss Jamaica Festival Queen Competition on Saturday night.

Clarke, the daughter of Senior Superintendent of Police Stephanie Lindsay, also won sectional prizes for Most Poised, Most Congenial, and Most Popular on Social Media.

Miss St Catherine Afiya Birch-Gentles was named first runner-up, while Miss Clarendon Rhaveen Kildare won the second runner-up title.

Birch-Gentles won sectional awards for Best Performance and Best in Gown, while Kildare walked away with Most Active in the Community and Most Culturally Aware.

Following the crowning, Minister of Culture and Entertainment Olivia “Babsy” Grange said the Miss Jamaica Festival Queen Competition continues to be a spectacular showcase of the best of the country’s rich cultural legacy. The contest, she said, has served as a right of passage for many notable women who have become an active part of the country’s heritage.

“It’s a lot of work from early in the year when we comb through the parishes for the respective queens and then each parish winner competes at the national level, and it’s about talent, knowledge, poise and grace… which all of the ladies possess… [T]hey are all queens and ambassadors of Jamaica,” Grange added.

The mandate of the Jamaica Cultural Development Commission, through the vehicle of this competition, is to unearth, develop, and showcase the talent. There are many well known, prominent Jamaican women who have come through the competition and who continue to carry the flag of Jamaica high.

“They represent the best of who we are as a people,” said the culture minister.

A section of the well-attended audience out to support the parish queens for the national finals. 

Miss Jamaica Festival Queen 2025 Brithney Clarke  (Photos: Karl Mclarty)