Tonoya Toyloy – Six years after Miss Jamaica World

In the six years since winning the coveted Miss Jamaica World title, Tonoya Toyloy has been busy achieving her other goals — higher education, professional security, and yes, marriage to the man of her dreams.

In December 2009, Toyloy — now Dr Toyloy-Williams — graduated from the University of Florida with her PhD in pharmacy, and is proud of her achievement.

“I’m magna cum laude,” she boasts with a smile. “I graduated with honours and my GPA (grade point average) was 3.70.”

Presently 30 years old and married for two years, she is the pharmacist at Liguanea Drug and Garden Centre in Kingston.

She sat down with AW at the Medallion Hall hotel last week to share a little of her life in the years since she won Miss Jamaica World.

“To think back six years ago, it was utter disbelief. It was definitely a shocking moment. To tell the truth, I think my mind was really blank when it happened,” says the laughing beauty, as she recalls the night she was crowned.

“I think it’s when I look back now that I can actually give you nice words about how I felt — it was excellent. But it really was a blank moment for me then,” adds the woman, who was also the winner of the Miss Jamaica World Public Vote in the 2004 competition.

She represented Jamaica in the Miss World Pageant held in China later that year, and while she was not placed among the top 10 in the competition, won the Miss World scholarship valued at US$10,000.

“There were actually two pharmacists that were in the pageant, so when they announced the person was a pharmacist, I didn’t jump up. By this time, my parents were already jumping up in the crowd,” Toyloy-Williams says, smiling at the memory. “But it wasn’t until they actually said my name that I was like ‘Ok, yes, yes, I won’.”

With her winnings, she paid for her first year of graduate school, having already earned her first degree in pharmacy from the University of Technology.

“Thankfully I got a break on first year. I had actually worked for two good years before I actually started (the PhD programme) so I worked and saved, and then accessed the scholarship for my first year which was January 2007,” she tells AW.

Once in the programme, the former beauty was determined to graduate with honours.

“I believe that I can achieve, and if it’s mine it will be mine. So I worked very hard and during the course of the programme I got clinical masteries for 34 of 36 clinical practice assessments,” she says. “We also had to do a research paper and that meant extremely long nights and headaches, (but) I also wanted to do the best on that.”

In the end, Toyloy-Williams was given the award for Excellence in Pharmaceutical Care Research and received the Outstanding International Graduate for the class of 2009 for the College of Pharmacy.

Aside from her own hard work, Toyloy-Williams credits her parents Franklin and Jacqueline Toyloy, and a supportive husband, Ajàni Williams, for her successes to date.

“I just had a wonderful childhood. I never felt unloved; I always felt wanted, always had good times, never bad times,” says the former Wolmer’s Girls students. “My parents were definitely protective, and so even though the world is full of unhappy moments and sad times and even to the extreme of strangers hurting children, my parents were protective enough to ensure that I was always surrounded by good people.”

As for her husband, she says he has been fantastic.

“We met at the Spartan Health Club just before I won the pageant in 2004. We got married two years ago,” Toyloy-Williams said with a bright smile. “So my husband was in the thick of it with me. I think he was just as satisfied and joyous as I was on the day of graduation (from university).”

Looking back, she has no regrets, certainly not about entering the Miss Jamaica World pageant.

“It was in my internship year, that I had this bright idea to enter Miss Jamaica. This was totally out of character for me, but I had such good friends to encourage me along, even in points where I wanted to say ‘let’s not bother with this’,” Toyloy-Williams said.

She eventually walked away with the top prize as well as the prize for the Beach Beauty mini-competition. The chance to contribute to the improvement of someone else’s life was also a plus for her.

“It might sound cliché but the human service part of it (the competition) was appealing. So during my entire reign, I think I appeared in two modelling shows — two, out of a year’s work! Everything else was behind the camera — going to high schools, working with Musgrave Girl’s Home, working with Missionaries of the Poor, the Dare to Care HIV home in Spanish Town, and even today, I still live behind the camera,” Toyloy-Williams said.

Meanwhile, she admits that there has not been much happening in her life over the last three years, which has been all about school in more ways than one. In addition to having completed her PhD, Toyloy-Williams now lectures at the University of Technology’s School of Pharmacy.

“That’s been interesting, I thought I would never have to be a student again, but much to my surprise, as a teacher you are still the student,” she tells AW. “There is so much to learn, and you have to learn and prepare and make sure that you become the expert. I used to say my student days were behind me, but apparently they are always with me.”