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.

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.

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.

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.”

The Miss World Organisation realised that “I was not really a fashion show Miss World” and allowed her to follow her interest in serving the cause of children. Soon enough, a new queen emerged, and it was time to hand over the crown. As she placed the tiara on Miss India’s head, Hanna kissed her and whispered: “You will have one of the best times of your life.”

Everyone but the new queen was promptly ushered off stage and behind the cordon. Hanna was now at table number three and out of the spotlight. It was a long way back down to earth after the dizzying heights to which she had soared. But, thanks to her dad, the Jamaican girl was prepared for it.

“The prize money; the bonuses, the first-class travel everywhere; the red carpet, it could get to you. Some girls carry that forever. But you need to move on,” she philosophises. “For me, it is not the position nor the title that gave the credibility or status, it was the substance that I gave to the journey.”

Time to become a woman

And now it was time to become a woman. Amidst the endorsements that had come with the title, she turned her attention to her education, asking Professor Aggrey Brown, head of Carimac at UWI, to let her sit in his class while she made up her mind what she was going to do. “He became my mentor and helped to shape my intellectual value system,” she shares.

Putting her Miss World money to good use, in 1995 to 1998 she did her first degree in media and communication, followed by her master’s in communication studies from 1998 to 2000. The activist threw herself into university life, chalking up a string of achievements, including chair of the external affairs committee of the Guild of Students, with Senator Floyd Morris as her campaign manager, and Basil Waite on her team; and building a computer lab in the Faculty of Arts as her final-year project. For this she credits dear friend Michael Ashcroft for putting up the $5 million it cost.

During those years she staged workshops for young people in personal development; etiquette; grooming and the like. While pursuing the master’s she worked at the Hilton Hotel as project officer, business development, then PR manager.

Marrying David Panton, divorce, and a painful custody battle

Hanna also took time off to marry a rising political star in the Jamaica Labour Party (JLP), Senator David Panton in 1999. Their son, Alexander, was born two years later, mom being primary caregiver as dad pursued the hustings. She supported her husband in his campaign for Central Manchester, noting that even then she had never become a member of the party.

When her son turned two, Hanna went back into media, signing up with New York-based William Morris Agency which represents some of most well-known celebrities. She did some stints covering small events for television in The Big Apple.

The year 2004 would be life-changing for Hanna. The family migrated to Atlanta, Georgia, in February, in the midst of a political crisis involving Panton, which led to his resignation as senator. By June, the two had divorced, citing irreconcilable differences that triggered a painful custody battle played out in public.

Hanna could not mask the pain as she declined to discuss details of the divorce, saying, “I promised Alexander not to discuss our divorce and custody in the press, because I want him to hear from us and not read about it from a third party.”

But there was more pain to come as her beloved dad died that same year. After only a year, she returned to Jamaica, saying she was homesick. She sorted out her father’s affairs, making sure they did not lose the home to the bank. It was then time to start all over again. Miss World had truly grown up.

“My social consciousness had never waned. I went to PJ and told him I wanted to give back in some way. I started doing charity work in several communities and visiting Omar’s (Davies) constituency. I also looked at basic schools in Michael Peart’s constituency.”

The Portia factor

Several significant events had conspired to bring Hanna to this moment of decision. Among them: The meeting with Nelson Mandela in South Africa, two encounters with Cuba’s Fidel Castro, and the decision by Portia Simpson Miller to run for president of the People’s National Party (PNP).

Castro was in Jamaica for the 1997 funeral of Michael Manley and had seen her in the crowd. He asked Patterson to call her, saying there was something special about her. Fidel encouraged her to go into politics. Years later, he saw her in Cuba at an event she had gone to address as youth and culture minister, and told her how beautiful she was and that “if I entered politics in Cuba I would win”.

While in Atlanta, she heard the news that Simpson Miller was going to challenge for PNP president to succeed Patterson who had stepped down in 2006. She told Richard Lake, a close friend of hers, that “Portia is going to win”. She had been an admirer of Simpson Miller, who would go on to become Jamaica’s first woman prime minister.

“I felt that Jamaica needed a Portia Simpson Miller. There was never anyone like her. You could feel her love for people, that she wanted the best for them; you could feel a sincerity and a wisdom born of her vast experience. Not to discount Peter (Phillips) and Omar who contested too, and for whom I have tremendous admiration, but I felt Jamaica needed someone whom you could reach out and touch,” says Hanna.

“After her victory at Jamaica College, I was really impressed with her calmness and sophistication. She was only interested in seeing that everybody else was okay. You saw a grace about her. It was almost like seeing a lion in stride. She knows when to attack and when to be majestic.

“People sometimes misunderstand her, not realising that she is a stealthy politician, that she is the longest-serving politician, and that she is a woman who had to fight to get where she is. She was not someone who was expected to be prime minister coming from where she started. If you take the time to know her, what you’ll see is an impenetrable fortress…”

Upheaval in SE St Ann

Portia herself had been observing Hanna and her progress. She took the young prospect under her wings and showed her the political ropes. About that time, it transpired that there was an upheaval in St Ann South Eastern, remembered for Seymour ‘Foggy’ Mullings and Ivan Anderson before him. This was PNP country but the Comrades were in war mode as four candidates vied for the seat.

One morning, Hanna had just come out of the shower when the phone rang. It was Phillip Paulwell. The PM wants you to call her, he said. She had no idea what was ahead, but she was excited. Destiny had again come calling. Portia told her she wanted her to run in South East in the coming general election. This was 2007.

“The first day I went in the upheaval ceased,” Hanna says, noting the groundswell of support that she received from a long list of people.

She took the constituency, but the PNP lost the election and she spent the opposition years, “running up the political learning curve” and acquainting herself with the needs of the constituency, paying a lot of attention to the young people, in particular.

“They were good learning years during which I grew politically and personally. I got very comfortable in my own skin, learning to master the art of balancing personal and public life. I was making the transition from being the perceived beauty queen to being a politician. I had grown up in the public eye, from television host to Miss Jamaica, Miss World, to being the wife of a senator, and then involved in a very public custody battle.

“It was a very important time in building relationships with people and with myself. I had been through a lot of emotional upheavals in very quick succession. By becoming a member of parliament, I had started back from ground zero in rebuilding my life and everything,” Hanna recounts.

“As such I have a very emphatic connection with women who have children and other emotional issues. I had dealt with migration, divorce, the death of my father, had no financial base, and was balancing all that with motherhood, trying to ensure that my son sees that he has a strong and independent mother.

“My main objective was putting my child’s interest first, that he knows that he is the most important thing in my life,” she says of Alexander who lives with her. She adds: “David and I co-parent very well.”

“I also believed that there were a number of things that needed to be done in Jamaica, and I wanted be part of the doing,” she recalls.

Becoming minister of youth and culture

Hanna worked smart, and by the December 29, 2011 election had increased her margin of victory, bagging 65 per cent of the votes.

Elected chairman of Region One by then, she led the party to victory in five of the six constituencies, wresting an additional two from the JLP and admitting that one — St Ann North Eastern eventually taken by Shahine Robinson — would be a stretch.

When Prime Minister Simpson Miller announced her new Cabinet in early January, Lisa Hanna was in as minister of youth and culture, at 37, one of the youngest ministers of government ever.

As she wrapped her head around what kind of minster she wanted to be, there was no time to rest on her laurels. It was 2012, the 50th anniversary of Independence, and Jamaica was in celebration mode, sensing at the same time that something spectacular was going to happen with Usain Bolt, Shelly-Ann Fraser Pryce, and the rest of the country’s formidable Olympics team in London, England.

“It was a baptism of fire. We had only six months to raise the money and to pull everything together to give Jamaica a splendid Jamaica 50th that was not austere and bare bones. At the same time, I was managing the responses of the Opposition spokesperson on culture (Olivia Grange) who had different ideas about how things should be done. Everything was controversial. I felt as if I was carrying the weight of the country on my shoulders.

“We devised a creative city that showcased the best of Jamaica. We wanted to give Jamaicans a view of the possibility of what we could be, if we do it together. Some people thought certain Jamaicans would not take the bus to Independence Park. I disagreed. It was wonderful and gratifying to see Jamaicans from all walks of life; downtown, uptown together on the bus — the children from Cherry Gardens and Tivoli Gardens walking together in the Village…”

Yet again, Hanna had no time to celebrate another big success. Her ministry, if it was short on resources, was certainly not on issues begging for attention. She had no choice but to roll up her sleeves and dig in. The responses from the Opposition and the opinion pieces in the media were not always kind to her, but Hanna had by now been getting used to it. She resolved that she would silence her critics with hard work and results.

Hanna feels fortunate to have had Richard Lake, her partner of 10 years, on whom she can rely, describing him as “the most supportive person I have ever encountered”.

Moving from one momentous event to another, she has hardly allowed herself time to look back.

Learning from racism in the Hanna family

That might not necessarily be a bad thing. Because, as spectacular as her life has been, lurking in farthest memory are the times of perplexity and, to a child, mystery that are never fully explained. Such as the rejection of her mother and herself by the elder Hanna clan, because of their black heritage.

“My father had a married a black woman at a time when the Lebanese community did not have many blacks in it. I was confronted, whether directly or indirectly, by degrees of rejection and racism. I saw my mother ‘feel it’. Fortunately, I had my cousins who were oblivious to it. We got along over well. I did not go to any family gatherings if they were not going.”

But, as she had always done, Lisa Hanna learnt from her experiences and grew beyond them. “I did not make what happened cause me to bitter,” she says.

Alas! We must end here. The Lisa Hanna story will only be 40 years old on August 20. But it cannot be nearly adequately told in a newspaper article. For it contains the experiences of several lifetimes over. And, even with that, God is by no means done yet with this Lisa Rene Shanti Hanna.