28 years old beauty queen, Emma Franklin, from Wales has been crowned as the winner of Miss European 2015 after competing against 100 women from across the continent on 29’ December 2015. The pageant witness women aged from 16 to 28 hailing from the countries like England, Scotland, Northern Ireland, the Republic of Ireland, Malta, France, Portugal, Belgium, and the Netherlands.
Emma Franklin is a lecturer by profession. Being crowned as the winner of one of the biggest beauty pageants in Europe, the win came as a huge surprise to Emma. She was selected among 10 women to represent Wales at the Miss European 2015 final in Folkestone, Kent. The week-long competition consisted of a fashion-wear round, a swimwear round, and an evening wear round. Assortment for the contest was based on a number of factors including “articulation”, “deportment”, “charm”, “personality”, and charity work.
Emma, a lecturer at Beachwood College in Sully, Vale of Glamorgan, began competing in beauty pageants at the age of 18 when her mother saw an advertisement for Miss Wales in the South Wales Echo. She expressed: “That was 10 years ago and I have been doing pageants ever since.”
Emma has competed in many pageants over the years and has formerly won Miss Earth Wales in 2011. Emma also appeared at the Miss University Great Britain pageant in 2010 aside from finishing third at the World Supermodel pageant in Fiji.
Emma added: “People have misconceptions that pageants are just about how you look on stage but much more goes on behind the scenes. I’ve done a large amount of charity work. I have volunteered to work on schemes that help homeless people and I have done voluntary work with food banks. On of my biggest passions is raising money for Cancer Research after losing my grandmother.”
Emma, originally from Pontypridd, came first out of the 10 Welsh competitors and was chosen to represent her home nation against the winners of the other countries before winning the crown of Miss European 2015. Describing about her journey, Emma said: “To be perfectly honest I didn’t think I was going to win. Some of the girls who were there I thought they had it in the bag but you have to remain positive through the competition. I had such a fantastic week meeting those girls from across Europe and I have stayed good friends with some of them. I thought ‘If I win – fantastic’ but if I didn’t it was still one of the best weeks of my life. It felt incredible to win. It was a mixture, I was completely shocked and the thing that made me most proud was winning it for Wales so that definitely brought a few tears to my eyes.”
Emma will now be visiting each of the countries which took part in the competition and will be attending civic and business functions as well as carrying on with her charity work. We congratulate Emma for this wonderful victory!