Sharee Adams: Woman of Substance
Sharee Adams may be Miss New Zealand, but you’re unlikely to come across her in one of Auckland’s many beauty salons. Nor is she likely to be found sipping a latte in an upmarket cafe. Possibly, she’ll be knee-deep in a pond, looking for tadpoles with her two nephews. More likely, she’ll be found making preparations for Grunt United, a church-based initiative on Auckland’s North Shore to attract teens from the community into church.
“Every Friday night we’re out there, giving kids a glimpse of
God. It’s fun, it’s noisy, it’s exhausting,” she says. “But
these kids come along to more formal gatherings because we’ve made the
contact with them on their turf.”
And as for glamour and evening gowns, the bread and butter of beauty pageants,
well, “I always detested dressing up,” says Sharee, grimacing at
the thought. “Dresses were impractical, and gumboots were my preferred
choice of footwear.”
Sharee Adams in 2003 competing for
the title of Miss Universe in Panama.
Sharee recalls a happy childhood with her two brothers and one sister. Raised on the family’s dairy farm near Albany, just north of Auckland, her favourite pastimes included horse riding, “hooning” about the farm on a motorbike, building huts in the bush, watching her father race rally cars and attending church with her family.
Her first encounter with glamour and fashion was placing second in a “Wearable Arts” fashion contest while at secondary school. She refused to “dress up,” and wouldn’t attend school balls, bluntly arguing, “Why get dressed in uncomfortable clothes to see the same people you’ve been with all day?”
After completing high school, Sharee trained as a chef and worked in several Auckland restaurants, then earned a degree in early childhood education and applied her new-found skills as a nanny.
She says 2002 was a “defining year” for her. Just for fun, she says, she entered the Miss Hibiscus Coast Quest beauty pageant. She wasn’t placed, but on a Tuesday afternoon several months later and quite unexpectedly in April 2003, a Miss Hibiscus Coast coordinator phoned Sharee suggesting she try for the title of Miss New Zealand.
Three days later, the tiara was hers: “I don’t know why the judges chose me as Miss New Zealand,” she says. “Maybe they were looking for a total package—personality, spark, height, looks—but whatever it was they wanted, that’s what I had. And I’m grateful for the opportunities winning presented.
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