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Charlotte Amalie
Thursday, March 28, 2024
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@ School: Ja’Leah Stephens

 Ja’Leah Stephens

With the St. John community gathered last week for a post-inaugural service at St. Ursula’s Episcopal Church, held to welcome Gov. John deJongh Jr. and Lt. Gov. Gregory Francis, one 12-year-old St. John girl had a starring role. Ja’Leah Stephens read from the book of Zechariah in the first scripture reading.

“I was very nervous. There were a lot of people there,” she said.

The Julius E. Sprauve School seventh grader is no stranger to the spotlight. In 2008 she captured the St. John Princess title, she plays in the Love City Pan Dragons steel pan group, takes ballet classes at the St. John School of the Arts, and she’s taken modeling classes.

She viewed the church service reading as another opportunity to build up her self-confidence so the next time she has to speak in front of a group of people she won’t be scared.

Ja’Leah had advice for anyone contemplating speaking in public.

“It gets easier. When you’re done, you’ll say ‘Whew, what a relief,’” she said, gesturing when she got to the whew part.

While she had plenty of enthusiasm for her role in the church service, she really bubbled when she talked about her studies. She takes advance placement classes, and science is one of her favorites.

“It’s pretty cool,” she said, speaking about all the interesting experiments she gets to experience in the class.

Several got her attention, but she thought it was interesting to learn that when you put iodine on a hot plate, fumes come out.

English is her best subject, but she said she also likes math.

“It’s fun,” she said.

While she was well qualified to read the scripture at last week’s service, she got involved in the inaugural planning through her mother, Shatik Stephens. Her mother, the 1994 Miss St. John, served on the inaugural committee. As the St. John Inaugural Committee prepared for the island’s festivities, Ja’Leah did a speech for the governor, she said.

The future is wide open. She said she and her family – she has a sister MaeLani, 3 – might move to Florida so she can attend performing arts school in Miami. She has family there, and lived there until 2005, so the place won’t be unfamiliar.

She expects to go on to college, but what she’ll study is an open book.

She said she enjoys a rare trip to the beach, going to the movies, playing with her sister, and other family things.

Her mother said she was open to new things.

“She still has an attitude, but when she sets her mind to something, she does an excellent job,” her mother said.

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