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Vancouver Island woman in the running for ‘Maxim’ Cover Girl contest

Voting for the finalists ends on Thursday, July 2
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Letitia Charleson is a Nuu-chah-nulth woman currently living in Port Alberni. (SUBMITTED PHOTO)

A Nuu-chah-nulth woman living in Port Alberni, B.C. is in the running for Maxim’s 2020 Cover Girl contest.

Letitia Charleson said she entered the magazine’s annual modelling contest as an accident.

“I thought I was registering to vote for another model,” she laughed. “I got an email back saying I was eligible to run as a candidate.”

After thinking it over, and talking with her husband, Charleson decided the opportunity was too good to pass up.

“I was thinking about it, the chance, the opportunity, that’s kind of hard to ignore,” she explained. “I thought, ‘What the heck?’ and entered. I had no idea how many people would vote for me every day and keep me in the running. I didn’t think that I was going to make it this far.”

Charleson has stayed in the running as her group has been whittled down from the top 25 to the top 20, then top 10 and top five. She is currently sitting in second place in her group.

“If I can stay in the top two, I have a chance of making it into a wildcard round,” she explained.

Charleson is a stay-at-home mom to three kids, although she jokes that she has become a “homeschool teacher” since the COVID-19 pandemic. She enjoys gardening and pyrography (wood burning) as a hobby. She grew up in Port Alberni, but moved to Tofino as a young adult to work in the tourism industry.

“My husband and I decided to move back [to Port Alberni] after our family started growing,” she said.

She did a little bit of freelance modelling 10 years ago, but stepped away from this after her children were born. Since entering the contest, Charleson has had a number of people reach out to her for modelling opportunities.

“There’s been a lot of positive things coming from it,” she said. “Just because I’m older now, and a parent, doesn’t mean that it’s over. That’s been a pretty great learning step for me during this whole thing.”

The Cover Girl contest comes with a $25,000 prize. Charleson said she would use most of the winnings to build her forever home—including a garden, greenhouse and chicken coop—and put some towards her childrens’ future educations.

“I’m a homebody,” she laughed.

She would also like to donate to an organization that works with families of someone who has had a traumatic brain injury, in honour of her father who lost most of his memory in an accident.

Voting for the finalists ends on Thursday, July 2. You can vote for Charleson online at www.maximcovergirl.com/2020/letitia.



elena.rardon@albernivalleynews.com

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Elena Rardon

About the Author: Elena Rardon

I have worked with the Alberni Valley News since 2016.
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