Sophia Garbutt, Miss B.C. Job's Daughters, posing with Mr. P.G. Photo courtesy Joanna Garbutt
Job's Daughters

Local teen preparing for international competition

Jun 5, 2024 | 4:30 PM

PRINCE GEORGE – Local 17 year old Sophia Garbutt is preparing to head to Omaha, Nebraska, following her crowning as Miss British Columbia, Job’s Daughters.

Job’s Daughters is an organization for girls aged 10 to 19 to learn leadership skills, public speaking, get involved in the community, and more. Each year the organization holds a contest to crown a Miss B.C., and then the winners of each respective region across the world compete to be crowned Miss International Job’s Daughters.

“Everyone who can come from Canada, everywhere else in the U.S, Australia, Brazil, Philippines are all going to come together and just have a grand old time,” Sophia explained.

The Miss International contest takes place during Job’s Daughters’ annual international meeting, called the Supreme Session. The contest itself consists of an oral recitation, written test, and interview portion focused on the history, guidelines, and rules of Job’s Daughters as an organization. While this is Sophia’s first time representing the province in the Miss International contest, she has attended the Supreme Session before and is excited to get back into the international scene again.

“I met people from everywhere, and I have some really good friends now who are in Minnesota and Delaware, and I met some girls from Australia and we had a great time together and it was really, really cool,” Sophia said when recounting last year’s Supreme Session.

Having been in the organization since she was ten years old, Sophia says Job’s Daughters has impacted her hugely.

“I feel way more confident in talking to other people and talking in front of big groups. And just being myself is a really big thing,” she said.

“One of the things that I notice, particularly is with a lot of my friends there, doing the like, ‘teenager troubles’ with their parents, which is pretty common. But my mom and I have, because of Job’s Daughters, maintained a pretty good, funny relationship,” she continued.

As for her mother, Joanna Garbutt, she says she is incredibly proud of Sophia not just for her accomplishment in competing in Miss International, but also seeing how she’s grown over the years into this role.

“I am so incredibly proud of her. She was the kind of kid that when she was around ten, she did well with one-on-one situations, but in a group she would freeze up (…) Having her in a group that has encouraged her to find her voice and encouraged her to be the best person that she can be, I think that becoming the Miss British Columbia Job’s Daughter has been the culmination of that,” Joanna said.

The written exam, oral recitation, and interviews will take place from July 5-7 before the Supreme Session in Omaha, Nebraska, with the coronation taking place on July 25.

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