She's Sassy, Not Seventeen

MOST OF US will never see our names on the cover of Sassy magazine unless, of course, it's on the address label. Not so for the Sassiest Girl in America, Malikah Sherman.

A sophomore in Dunster House, Malikah entered the magazine's notorious who's-the-hippest-and-coolest contest--and this summer, won. In January her picture will appear on the cover of Sassy magazines everywhere, at which point she may start getting weird looks from the vendors at Out of Town News every time she walks by the newsstand.

Malikah's success story begins when she responded to an ad in Sassy announcing the contest whose winner would be lauded as the Taj Mahal of Sass.

Sassy had just a few simple requirements: a short personal statement; two photos--a "face shot" and a "full length shot;" and an explanation of how she would change the world if she could--a creative explanation, mind you.

And here's where Malikah Jamillah Sherman of scenic Staten Island put distance between herself and the pack. Malikah built a three-dimensional city--sort of like a diorama but not really--out of colorful construction paper. On the roof of each building, she wrote a word or two describing a social problem that would not exist in her perfect world. Additional sheets of construction paper were put to good use in the compilation of a booklet about her best-of-all-possible-worlds metropolis. One judge was delighted to discover the paper town's dual use as a crown: during her interview, Malikah recalls, he placed the city on his head and wore it as a hat.

After Malikah submitted the goods, the powers-that-be at Sassy telephoned to inform her that she was a finalist. Malikah's response? "I wanted to go nuts but I didn't want to sound like one of those people who win things on the radio."

Malikah and the five other finalists, who were chosen from among 3,000 contest entrants, were put up at Manhattan's palatial Helmsely Palace in early September. For five days, the finalists frolicked in the Big Apple. They sat for makeovers, saw "Tommy" on Broadway and met the cast backstage, and answered an interviewer's questions for the PBS show "In the Mix." To top off their New York experience, the Sassiest Girl finalists spotted Dee-Lite and Winona Ryder at the ultra-trendy Time Cafe. On their second day in Manhattan, Malikah and the other finalists were peppered with a wide variety of questions, including one about President Clinton's health care proposal. The interrogators included Sassy editors and writers, as well as "some guy named Etienne from Vidal Sassoon."

Since being named the Sassiest Girl in America, not much has changed in Malikah's life. She still plays violin for the Harvard Radcliffe Orchestra, still yearns for a turtle or a fangless "medium snake." She still loves Billie Holiday, Brahms, and the dining services' honey glazed squash. And while fellow students have been known to shout "Sassy!" as she passes through the Yard, Malikah hasn't let these fifteen minutes of fame go to her head. "I think I'm sassy," Malikah says, "but I know lots of other people who are sassy, too."