Tanisha Brito

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Tanisha Brito Beauty pageant titleholder

Birth name:	Tanisha Nicole Brito
Birth location:	Waterford, Connecticut, U.S.
Height:	5 ft 5 in (1.65 m)
Eye color:	Brown
Hair color:	Brown
Ethnicity:	African-American
Title(s):	Miss Connecticut 2002 Miss Georgia USA 2005
Major Competition(s):	Miss America 2003 (Semi-finalist) Miss USA 2005

Tanisha Nicole Brito (born 1980) is a beauty queen who has competed at both Miss America and Miss USA.

Brito is an experienced pageant contestant. Her first major pageant was the 2000 Miss Connecticut state pageant, where she finished second runner-up. The following year she competed in Georgia, where she won a non-finalist interview award. She returned to Connecticut in 2002, where she won the swimsuit award and Miss Connecticut crown. Brito was a top ten finalist in the Miss America 2003 pageant won by Erika Harold of Illinois. She won a $5,000 scholarship for this placement. The following year, Brito gave up her Connecticut crown to Marla Beth Prete and returned to Georgia.

On November 6, 2004 Brito was crowned Miss Georgia USA. She competed in the Miss USA 2005 pageant held in Baltimore, Maryland on 11 April 2005, but failed to make the cut at the nationally televised pageant, which was won by Chelsea Cooley of North Carolina. She gave up her crown to Lisa Wilson in November 2006.

Brito graduated from Waterford High School in 1998. Her home town is Waterford, Connecticut, however she attended Clark Atlanta University in Georgia which gave her the residency permission to compete in that state's pageant. While preparing for the Miss America pageant, Brito attended the University of Connecticut at Avery Point so as not to disadvantage her studies. Her degree is in mass media arts with a concentration in public relations. At university in Georgia she was a member of the American Association of University Women and belonged to the Lambda Pi Eta Communications Honor Society. She is currently a graduate student at Clark Atlanta University in the MBA program concentrating in Marketing.

Brito is strongly involved in fostering youth leadership. She currently sits on the National Advisory Board of Mobilizing America’s Youth. After her pageant participation she founded the T. Meredith Brito Foundation for Women, a charity dedicated to raising funds to improve the quality of life for women with Breast Cancer and other health issues in underserved communities.