Competing for success

By NANCILYNN GATTA
VINDICATOR CORRESPONDENT
Enjoying her newfound fame as a contestant on NBC's reality show "The Apprentice," Youngstown native Omarosa Manigault-Stallworth was surrounded by adoring fans during a visit to her hometown Thursday.
She is using the attention, not just for self-promotion, but to encourage others to follow their dreams and reach for their goals.
At the beginning of the day, she visited her alma mater, The Rayen School, and spoke to various classes. A 1992 graduate of the Youngstown high school, she discussed her definition of success with students.
"I wanted to make sure I could come home and do an event with my Youngstown family, my Rayen High School family, with my New Grace [Baptist Church] family. Everybody is my cousin because we hung out," she said.
What she's done
Since leaving the Valley, she received her bachelor's degree from Central State University in Wilberforce, Ohio, a master's from Howard University in Washington, D.C., and is working on her Ph.D.
Manigault-Stallworth also was a member of the Clinton-Gore White House as deputy associate director of presidential personnel.
Last night, she appeared at Jillian's in Boardman to answer questions and watch the latest installment of "The Apprentice." While there, she celebrated her birthday with everyone in attendance.
The reality show is based on real-estate magnate Donald Trump's business world. It tests competitors' survival techniques in New York City's corporate jungle.
The group of 16 participants were originally divided into two groups separated by gender to face weekly challenges. Three members of the losing group are brought into Trump's boardroom each week and Trump tells one, "You're fired."
"I wanted to be on the show because I saw it as an opportunity to become a CEO of a company. If I went through the normal channels it would take 10-15 years, minimum. I wanted to learn from Donald Trump to figure out, what do you do to amount such a massive amount of wealth? What I also wanted to do was live in New York," said Manigault-Stallworth.
Behind the scenes
She gave some behind-the-scenes information about the show. Workdays were from 5 a.m. to 10 p.m., but Trump's job assignments took much longer. "When you see each of the tasks, that's actually three days of shooting for 24 hours. They squish that down into 42 minutes," she said.
Though she worked hard, she still had time to visit New York's hottest clubs.
"All the sponsors wanted us to go to their clubs," she said. The eight men and eight women are eventually whittled down to one finalist. The winner receives a position with the Trump organization and a $250,000 salary.
So far, Manigault-Stallworth has survived the first five weeks of challenges and even appears on the cover of the Feb. 7-13 issue of TV Guide. She impressed Trump. "He called me 'queen of the boardroom,'" she said.
After appearing in the reality show, she said her future includes such opportunities ranging from a writing a book to meeting with agents for possible work in Hollywood.