23-year-old Martha Ramirez has resigned her crown as "Miss BVI" 8 months into her reign in order to complete her medical studies.
The Dominican Republic born beauty who has been raised in the BVI since the age of 7, made her choice between beauty now or brains later in the letter outlined below:

"I write to personally inform the people of the BVI that, unfortunately, I have to resign as Miss BVI 2006. I took up the challenge of first winning the Miss British Virgin Islands Pageant, and then fulfilling this wonderful post as an ambassador, with great fervour and enthusiasm.

Unfortunately, I also took up my third year at the University of the West Indies as a medical student with the same zeal. I have found out that both cannot be successfully carried out together and I have had to choose one.

I have chosen to finish my third year and continue with my medical studies in the hope that I can later serve the people of the BVI in another wonderful capacity as a doctor, and, hopefully, a cardiologist specifically.

I take this opportunity to extend my most sincere thanks to everyone who so strongly supported me, because without that support I could not have gotten this far."
 

Along with her coveted  crown it was reported the island queen also won a brand new Nissan Almera, jewelry from Jewels and Colombian Emeralds, a full year's scholarship, and a cell phone with free service for a year from CCT Global Communications.

Two weeks after winning her crown in August '06, she had to travel to Trinidad and Tobago to complete her third year of medicine at the University of the West Indies and finally made the decision to relinquish her title jn March '07, after she learned that a planned trip to Germany to promote the BVI would conflict with her final exams. “The trip to Berlin was March 8 but it would have been impossible because I had final exams.”