Page 122 - South Mississippi Living - February, 2025

ROMANCE & WEDDING
Capturing the
Picayune Man Surprises Future Bride with Engagement Proposal and Some Help from South Mississippi Living
story by Cherie Ward photos by Arielle Victoria
With help from his savvy mother and South Mississippi Living magazine, Maliek “Tragic” Turner proposed to his longtime girlfriend Uriah Newman under the guise she had won a fancy dinner and a magazine photography shoot, leaving her in tears of shock and joy.
“When they opened the door for her, she was immediately in tears,” Turner said. “Her tears just went to flowing and she had to turn around. She knew all of our plans and all of our dreams were about to come true.”
Thanks to her now-fiancee and soon-to-be mother-in-law Sandreal Turner, Newman arrived at the Italian Grill & Pizzeria in Picayune thinking she had won a South Mississippi Living contest featuring a reserved room and a catered dinner for everyone she knew and loved.
“We were trying to figure out a way to get her and her family in one room, but without suspicion,” the future groom said. “Mom came up with the idea of saying someone called and Uriah had won a drawing. I didn’t know how I was going to pull it off and mom really came through.”
The stealthy mother-son duo then tried to convince Newman a magazine photography session accompanied her contest score, and she needed to be semi-formally dressed for photos that would then be featured in an upcoming South Mississippi Living issue.
Quickly suspicious, Newman scoured the South Missis- sippi Living social media pages which revealed no such contest existed – ever. Adding to her skepticism, she could not get a clear answer from anyone about why she was completely unaware she’d ever entered a contest.
“I was so puzzled,” Newman said. “I wanted to know why a magazine would send a photographer and a jour- nalist to talk to me when I didn’t even enter anything. It just didn’t make sense.”
Digging in deeper, Sandreal Turner involved her husband in the covert charade who told Newman he had entered her in the contest and used his wife’s phone num-
122 | February 2025
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