Miami Cuban American shines at pageant
By LYDIA MARTIN
Herald Staff Writer
ATLANTIC CITY -- Miss Florida did a little conga step as she took the stage at the Miss America pageant Saturday. The Cuban American from South Florida was going for first Hispanic crown-holder. She's going home as the second runner-up in the 78th annual Miss America contest. The new Miss America: Miss Virginia Nicole Johnson.
Gonzalez, 22, was the first Hispanic to take the Miss Florida crown. The closest another Hispanic has ever come to winning Miss America was Marisol Montalvo, Miss New York, who finished as first runner-up to 1992 winner Carolyn Sapp.
Gonzalez is the first Miss Miami since 1972 to get to the pageant.
She threw her arms up in delight when she was announced as one of the top 10 finishers Saturday night and joined the other finalists in the middle of the stage in Atlantic City's oceanside Convention Hall.
She wore an understated, strapless white dress with sweetheart neckline and a sprinkle of silver beads cascading from one shoulder. It was the same dress that helped her grab the Miss Florida crown.
Johnson, the new Miss America, is a 24-year-old diabetic who wears an insulin pump on her hip. She sang That's Life for her talent offering, gasped when her name was announced and looked up at the ceiling before she accepted a crystal scepter and was crowned by outgoing Miss America Kate Shindle.
Johnson, of Roanoke, Va., is a graduate of the University of South Florida who recently completed work on a master's degree in journalism. She works as a writer and producer for 700 Club promotions and wants to be a national news anchor.
As Miss America, Johnson won a $40,000 college scholarship, a year's worth of travel and speaking engagements, and about $200,000 in appearance fees.
First runner-up was Miss North Carolina Kelli Bradshaw, and rounding out
the
top five were Miss Missouri Deborah McDonald and Miss Kentucky Chera-Lyn
Cook.
A switch in songs
It was the interview portion that was expected to be her greatest strength. ``She hasn't been taught to say the perfect thing,'' said Marie Finnell, president of the Miss Florida pageant. ``She says what's in her heart. It's very refreshing in a pageant.''
Gonzalez's contest platform is also considered fresh: cultural diversity, the acceptance and celebration of America's many hues.
This will go down as the year the Miss America pageant made its biggest play to be taken seriously in an era when many question the contest's relevance.
Shindle, the reigning Miss America, led a videotaped chat with other recent winners -- a Miss America therapy session of sorts -- to let the world know just how serious their work is, especially since the advent of the personal platform concept in 1989, which compels contestants to work for a cause.
``I get so frustrated when people call me a beauty queen,'' Shindle, who took on AIDS as her cause, told her sisters.
Johnson plans to spotlight diabetes awareness during the 20,000-mile-a-
month national speaking tour she will make as Miss America.
No good luck
They figured it would put too much pressure on her.
``When we talk to her, we tell her we love her; we tell her not to worry and to enjoy herself because this is a once-in-a-lifetime experience,'' mom Giselda Gonzalez, 44, said the night before the show. ``But we don't really say good luck because we want to make sure she knows that we're not worried about the result of the contest. Just to know that she got here is very big for us.''
It may seem like just a typical beauty pageant pleasantry, but the
Gonzalezes aren't that rehearsed. They haven't logged years and years in
the
pageant machine. They don't know many players in the smile-and-strut
industry
that has been invading Atlantic City every September since that first Miss
America show in 1921. Not many of the players know them.
Honor student
``Her grandmother told her about it and persuaded her to try it,'' said Gonzalez's mom, who left Cuba in 1968. ``She was first runner-up. She had a lot of fun and decided she should try other pageants, but it wasn't because she always dreamed of being Miss America or anything like that. She just needed money for college.''
School has always been her first drive. She graduated in the top 1 percent of her high school class and racked up a number of academic awards, enough to cover full tuition at UM. She's now a senior, double-majoring in music and broadcast journalism while maintaining a stellar grade-point average.
Her dream: to be the next Gloria Estefan. Or perhaps the next Barbara Walters.
``If her goal is to be a singer or an excellent journalist, I know she
will
do that,'' said dad Arnaldo, 45, who works two jobs -- as a shelf stocker
at
Publix and on the assembly line at a metals company. ``She has always been
a
very determined person.''
A family affair
Just hours before the show, Gonzalez's grandmother, Elsa Groba, 68, said she was trying to put the whole thing out of her mind. ``They are all very pretty.''
While Gonzalez was off doing Miss America business Friday night, her parents celebrated with the Miss Miami and Miss Florida delegation at Planet Hollywood in the Caesar's casino.
There were more than 60 people, all of them wearing butterfly stickers and butterfly pins. Butterflies are good luck for Geminis. So says Walter Mercado, whose astrology column appears in El Nuevo Herald. Gonzalez is a Gemimi.
Ever since Gonzalez's mom heard Mercado say that on TV, she has been collecting butterflies. ``I saw him say that on TV, and the day after, I found a scarf, with dozens of butterflies printed on it, lying by my car at a shopping center. I gave it to Lissette. She tied it around her makeup suitcase.''
The butterfly thing took off among the Florida pageant people. Not that most of them have a clue who Mercado is.
``Well, I don't know who that is,'' says Mary Lou Lewis of Wisconsin, one of the judges of the Miss Florida pageant, who flew to Atlantic City to root for Gonzalez. ``But I know that I've been collecting butterflies anyway.''