Miss Florida USA Faces

Nothing more fun then holiday parade season for our titleholders! Marching bands, pageant titleholders and Santa Clause himself makes all the necessities of an outstanding event. This weekend our Miss Florida Teen USA Annilie Hastey along with several of our titleholders was featured in both Hollywood and South Miami.

The Hollywood Beach Candy Cane Parade:

The only holiday parade on the beach in the United States featured our very own Miss Hastey along with our titleholders from The Gold Coast and our host city of Hollywood. Taking place under the lights on a balmy Saturday evening the world famous Hollywood Beach Broadwalk hosted well over 50,000 viewers in this holiday tradition.

Hosted by pageant favorites Footy (host of our Katrina Telethon) and Jimmy Jam (host of our Wednesday fun night at FUSA) the palm trees framed the event. It was great seeing Miss Gold Coast Teen USA Barbara Cosme along with her director Glenda Byrd. Also fan favorites were the dynamic duo of Krizia Toledo and Rachel Rose from Team Hollywood. It was a quick getaway as Sunday afternoon at 1:00pm was the next parade in South Miami!

For the second year our Miss Florida Teen USA was a featured guest at this South Miami tradition. Taking place down Sunset Drive and culminating at The Shops at Sunset Place it was a natural fit as both our Miss Sunset Place Teen USA Yazmin Navarro and Miss Sunset Place Teen USA Marsha Nangkall joined Miss South Florida USA Ashley Coleman in some really nice convertibles.

Up first was Team Sunset Place riding amongst the corvettes that featured the South Miami Mayor and Commissioners. It’s really fun to see South Miami embrace this great event. Then closer to Santa was Miss Hastey and Ms. Coleman who brought big cheers that were second only to Santa himself. After a weekend off look for both our Miss Florida USA Jenna Edwards and Miss Hastey to be a part of The Seminole Hard Rock Winterfest Boat Parade December 14^th through 16^th.

Team Sunset Place USA (left) Miss Hastey makes some new pageant friends (right)

The hard working titleholders of Volusia County participated in not one but three parades this weekend. Pageant Director Kim Decker-Antos brought along her video camera and lets us take an up-close and personal look at the holiday fun. Thank you Kim!

NEW YORK (AP) - Former Miss Universe Denise Quinones from Puerto Rican is seeking success on a different sort of stage this month, eschewing the world of beauty pageants for New York's off-Broadway theater circuit in the English- and Spanish-language play "Zanahorias'' ("Carrots'').

"At first I thought it would be very hard, I was very nervous,'' the Puerto Rican beauty queen told The Associated Press, referring to her first bilingual acting gig. "But once we finished rehearsals it all came out naturally. We rehearsed in English and Spanish at the same time, with the script in hand, and with repetition it sticks in your head without your really trying.''

Born in 1980 in Ponce, Puerto Rico, Quinones was crowned Miss Puerto Rico in 2001 and Miss Universe later the same year.

Directed by Alfredo Galvan, "Zanahorias'' opened Nov. 22 at the Duke theater and runs through Dec. 10. The play is performed in English from Tuesday through Friday, and in Spanish on Saturday and Sunday.

Kelly Hu is hoping for a great final kick heading into Sunday's Honolulu Marathon. The 1985 Miss Teen USA, current film/TV star and Kamehameha graduate is raising money for Reef Check by running the 26.2 mile marathon in her hometown.

Hu writes on her Web site, Kellyhu.com, that her fans can sponsor her marathon run and all donations will go to Reef Check (http://www.active.com/donate/ReefCheckHawaii/kellyhu). Reef Check, which started in Hawai'i in 1996, is one of the world's leading reef health monitoring and education organizations.

As of last night, $14,687 had been pledged to support Hu's run. Her goal, the Web site said, is to raise $50,000. Hu's Web site also has clips of her new TV sitcom on ABC "In Case of Emergency."

» PICTURES & STORIES WANTED!

If you enjoy reading the stories of our Miss Florida USA Family and want us to know what great things are happening either during or after you reign please email us at telair@aol.com. We love touting our sorority of outstanding Florida women. Please send us a paragraph (or two) on your appearances, awards or community service and include pictures. We want you to have all of the support of this great lifestyle we call Miss Florida USA!

» Alumni News Wanted!

If you know of any Miss Florida USA alumni in the news please drop us an email to feature them in future articles. Email all info to info@missfloridausa.com! Until next week here to good pageantry!

PICTURE OF THE WEEK!

This week we head to the shores of Cannes in Southern France for our POTW! Miss Universe 2006, Zuleyka Rivera of Puerto Rico, left, and Miss USA 2006 Tara Conner from Russell Springs, Kentucky, pose in this lovely setting as they attend the International Luxury Travel Market in the Cannes Festival Palace.(AP Photo/Lionel Cironneau) We love the theme, the look and of course our two favorite national and international titleholders. Congrats on the awarding of the Picture of The Week!