MISS CNMI Universe Virginia Ling Gridley is leaving Saipan today for San Juan, Puerto Rico where she will compete with 75 other contestants around the world for the 2002 Miss Universe title.
“I’m very excited and nervous, but I will give my best to have the CNMI known to the rest of the world, and hopefully, bring home the crown,” the 22-year-old Gridley told Variety in an interview yesterday.
The pageant is set for May 29.
“With your support and encouragement, and just to hear the news from the CNMI while I’m at the pageant will be a great help,” Gridley said.
She will be joined later in Puerto Rico by her parents and Jonas Barcinas of the Northern Marianas Beauty Pageant Association.
There are at least two Web sites, and , where all individuals can vote online for Gridley or any other candidate for the Miss Photogenic and other special awards.
Gridley, along with the rest of the pageant contestants, will stay at the San Juan Intercontinental Hotel.
“This is my first time to go to Puerto Rico, and I intend to promote the CNMI’s tourism as much as I can. I will have fun but I will work hard. It’s the experience that counts,” she said.
She will bring shell leis and a sculpture depicting latte stones and mwars as the CNMI’s gifts to the other contestants and to the pageant board.
Gridley is a world history teacher at Marianas High School. She aims to pursue her passion for cultural anthropology.
“That’s my goal. Unfortunately, there have been few anthropologists who have had the desire to study the complexity of Micronesian cultures, and even fewer of any Micronesian descent. I would like to fill that hole and become a pioneer in a field for which I have deep emotional and academic ties,” she said.
According to the pageant’s Web site, the Miss Universe 2002 event will officially start this weekend, with almost three weeks of rehearsals, tours, parties and preliminary pageant. Security is also tight at the pageant.
