“I’m honored to win Miss Earth,” Leon Rosales said. “Now I’ll be on my way to win the title for Miss Universe”  

Rosales, also known as Leona Laritza Lopez, was crowned this year’s Miss Earth representing Colombia and sponsored by newspaper. The Miss Earth pageant was held this past Monday in the auditorium.

“I had a really good time,” Rosales said. “I had lots to laugh about and everything.”

Miss Earth is a fundraiser held for project graduation. The money will benefit the class of 2022’s project graduation night of events. This year, Miss Earth raised a total of $2112 for project grad. 

“We had the best contestants this year,” Project graduation parent Nicole Crawford said. “We raised more money than we ever had. The results were really close, but I’m glad everyone had a good time.” 

Some of the contestants include Miss Guatemala (Darian) Darissa McDonald representing Art, Miss Nigeria (Jacobi) Jaquinta Pipkins representing the Long Handle Spoon, and Miss Cuba (Nicolita) Nicolas. The winner of Miss Photogenic went to Pipkins,

“I had a lot of fun,” Pipkins said. “The makeup was kinda, I don’t know, I don’t mess with makeup, but the dresses? I rocked them.”

 More contestants involve Miss United Kingdom Mason (Macie) Wright representing the Grand Band, and Miss USA Abrahan (Abby) Serna representing the Cheerleaders. For the winner of best talent, Wright claimed the title by singing “It’s Raining Men”,

“I think I should’ve won more than the most talented,” Wright said. “I think with a performance like that I should’ve gotten something better. It was supposed to be a lipsync in between the performance but I think they accidentally put the karaoke link and I didn’t wanna sit there and look dumb.”

Other contestants include Miss Jamaica (Regina) Reggie Robinson representing the Drama club, Miss Australia Katie (Kade) Bailey representing FFA, and Miss Italy (Elisa) Eli Pierce representing student council. The second runner up for Miss Earth is Pierce,

“It was a good, fun experience,” Pierce said. “I really am blessed and glad to achieve that title.”

Last but not least, the first runner up for Miss Earth is Miss Mexico (Nicolas) Nereyda Martinez representing Yearbook,

“I wasn’t expecting it,” Martinez said. “It was honestly a surprise to me, but I felt accomplished.”

This year’s judges consist of Bryan Evans, Dr. Jason Adams, Tarsha Graves, Andrew Downing, and Sharon Gibson. 

“What’s interesting about Miss Earth is we don’t pick one specific person to win,” Downing said. “We pick each of their different talents, or different times on stage and rank it from 1 out of 10. Some people who perform really well, say in the talent portion, underperform in the other portions. Really, the best way to win Miss Earth for future contestants is to be most consistent all the way through, and overly excitable in all of the areas. One that you might shine in, you might struggle in another, so make sure that you’re consistent. That’s what led to Leon winning.”