Belmont Shore's Monique Villa: Future Miss California?

In January, Long Beach residents can cheer for a hometown candidate when they tune into the Miss California pageant, as Belmont Shore native Monique Villa contends for Miss California, USA.

Pageant life's come as a natural transition from Villa's usual non-work activities, which involve community service and networking. But forb Villa, known among friends as the girl who loves to eat apple pie in the middle of the night to relax after a long day, pageantry was far from her mind during the months leading up to the competition.

The 22-year-old was born and raised in Long Beach, attending local schools, including Prisk Elementary and Long Beach Wilson High School, class of 2007.

Villa said she found her calling at 19, while serving as an intern at the TOMS shoe company headquarters in Santa Monica. “I earned $50 a week as an intern, and I left school for one semester, quitting three part time jobs because I really believed in the company,” Villa explained.

Although TOMS was relatively small at the time, Villa became involved in its marketing department, attending events and spreading the company’s mission to such celebrities as Gwen Stefani, Pierce Brosnan, and Tyrese.

By the time Villa returned to school, she had a renewed sense of purpose. “The thing I realized,” Villa says, “was that my strength was in people and formulating ideas to promote companies like TOMS who were making a difference.” After graduating with honors from Long Beach City College with an associate’s degree in liberal arts, Villa transferred to the University of California, Irvine, where she currently studies an interdisciplinary combination of humanities and art. “The title of my field is visual media in convergence culture,” Villa explained.

Although people had told her in the past to enter pageants, Villa always shrugged off the idea. “I didn’t think I fit the pageant mold,” Villa says, “I don’t wear makeup very often and I just never looked at myself that way."

Villa eventually entered the contest just a week before the final deadline, keeping it a secret from her friends.

“I wore a high school prom dress from five years ago as an evening gown because I didn’t have enough money to buy a dress,” Villa laughed.

Because the state system works independently from city pageants and contestants choose their area of representation after making it past a three-part interview process, Villa ran as Monique Villa from Naples because both Long Beach and Belmont Shore were already claimed.

Regardless of her official title, by the end of the night Villa had made it to the semi-finals, and judges soon named her Miss Long Beach.

Belmont Shore residents can tune in January 2012 to watch Ms. Villa in her bid for the Miss California, USA crown.