More than meets the eye

Mathis Winkler

FASHION ISLAND -- Dianna Marquez might as well have skipped the drive

up to Anaheim on Friday morning. After all, the 45-year-old Mrs. Newport

Beach and her 15 fellow contestants in Sunday’s Mrs. California

International pageant were bussed right back to Fashion Island, which is

just minutes from her Big Canyon home.

“There’s my bank and I get my facials over there,” said Marquez,

standing outside Roy’s Restaurant, where the women stopped by for some

drinks and nibbly bits on Friday afternoon.

During an earlier shopping spree around the mall, Marquez had at least

managed to pick up a pair of golden slippers to go with the golden

Marilyn Monroe dress she’ll wear for the evening gown part of the

competition.

But getting compliments for her external beauty’s not really the

reason why Marquez signed on.

Unlike conventional pageants, the Mrs. California International event

focuses on the charitable work of participants, who will receive half of

their points for an interview jurors conduct with them at a retirement

home on Saturday afternoon.

“I get to do something to help my organization,” Marquez said. “How

could I not do it?”

The organization she’s talking about is called CASA, or Court

Appointed Special Advocates. The group supports children, whose parents

are either imprisoned or going through a rough time. Currently, Marquez

spends time with a 6-year-old girl and is helping to find a foster home

for the child.

Besides, she went through the real thing more than a quarter century

ago.

“I was Miss Westminster in 1974,” said Marquez, who sells title

insurance for homes. “I’ve taken charm school. I love all that stuff.”

When she hits the pageant stage at Anaheim’s Sun Theater on Sunday

night, her whole family will be there to witness the event. That includes

her daughter, Angela, 26; her stepdaughters, Angela, 25; Sarah, 15; and

her stepson John Carlos, 14.

“They are so excited,” she said. “I go to their basketball games,

tennis matches and graduations. Now they get to go to something for me.”

Her husband, Carlos, who has a mortgage company and will escort her on

stage during the evening gown competition, is equally thrilled, Marquez

said.

“He’s digging it,” she said, adding that Carlos can’t wait to show off

his tuxedo. “He thinks he’s Humphrey Bogart.”

Should she win Sunday’s competition, Marquez will move on to the Mrs.

International pageant in Tennessee on Aug. 18.

“It’s a little more cutthroat,” she said. But “I love my CASA kids so

much. Anything I can do to help them, I’ll do.”

FYI

For information on entering the pageant, call (626) 968-2421 or go to

o7 https://www.mrscalifornia.com

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