Miss Cass promoting ocean literacy

Published 10:24 pm Thursday, June 7, 2007

By By JOHN EBY / Dowagiac Daily News
CASSOPOLIS – It won't exactly be the Atlantic Ocean she's accustomed to, but Miss Cass-St. Joseph County Linaya Hass can pretend while overlooking Lake Michigan next week at the Miss Michigan pageant in Muskegon.
To reflect her passion, the University of South Carolina marine biology junior is competing for the state title and a berth in the Miss America pageant with a platform issue of "ocean literacy."
How does a 2004 Miss Cassopolis who grew up in a brick farmhouse the road past Ross Beatty High School become passionate about the sea?
"I've always wanted to study marine science since I was a little girl," she said Wednesday morning. "I've always loved dolphins and my dream job was to be the dolphin trainer at Sea World."
Perhaps her parents, Dean and Glenda Hass, thought she would outgrow that early ambition, but Linaya, the middle of their three daughters, "stuck with it."
"I'd still love to be the dolphin trainer at Sea World," she smiled, "but there are other things I want to do. I'm specializing in marine mammals. I'd like to work at either an aquarium or a marine rescue center. I like the East Coast more because it's closer to home" – if a 14-hour drive is close.
"It's beautiful in South Carolina. I love it," she said. "We're able to take a lot of field trips to the coast. We get to do a lot of hands-on work. We get right in the ocean with big nets and bring things back and put them under the microscope."
"I chose South Carolina because when I was looking for schools, it also has a really good dance team, and I wanted to continue dancing," Linaya said.
Perhaps you didn't know anything about the Gamecocks except it's where Lou Holtz went to coach football after leaving The University of Notre Dame.
"Now we have Steve Spurrier," said Linaya, who is paying particular attention to current events as one aspect of preparing for the Miss Michigan pageant. "Football is huge there."
"Freshman year I came home about five times," she said. "This year, just Thanksgiving, Christmas and spring break. My parents came down a few times to visit me. And I go home with my friends some weekends, so I get to be in a home, but not my own."
She usually flies, but her mom brought her car down toward the end of sophomore year.
"When it was time to leave, I packed up everything in my little car and drove all the way back by myself. Fourteen hours. I was so ready to get home, I stopped twice for gas and that was it," said Linaya, who appeared in Dowagiac's Memorial Day parade.
"RIght now my full attention is on the pageant. I leave Saturday," she said. After that, I will probably get a job. I normally nanny for two little girls through the summer."
She also will be showing "the usual – two pigs, a lamb and a steer" – at the Cass County Fair in her last year of eligibility.
"My younger sister (Cally), she's a year younger, we both do the same thing, so we'll have eight animals at the fair."
Older sister Heather, who was also Miss Cassopolis (Cally was second runner-up two years ago), is home right now for the pageant, but otherwise coordinates AmeriCorps volunteers in Helena, Montana.
Besides the requisite shopping, pageant preparation includes "constantly practicing" her talent – a jazz dance – "and making sure that's perfect."
And exercising a lot for the swimsuit," which counts 15 percent of her final score.
She leaves June 9, but the finals aren't until the following Saturday, June 16.
"Each day we do a lot of different activities," said Linaya, who met the other 23 contestants at an orientation she attended in March.
"Luncheons, a children's hospital, miniature golfing with the Big Brothers/Big Sisters program. We have to have all these different outfits," which is where the shopping comes in.
Linaya is also conscious of polishing her interview skills and brushing up on current events.
"I don't even turn on the TV when I'm at school. I get newspapers, but they're South Carolina newspapers," and now she's back in Michigan, where the controversy is the budget crisis instead of flying the Confederate flag over the State Capitol.
At school, "Everyone always tells me I have a funny accent," Linaya said.
Contestants split up into two groups for preliminaries on Wednesday and Thursday, June 13-14.
"The first night, my group does our talent and onstage question and the other group does swimsuit and evening gown. Thursday night we flip-flop. Saturday is the top 10, which is announced at the very beginning of the pageant" so they can compete in all four phases.
There will be 40 fans rooting her on from as far away as California.
"I'm excited and a little bit nervous," she said. "I'm just going to have fun and to enjoy the experience. I know there are a lot of girls there who are very prepared and have been doing this for several years. I would like to do well – I have goals – but more than anything I want to have fun."
"I think it's a little bit of both" the swimsuit and talent segments which hold back local queens from advancing to the county level, Linaya said. "For me, I've danced since I was 3. Swimsuit, you're literally on for less than a minute and it's only like 15 percent of the total score. You walk on and you walk off. I never think of it as a big deal. There are girls who look phenomenal in a swimsuit, but won't place. It's really not the biggest part of the competition, like talent is a big portion of your score, and interview. Swimsuit and evening gown, if you do well, it boosts you up. If you don't, it's not going to hurt you a whole bunch."
Ten-minute interviews dwell on her platform, ocean literacy.
"Everyone's like, 'We're in Michigan. Why do we need to know about the ocean?' The ocean is 70 percent of our planet," Linaya explained. "We're affected by the ocean every day, even though we don't see it. Our weather and climate are influenced, the oxygen we breathe, a lot of the food, national security, transportation – a lot of things."
Linaya, whose late grandfather, Lowell McMillen, was a county commissioner, remembers learning a lot about continents in earth science classes, but not enough about the ocean to whet her interest.
"That's where we're going wrong," she said, "because with climate change, it's having a huge impact on us. Now more than ever, we need to know a lot about the ocean so we can protect it and keep it clean. It is an unusual platform. Nobody's ever done it before, but it's something I'm passionate about I want to share with others. Breast cancer, drinking and driving and heart disease are important, but ocean literacy is something I don't think people think about, even though the Great Lakes are considered part of the ocean's coastline."
Linaya is the second Miss Cass from Cassopolis since the contest originated in 1983 and the first since Johnelle Ryan's extended 1992-93 reign.
In high school she was Student Senate president, junior class president, senior class president, National Honor Society president and treasurer, Spanish Honor Society president and treasurer, Spanish Club treasurer and SADD vice president.
In 2005, she finished first runner-up to Marisa Viestenz of Dowagiac.