Pageant winner roommate with former Miss Hesperia turned Miss Apple Valley
By BEAU YARBROUGH
Staff Writer
What makes Marisa Yepiz an unlikely pageant queen in many ways makes her a perfect Miss Hesperia.
“I’m one of those non-traditional kind of queens,” she said Tuesday, three days after winning the tiara and sash. “How do I explain myself? I work in the construction field. I drive a lifted Chevy truck. I like driving my quad.”
In fact, Yepiz, 22, has only been seriously competing in pageants since 2001, when she accompanied her younger sister Amanda – she’s the oldest of eight children – to a pageant and got talked into competing herself.
Since then, Marisa has competed and won several major titles, including Miss Petite California 2004 – petite in the pageant world means any woman under 5’6” – and Miss Victorville 2004.
“I know it sounds totally odd to have a former Miss Victorville be Miss Hesperia, but I worked hard for [Victorville],” Yepiz said. “I really love helping out for my city and working for the community. ... I really feel like I can make the city proud.”
The Yepiz family has lived in the region once commonly known as the Golden Triangle (shared between Hesperia, Victorville and Phelan) since the early 1980s and Marisa grew up attending school in all three communities.
But her current claim to Hesperia residency comes from the home she shares with roommate Lindsey Merritt. Merritt, incidentally, was Miss Hesperia 2004 and won the Miss Apple Valley 2006 title on March 25 at Hook Junior High School alongside Yepiz.
Leaving aside the sitcom-ready image of pageant queens living as roommates and the question of who had which title when, Yepiz’s coworkers can’t get over the fact that she competes in pageants at all.
“They think it’s kind of funny. ‘You? Wear a dress? Miss tennis shoes and jeans?’”
She does have one daily concession to the sort of femininity most associate with pageant queens: When she goes out onto the construction site where her company is expanding Victorville city hall, Yepiz does wear a pink construction hat.
The Serrano High School and Victor Valley College graduate will be working towards her real estate license this spring and plans to attend Cal State San Bernardino this year and ultimately graduate with a bachelor’s degree in English.
“I’d honestly like to go back to Serrano and teach English, but I’ll probably start at the junior high level,” Yepiz said. She currently teaches Sunday School at Oasis Church on I Avenue. “I just think the teaching is really my calling and really like working with some of the younger kids at the church. I think this what I’d like to do, until they rub paint all over their shirts.”
She got her start helping to corral her seven siblings.
“We’re all really close. It goes 17, 16, 12, 10, 8, 6 and 3. And then me at 22,” she said. “Christmas is a lot of fun. The gifts are just piled up.”
Out of that batch, it seems only two Yepiz girls will be wearing the winners’ sashes and tiaras for the time being.
“It’s just me and Amanda right now. I’ve tried to inspire the others.” Amanda is Pixie Miss Hesperia 2006.
Other winners at the Empire Pageants-run Miss Hesperia, Miss Victorville and Miss Apple Valley pageants on Saturday, March 25, included Teen Miss Hesperia 2006, Michelle Fleming, 16, an 11th grader at Options for Youth charter school. Young Miss Hesperia 2006 is Victoria Luce, 12, a Hesperia Junior High School student. Pre-Teen Miss Hesperia 2006 is Paige Nicole Foraker, a 5th grader at Summit Elementary School. Junior Miss Hesperia 2006 is Rebecca Reynolds, a 3rd grader at Hollyvale Elementary School. Toddler Miss Hesperia 2006 is Allyson Lain Patten, Petite Miss Hesperia is Jayden Dianne Foster and Baby Miss Hesperia is Trinity Rayne Brown.
Yepiz said she hopes more girls will take their shot at the tiara in future years, even if, like her, they aren’t the stereotypical pageant queen.
“There’s so many girls who have so much potential,” Yepiz said. “Even if they don’t want to do pageants, just for training and life training.”
Beau Yarbrough can be reached at beau@hesperiastar.com or by telephone at 956-7108.
