Ana Urbano dons her glittering tiara and one of her beauty queen sashes over her size 16 dress and prepares for the inevitable stares. Sometimes, jaws drop and some in the audience blurt out downright rude comments.
Like, ``They have pageants for you?'' Or, ``You're a queen?''
All of which Urbano, 33, of Pembroke Pines, answers with a raised eyebrow: ``Just look at me. And why not?''
Then she may laugh uproariously -- or tell them of the long road to becoming a plus-size queen.
More often than not, she makes converts of people she says would otherwise ``link my dress size to my beauty.''
Urbano, the serious honors student, the president of Hialeah-Miami Lakes High's class of 1986, who once felt ``chubby'' at 120 pounds and 5 feet 2 1/2 inches, is now the happiest ever -- weighing 58 pounds more.
And she's winning beauty pageants. Last week, she ended her year's reign as Ms. Plus Global America 2000 for a total of four local, 11 state and two national pageant wins. In April, she was crowned America's Ms. Florida Woman of the Year 2001 and will represent the state at the national pageant in Fort Myers in August. A month ago, she was selected one of 40 semifinalists from a casting call for an upcoming MTV documentary, True Life: I'm a Beauty Queen. (MTV hasn't scheduled when the documentary will run.)
``I'm proud of what I do,'' she says. ``It's the real me. It doesn't matter whether I'm a size 2 or size 16 or 18.''
The road to self-assurance has been interesting. Once a teenage bride and single mom, Urbano is now a North Dade human resources executive working on her master's degree. She makes scores of appearances as a pageant winner, participating in events ranging from the Pembroke Pines annual parade to meeting with Gov. Jeb Bush to talk about education issues.
A community activist, Urbano sees her chief causes as children and cancer prevention. She recently was at University of Miami/Jackson Memorial Medical Center handing out children's watches donated by Burger King headquarters in Miami.
Just a year ago, she moved to a five-bedroom, 3 1/2-bath dream home with her husband, Michael, whom she credits as a major contributor to building her self-esteem since they met in 1997.
``I'm not scared of being big,'' says Urbano, who rejects the notion that plus-size women can't be attractive or desirable. ``My skirt hems have gotten shorter. I've become more fashionable.''
These days she wears an occasional plunging blouse or a skirt with a slit.
``You should have a sense of yourself,'' she notes. ``I believe God didn't say you can't be sexy.''
Urbano is finding fans all over, from plus-size women to little girls asking for autographs.
``She is a true inspiration,'' says Deanna Oliver, who began competing in plus-size beauty pageants a year ago after meeting Urbano. ``We both feel that beauty comes from within.''
Like most women, Urbano grew up thinking she had to be thin to be popular. She went on starvation diets. She yo-yoed through drastic slim-down routines for parties and proms. She wore girdles. She toned her muscles (she was a cheerleader). But her friends kept telling her she was still too chunky for her size.
``Everything grew -- except for my height,'' she's now able to joke.
Her relatives, attempting to be supportive, consoled her by pointing out that she was ``smart.''
But rather than go to college, Urbano turned her back on a scholarship to Florida State University and decided to marry her high school sweetheart and join him in Hawaii, where the U.S. Navy had sent him.
There, she began overeating to cope with the loneliness of months spent on her own while he was at sea -- especially when she got pregnant with her son, Blas Jr.
``I went from 120 to 246 pounds,'' Urbano says. ``I was on a `see-food' diet. Anything I saw, I ate.''
By age 21, she found herself overweight, divorced and a single parent. She returned to South Florida and began attending Florida International University, graduating in 1995 even as she worked, cared for Blas Jr. and daughter Veronica -- and moved up the ladder as a human resources manager at Dental Health Group in North Dade.
``I knew what I had to do: I had to reinvent my life,'' says Urbano.
But she never thought she would remarry until she met Michael, a Florida Power & Light supervisor. He told her she was beautiful, no matter how much she weighed.
Three years ago they married and blended their families. (Michael has Jennifer, 12, and Jose, 11, from a previous marriage.)
``I don't care what anyone says,'' he declares. ``She's beautiful to me.
``She's the kind of person that whatever she wants she gets. She's a go-getter and that's the way I am.''
Two years ago, Michael Urbano persuaded his wife to go after her dream of being in a beauty pageant. She didn't win the first time. But she kept trying -- and then winning.
Now, she jokes, she doesn't want to give up the most visible reminder of her successes: the tiaras.
``Forget the crown,'' she told women e-mailing her for suggestions on how to win the next Ms. Plus Global America. ``You're going to have to surgically remove it from my head.''
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