Miss Maryland

Find your passion. Start today to make your goals a reality. Surround yourself with positive people. Those were the three pieces of advice offered yesterday by Marina Harrison, Miss Maryland USA 2005, who addressed hundreds of students at two assemblies celebrating Black History Month at Wilde Lake High School in Columbia - where nearly 36 percent of the 1,400- student population is black. "One thing I tell myself every day is, `I can be whatever I want to be someday - someday - but if I really want it - really, really want it - I gotta start today, today, today," said Harrison, who told the packed auditorium to follow along with her. Harrison, 24, a community outreach specialist for the State Department of Education, was the keynote speaker at the school's celebration that also featured students honoring notable black leaders, entertainers and writers, including authors Maya Angelou and Langston Hughes, Johns Hopkins neurosurgeon Dr. Ben Carson, and actor Ossie Davis, who died this month.

Find your passion. Start today to make your goals a reality. Surround yourself with positive people. Those were the three pieces of advice offered yesterday by Marina Harrison, Miss Maryland USA 2005, who addressed hundreds of students at two assemblies celebrating Black History Month at Wilde Lake High School in Columbia - where nearly 36 percent of the 1,400- student population is black. "One thing I tell myself every day is, `I can be whatever I want to be someday - someday - but if I really want it - really, really want it - I gotta start today, today, today,' " said Harrison, who told the packed auditorium to follow along with her. Harrison, 24, a community outreach specialist for the State Department of Education, was the keynote speaker at the school's celebration that also featured students honoring notable black leaders, entertainers and writers, including authors Maya Angelou and Langston Hughes, Johns Hopkins neurosurgeon Dr. Ben Carson, and actor Ossie Davis, who died this month.

A 23-year-old State Department of Education employee from Baltimore was crowned as Miss Maryland USA last night in competition at the Bethesda North Marriott Hotel and Conference Center. The winner, Marina Harrison, 23, won't have to travel even that far in representing Maryland at the Miss USA pageant in April: The site is Baltimore's Hippodrome Theatre, a few blocks from her apartment. "I will be competing in my own back yard," a jubilant Harrison said last night in a telephone interview, minutes after besting 88 other women for the crown.

Amanda Williams first thought about entering the Miss Maryland Teen USA pageant as a freshman in high school. Her mother, Melissa Williams, remembers looking at the stack of entry forms in the kitchen of the family's Jarrettsville home. "I talked her out of it, I don't know if I had these stereotypes or what," Melissa Williams said. The next year, Amanda presented the forms to her mother but saw a different outcome. "When she told me that she wanted to use it as a steppingstone for her career, we said, `Sure you can enter,'" her mother said.

Everybody loves a parade. And there's lots to love about Saturday's Thanksgiving Parade in Baltimore, an annual tradition for 52 years. Marching bands from the community and from area schools, dance troupes, colorful floats, costume characters and equestrian units will all take part in the parade. And visitors can catch Santa Claus in his first appearance of the season. The parade kicks off at 11 a.m. at Pratt and Eutaw streets, marches east on Pratt Street and ends at Pratt Street and Market Place.

After 83 years of gracefully applauding as someone else sashays to the familiar tune of "There She Is...," Miss Maryland is ready to bring home the crown from Atlantic City. "The Miss America Organization wants someone who is beautiful, talented and intelligent. Well, I'm already all of those things," says the newly crowned Miss Maryland 2003, Marina Harrison. At 22, this University of Maryland graduate and Severn resident is accomplished and articulate enough to back up her confident claims.

Two days after receiving fourth runner-up honors at the annual Miss America pageant, you may find Miss Maryland Camille Lewis at a nearby video store. The 23-year-old Silver Spring native will more than likely be renting local filmmaker John Waters' Hairspray, after missing a question about the movie's setting during a quiz show-style round of questioning Saturday night. "I wouldn't mind seeing that," she said of the Baltimore-based '80s flick. "I'm very open to researching that movie."

When she leaves Severn Friday, bound for South Padre Island, Texas, and the 12 days of events leading up to the Miss Teen USA pageant Aug. 28, Michelle Attai will leave knowing that winning is not necessarily the hardest part ahead. Being Miss Maryland Teen USA 2002 has taught her the real work comes after they set the crown on a girl's head. "I thought once you won, the pressure was taken off," said 18-year-old Michelle, who took over the title in November from her predecessor, Precious Grady.

Tonight, catch one of Maryland's own, where the wild things are. Former Miss Maryland Megan Gunning makes her pitch for a new job, as one of the featured applicants on E!'s Wild On Wants You. The show, set for 10 p.m., is the latest chapter in the cable network's continuing search for a new host for Wild On, a televised tour of the world's coolest hot spots. Although Gunning, 24, was not one of a dozen finalists for the job, she'll still get her moment of cable-TV glory. Tonight, the Fallston resident will be seen at Lulu's Mardi Gras Club in Washington, part of Wild On Wants You: The Heartland.

MICHELLE N. ATTAI, a 17-year-old senior at Meade High School, is Miss Maryland Teen 2002. As the newly crowned Miss Maryland Teen, Michelle will represent the state in the Miss Teen USA pageant in August. She'll also spend the year representing the pageant at community events around the state. After finishing as first runner-up in the pageant the past two years, she waited nervously to hear the outcome of this year's competition, held Nov. 25 at the Marriott Inner Harbor Hotel in Baltimore.