People in the news

She used to suffer from stage fright. She thought swimsuit contests were degrading to women. And she entered the Miss America Pageant system only because she needed money for college.

So what was Angela Perez Baraquio doing Saturday night, hula dancing and parading across an Atlantic City, N.J., stage in a two-piece swimsuit before millions of TV viewers as Miss Hawaii?

Becoming the first Miss America of Asian American descent, that's what. But Baraquio, whose parents are Filipino, said she didn't feel like a pioneer.

"It doesn't matter what (ancestry) you are. It matters what you are on the inside," she said.

The eighth of 10 children, she is a graduate of the University of Hawaii at Manoa who works as a physical education instructor and athletic director at Holy Family Catholic Academy in Honolulu.

An elementary school gym teacher, Baraquio, 24, captured the rhinestone crown, a $50,000 college scholarship and a pulpit from which to preach a cause.

"As a society, we must work together to guide each child to become a well-rounded individual and contributing citizen by infusing character development into every educational institution's daily school culture," she said.

Baraquio (pronounced bur-OCK-eeyoh) broke down in tears yesterday during her first news conference as Miss America 2001.

"All the Miss Americas came up to me last night and said, 'Welcome to the sisterhood.' I said: 'Wow, I'm part of the legacy. I'm a part of the American dream,'" Baraquio said.

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"Titanic" star Kate Winslet and her newborn daughter, Mia, are doing great and will be leaving the hospital today, a publicist for the British actress said yesterday.

Mia -- who weighed 8 pounds, 9 ounces, when she was born Thursday at a London hospital -- is the first child for 25-year-old Winslet and her husband, Jim Threapleton.

The couple met in 1997 on the set of the British movie "Hideous Kinky," in which Winslet starred and Threapleton, 26, served as assistant director. They married the next year.

Winslet's New York-based agent, Robert Garlock, said the choice of the name Mia was a spur-of-the-moment decision. "Kate and Jim had drawn up a list of 10 names, but when the baby was born, none of them seemed right," he said. "Then Mia came to them, and it seemed just right."

Winslet reportedly is planning to take a seven-month career break.

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