Beauty queen wears many hats

Maria DeMoya is the 2008 Miss Fort Myers USA but the beauty queen is more than a pretty face.

DeMoya, of Lehigh Acres, is the director of operations at Widespread Technologies in Naples and an avid businesswoman in charge of a more than $4 million budget.

"We are a small business of only seven employees and just because I hold that title doesn't mean that I don't answer the phone," said DeMoya about her involvement with the Xerox Agent company. "I have my hands in many other things other than just my job descriptions."

It's that modesty that pageant judges saw when DeMoya competed in front of a sellout crowd of 200 at the Alliance for the Arts in Fort Myers.

"I've never been in a pageant but always had an interest in doing it," said DeMoya, who was scouted for the pageant during a business networking event for the Chamber of Commerce. "I had watched pageants on TV but I never even attended one."

It was now or never for the 26-year-old DeMoya, whose mother won her first pageant at the age of 18 in the Dominican Republic.

In order to compete, DeMoya had to be under the age of 27 and she wanted to ensure she took her last chance for a pageant.

"I didn't want to look back and say I didn't try it. My mom used to tell me stories about her experience," DeMoya said about being crowned in the mid-January pageant. "And they draw it out when they announce the winner so when I heard my name I got a little emotional."

And, so did her co-workers, who were in the audience screaming when DeMoya won. Her identical sister Anna was also in the crowd.

"We were there! On the video you can hear us screaming and Maria is just a wonderful person," said Molly Perez, the vice president of Widespread Technologies. "It couldn't have happened to a more positive, intelligent and hard-working woman."

DeMoya's crowning paid off in a big way because it gives her the chance to represent Fort Myers for a year and prepare for the state competition to be held in 2009.

"All the contestants were new and we were all on the same level with training and experience," said DeMoya, who answered judges' questions, wore in a bathing suit on stage and evening gown before being crowned. "When you win, it's right down to business ... people you don't know congratulate you so you don't have much time to ruin your mascara."

The business of being crowned though isn't getting in the way of DeMoya's job of currently setting up a new office in Fort Myers.

"She is an asset to our company and she gets something and runs with it," Perez said, adding that DeMoya started with the company in sales and was promoted twice since 2003. "We supported her and she is really a part of our family. She is making us proud to know her."