Alber Mora is an immigrant from Cuba who arrived in the United States through Miami, Florida. Mora’s father became persecuted by the Castro government where he worked, when Alber’s older brother was called to mandatory military service though he had a medical exemption. Due to this reason, the mora family decided to leave Cuba in a balsa (raft) risking their lives as many Cubans did to escape the oppression at the time.

Laura Taylor was born in New Haven, Connecticut and spent her childhood bouncing between New York and Ohio to follow her father’s career. Robert Cox, her father, was a businessman who attended Syracuse University on the Government-Issued Bill. Her mother, Lillian Cox was a concert pianist and college music professor. At the age of seventeen, Taylor received a scholarship to attend the Cincinnati Conservatory of Music in Cincinnati, Ohio under the tutelage of Dr. Robert Powell. Unfortunately, Dr.

“My goal with [pageantry] was: I just want to have as much impact as possible within the community, and then, self-servingly, it’s an amazing networking opportunity; you meet tons and tons of people, and so that’s what I did.”