Page 7 - MidWeek Kauai - Dec 7, 2022

Teruya Focuses On Bringing Home Miss America Title
FROM PAGE 6
on weekends. I lived there.” While the time commit- ment to a grueling theater schedule seems daunting, it led Teruya to hyperfocus her efforts. She did better in school, her confidence grew, and it pushed her to work hard to be able to continue her passion for performance. Her pageant platform — Arts for All — is inspired by those experiences growing up. In particular, Teruya re- members struggling through- out elementary school and bringing home less-than-
ects, Teruya is preparing for the upcoming Miss America pageant and looks to family, friends and supporters who have cheered her on along the way, including some who have since passed on. This includes her maternal great-grandmother, Dora McBeath, who was a Radio City Rockette back in the day.
DECEMBER 7, 2022
KAUA‘I MIDWEEK 7
Sitting pretty on the lawn are the Teruya sisters: Sophia, Kathryn, Anya and Lauren. PHOTOS COURTESY LAUREN TERUYA
“She was 6 feet tall and my great-grandpa would call her ‘Legs,’” she says. “She was this gorgeous woman, and I’ d like to think that even though I didn’t
have the oppor-
tunity to meet
her, that she’s
in my heart
and body and
family.”
stellar report cards.
“They would talk about
how I was reckless and wasn’t paying attention, wasn’t fo- cused,” she recalls. “I was a busybody. I had to stand up and move while I ate.”
In fact,
Teruya’s
three sisters —
Sophia, Kathryn
(Miss Hawai‘i 2017)
and Anya — are also per- formers, which she believes is her grandma’s light shin- ing within them all.
So when she found theater — she’s also well-versed in jazz and ballet — she felt like she found the answer to a longstanding problem.
Teruya comes from a family of performers. Her great-grandmother, Dora McBeath, inset, was a member of the precision dance company Radio City Rockettes.
“I recognized that I learned from doing and moving,” she says. “It got me to thinking about things in a different way than was being taught in the classroom. I want every child to have that accessibil- ity to unlock an intelligence that they may not be fully activating in the classroom.”
The lei-adorned Teruya will be competing in the Miss America 2023 pageant, scheduled for Dec. 15 in Connecticut. Cheering her on will be many family members, including, from left, father Luke, sisters Kathryn, Anya and Sophia, and mother Kim.
“I remember the night of Miss Hawai‘i, me and the other women were standing in a circle all holding hands and someone told us to close our eyes and picture some- one or something that is going to guide you through the night,” Teruya says. “I re- member seeing this collage, it wasn’t a single person, it was hundreds of people — co-workers, friends, family, mentors — and that is what IplantokeepwithmeasI travel all the way to Con- necticut. I have gratitude for every single person in my life.”
The integrating movement aims to get arts into class- rooms regardless of funding or having a full-time arts educator. And she has done extensive research on the myriad benefits the arts can have on a child, from cog- nitive growth to social and emotional learning.
One effort she’s particu- larly proud of as part of Arts for All is Popscotch — think the traditional game of hop- scotch but with nods to pop and local culture. The con- cept, Teruya says, is simple and really fun. In normal hop- scotch, children jump through numbers from one end to the other. In Teruya’s Popscotch iteration, though, things get a little more dynamic — and a lot more enjoyable.
culture into the structure. For example, at one Popscotch lo- cation, children crawl through a lava tube and must decide to go the ʻaʻā (stony lava) route or pāhoehoe (smooth lava) route. At other locales, Pop- scotch takes kids island-hop- ping or celebrates rainbows. There’s even one made out of “rubbah slippahs.”
“Kids are five times more likely to stay in school when they have access to arts edu- cation,” shares Teruya, who earned her bachelor’s and mas- ter’s in journalism from Uni-
“Popscotch activates more of the body,” she says. “They spin, crawl through shapes, strike a pose, clap, there are so many different activities.”
“It can be unique to your culture,” explains Teruya, who hopes to expand Pop- scotch all over the world. “Every town and city has so many things unique to their culture that can be brought to life.”
The Miss America 2023 pageant takes place Dec. 15. Visit missamerica.org for showtime and more infor- mation.
Teruya — shown here with mother Kim and older sisters Kathryn and Sophia — struggled with maintaining her attention as a youngster, but found that through theater work, as well as jazz and ballet, she was able to focus better and learn “from doing and moving.”
E 7versity of Southern California.
The “pop” part of Pop- scotch incorporates local pop
When she’s not working on her local community proj-
G