Immigrant with Armenian background will compete for Miss USA titleMay 18, 2018 - 19:10 AMT PanARMENIAN.Net - Narine Ishhanov, whose background is Armenian, feels like she still has something to prove. Less than 14 years after she arrived in America knowing just four words of English, the immigrant from Turkmenistan was crowned Miss Utah-USA. On Monday, May 21, she’ll compete for the title of Miss USA and the chance to represent her adopted country in the Miss Universe pageant, The Salt Lake Tribune reports. “I feel very blessed and grateful for this experience,” Ishhanov said. “It almost feels unreal, I’ll be honest with you. It’s, like, ‘Oh, wow! I’m competing for Miss USA!‘” The 24-year-old just graduated from the University of Utah, and she’s applying to dental schools. She owns and operates her own trucking company. She’s an ambassador for Utah’s STEM (Science, Technology, Engineering and Math) Action Center. So a little thing like appearing on national television (Fox/Ch.) doesn’t faze her at all. Ishhanov said she’s not nervous going into the Miss USA competition, “which kind of scares me, in a way,” she said with a laugh. “I feel like I should be nervous, but I’m more excited. “I want to show who I am to the world,” she said. “And I want to show people that you can be anyone and come from anywhere to represent the state that you love. I want to just explain and show everybody how accepting my state was with me and my family, and how caring and supporting everybody here was.” Ishhanov is clearly driven, and she believes “it comes mostly from my parents. Just watching them work so hard — never taking a break or going on vacations. They don’t even know what a vacation is.” Ishhanov was born in Ashgabat, Turkmenistan — formerly part of the Soviet Union. Her father came to the United States in 2000; she, her mother and one of her brothers followed in 2004, when she was 11. Her mother works in housekeeping at the U. Medical Center; her father is an independent contractor with FedEx. The Miss Universe Organization Top stories The EU does not intend to conduct military exercises with Armenia, Lead Spokesperson for EU Foreign Affairs and Security Policy Peter Stano says. Hikmet Hajiyev has said that there is no place for USAID operation in Azerbaijan any longer. A telephone conversation between Putin and Pashinyan before the CSTO summit is not planned, Peskov says. London’s Armenian community has been left feeling “under attack” after the city’s Genocide monument was vandalised. Partner news | Russia clarifying reports on Baku’s alleged arms supply to Ukraine Russia says is carefully working to verify reports about alleged arms supplies from Azerbaijan to Ukraine Meeting with U.S., EU not against third parties, says Armenia The meeting scheduled for April 5 is dedicated to strengthening of the Armenia-EU-US cooperation, Yerevan added. Ucom launches network modernization efforts in few regions of Armenia In particular, on March 28, the legacy Mobile Switching Subsystem will be replaced with a new one. Armenia to sing in 2nd semi-final of Eurovision The organizers of Eurovision 2024 have revealed the running order of the countries in the two semi-finals. |