Katherine Espín

Katherine Elizabeth Espín Gómez (born 15 November 1992) is an Ecuadorian model and beauty queen who was appointed as Miss Earth Ecuador 2016.^[1] She is best known as the winner of the Miss Earth 2016 pageant,^{[2][3][4][5][6]} making her the second Miss Earth winner from Ecuador next to Olga Álava who won the crown in 2011.^[5][7][8]

Biography

Early life and career beginnings

As published in Miss Earth's official website, Katherine described her childhood days as, "When I was 9 years old I traveled to United States to study and live with my parents who were working there. I finished elementary and high school in New York City, I lived there for 6 and a half years. During my school years I was able to get many academic achievements such as student of the month, principals honor roll, science fair awards during 4 years, art awards in a competition in New York state. I also had sports awards and among them was track race winner." She learned that, "Due to my parent's occupation I couldn’t spent much time with them so I had to learn to be very independent since I was 11 years old, for example I had to travel by train to go to school by myself, stay home alone and learn how to cook because my parents were always working. All those experiences made me a strong independent woman and I thank my parents for that. It wasn’t easy but we made it possible together as a family. I had an amazing childhood life but lonely for 13 years because I was a single child until my sister was born when I was 13. I had facial paralysis when I was 13 and had to struggle with that for a while during my childhood."

Pageantry

Prior competing in the Miss Earth pageant, Katherine was able to represent Ecuador at the Reinado Internacional del Café 2013 where she went unplaced and at Miss Bikini Universe 2015 where she emerged as the first runner up.^[9] Katherine also competed at the Miss World Ecuador 2013 pageant where she went unplaced.

Miss Earth 2016

Katherine, being appointed Miss Earth Ecuador 2016, flew all the way to the Philippines to compete at Miss Earth 2016 pageant. She competed with 82 other delegates from around the world. During the pre-pageant events, Katherine was able to get a gold medal during the press presentation as part of the "Darling of the Press" award and tied up with the Philippines' bet, Imelda Schweighart.^[10][11][12] As the pre-pageant activities continued, she was able to garner much more medals: gold medals for resort's wear and long gown competitions; silver medals for the swimsuit competition; bronze medal for the national costume competition. Aside from getting several medals, Katherine was able to get an award from various sponsors as well.

As a Miss Earth delegate, the representative should have an environmental advocacy that serves as her focus as part of the pageant's environmental awareness. When Stephanie was asked what her advocacy is all about, she answered, "My environmental advocacy is environmental education in schools specially in elementary schools. I chose this because I believe that the best age to teach a person to have environmental conscience is at an early age because on their growing years they will learn to have respect towards the environment which will help to the future generations. I truly believe that there should exist on every academic pensum an environmental class and I will work hard on it to make it possible."

At the end of the pageant on 29 October 2015, Katherine was hailed as the winner, besting out 82 other delegates.^[13][14]

References

External links

• Miss Earth Venezuela 2016 Eco-Beauty Video
• Katherine Espin at Miss Earth Official Website

Awards and achievements
Preceded by Angelia Ong	Miss Earth 2016	Succeeded by Incumbent
Preceded by Ángela Bonilla	Miss Earth Ecuador 2016	Succeeded by Incumbent