New Napier beauty Queen Harlem-Cruz Ihaia has been welcomed home in the first public formalities since she was named Miss Universe New Zealand 11 days ago.
The 19-year-old was already into being a role model for young people as she arrived at the Pania of the Reef monument on Napier's Marine Parade just before to start a parade which would take her in a 1936 Buick Roadster through the Napier CBD and on to a formal powhiri at suburban Onekawa school Te Kura Kaupapa Maori o Te Ara Hou an hour later.
Joining family and friends on a classic Spring-like Napier morning, she posed for numerous photographs amid a formal welcome with congratulations from Mayor Bill Dalton.
Among others present were kaumatua and kuia, some the children she's taught at Henry Hill School-based kohanga reo maori Te Kupenga o Te Matauranga and its kaumatua, Ray Gunn, and Miss Universe NZ executive Nigel Godfrey, who was also among the presenters when Miss Ihaia was crowned in Auckland, as New Zealand's hope for the Miss Universe in the Philippines in November.
Pania was cloaked for the occasion, with a korowai worn by Harlem-Cruz when she was photographed on the beach nearby 14 years ago, when she was five years old.