Nicole Lamarche | |
|---|---|
| Born | 1978 |
| Other names | Miss California |
| Years active | 2003 |
Nicole Lamarche is an ordained minister in the United Church of Christ (UCC) and a beauty pageant titleholder who was crowned Miss California 2003. [1] Competing in the Miss San Francisco Pageant in 2003, she won the title and went on to win Miss California 2003 and became the Fourth runner up to the title of Miss America 2004. She was the swimsuit winner and although she decided to wear high heels during this segment of the competition it was erroneously reported by an ESPN columnist that she competed barefoot. This is most likely due to pictures of her competing in the Miss California swimsuit segment not wearing high heels, as the contestants normally do. [2] She earned over $26,000 in scholarships.
The United Church of Christ (UCC) is a mainline Protestant Christian denomination based in the United States, with historical confessional roots in the Congregational, Reformed, and Lutheran traditions, and with approximately 4,956 churches and 853,778 members. The United Church of Christ is a historical continuation of the General Council of Congregational Christian churches founded under the influence of New England Pilgrims and Puritans. Moreover, it also subsumed the third largest Reformed group in the country, the German Reformed. The Evangelical and Reformed Church and the General Council of the Congregational Christian Churches united in 1957 to form the UCC. These two denominations, which were themselves the result of earlier unions, had their roots in Congregational, Lutheran, Evangelical, and Reformed denominations. At the end of 2014, the UCC's 5,116 congregations claimed 979,239 members, primarily in the U.S. In 2015, Pew Research estimated that 0.4 percent, or 1 million adult adherents, of the U.S. population self-identify with the United Church of Christ.
A beauty pageant or beauty contest is a competition that has traditionally focused on judging and ranking the physical attributes of the contestants, although most contests have evolved to also incorporate personality traits, intelligence, talent, and answers to judges' questions as judged criteria. The term refers largely to contests for women such as the Big Four international beauty pageants.
The Miss California competition is the pageant that selects the representative for the state of California in the Miss America pageant.
She earned an MA in theology from the Graduate Theological Union in Berkeley, California, and a Master of Divinity from the Pacific School of Religion. [3]
The Graduate Theological Union (GTU) is a consortium of eight private independent American theological schools and eleven centers and affiliates. Seven of the theological schools are located in Berkeley, California. The GTU was founded in 1962 and their students can take courses at the University of California, Berkeley. Additionally, some of the GTU consortial schools are part of other California universities such as Santa Clara University and California Lutheran University. Most of the GTU consortial schools are located in Berkeley area with the majority north of the campus in a neighborhood known as "Holy Hill" due to the cluster of GTU seminaries and centers located there.
Pacific School of Religion (PSR) is a private Christian seminary in Berkeley, California. It maintains covenantal relationships with the United Church of Christ, the United Methodist Church, and the Disciples of Christ, ensuring the school provides the necessary requirements for candidates to seek ordination within these denominations. These three denominations account for approximately half of the student population of PSR. The school has also maintained close relationships with the Unitarian Universalist Association, the Universal Fellowship of Metropolitan Community Churches, the African Methodist Episcopal Church, as well as other denominations. Over the years PSR has provided training for clergy from a wide range of religious traditions including Buddhists, Jews, Pagans, Pentecostals, and Roman Catholics.
Lamarche spoke publicly about Miss California USA Carrie Prejean's controversial answer regarding gay marriage. [4] Lamarche was featured on Larry King Live to discuss the topic. [5]
Miss California USA is a pageant that selects the representative for the state of California in the Miss USA pageant. This pageant is part of Miss Universe Organization.
Caroline Michelle "Carrie" Prejean Boller is an American model, former Miss California USA 2009, and Miss USA 2009 first runner-up. Later, Prejean was stripped of her Miss California USA crown for alleged breaches of contract. Contentious litigation between Prejean and the Miss California organization was settled in November 2009. Later that month, Prejean released a book relating the story from her point of view.
Larry King Live is an American television talk show that was hosted by Larry King on CNN from 1985 to 2010. It was CNN's most watched and longest-running program, with over one million viewers nightly.
Lamarche served as pastor for the Cotuit Federated Church on Cape Cod from 2007 until 2010. [6] She subsequently relocated to Northern California, where she founded a new UCC congregation, the Silicon Valley Progressive Faith Community, [7] in San Jose, now called Urban Sanctuary. She served as the congregation's Founding Pastor until 2018. In 2019 she became minister of Community UCC in Boulder, Colorado.
Boulder is the home rule municipality that is the county seat and the most populous municipality of Boulder County, Colorado, United States. It is the state's 11th-most-populous municipality; Boulder is located at the base of the foothills of the Rocky Mountains at an elevation of 5,430 feet (1,655 m) above sea level. The city is 25 miles (40 km) northwest of Denver.
In 2008, Lamarche married Jeremy Nickel, whom she had met in divinity school. In July, 2011, the couple had their first child, a baby daughter. [8]
