Neriah Davis, Miss March, 1994

Neriah Davis, Miss March, 1994"My parents raised me on a commune in Angels Camp, in the Sierras," says 21-year-old Neriah Davis, who is turning heads on the shaded terrace of a Sunset Boulevard restaurant. As we chat, November leaves drift onto our table, and mother nature provides an eerie counter point--we're being dusted by ash from wildfires raging in Topanga Canyon.Neriah's early life in the central Sierra Nevada gold-mining town of Angels Camp was bucolic but raw. "We didn't...