Que Pasa? : PEOPLE

* Mexico’s first Miss Universe, Lupita Jones, doesn’t expect to see much of Los Angeles, even though she will be based here for the year of her reign. She has a demanding travel schedule of charity appearances, product endorsements and speaking engagements. Like many recent pageant winners, Jones doesn’t want to be considered just a pretty face. She earned two university degrees--in business administration and industrial administration--in her hometown of Mexicali. She hopes one day to build a health resort in Mexico, she said, “where people can escape from pollution and stress and concentrate on a healthy diet and exercise.” Jones, 23, said her paternal grandfather, a U.S. mining engineer, went to work in Baja California, “met and married my grandmother--and stayed.”

* Jaime Oaxaca, a retired Northrop Corp. engineer and vice president, is not the retiring type. So he means it when he says, “I turned 60 this year and I’ve never been busier.” As proof, he has ventured into an arena entirely new to him: the arts. He was recently elected to the Music Center’s board of governors, and his first project is to chair, with Carmen Zapata, a “Viva los Artistas” awards brunch. Latino performers will be recognized at the Sept. 15 event, which will be followed by a free Mexican Independence Day festival in the afternoon. Already an advocate of drawing more Latinos into the sciences, Oaxaca believes they must be educated in the arts as well. “It’s necessary for the broad spectrum of opportunities that are going to open up as a result of free trade (with Mexico),” he said.