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Luzelena Ortiz-Lopez holds her own even after six hours of hair, makeup, wardrobe changes, two locations and an interview for this fashion spread as Conexion's 2011 Hottest Latina contest winner.

The 27-year-old beauty is nothing if not resilient — outlasting heat, humidity, rain, mosquitos and numb legs after standing and squatting on concrete in a pair of high heels for the last hour of the photo shoot.

“Can we do this every day?" she cracks with a laugh.

Gutsy is a title Ortiz-Lopez earned long before winning this contest, something she proved when she walked the runway of the Miss San Antonio American Beauty Scholarship Pageant, in a bikini, while seven months pregnant with her second child. “I wanted to go and show other women, hey, our world does not end when we become moms."

She won first runner up in the pageant but was a favorite among organizers because she participated in all the events she was invited to. “They made a citizenship award just for me. I love that, just motivating women," she says.

She is married to a rookie police officer and has two beautiful daughters whom she speaks only Spanish to, naturally, since she is also a dual-language kindergarten teacher at Walzem Elementary. She normally only wears makeup when she goes on a date with her husband. However, her love of glamour is clear when Ortiz-Lopez falls in love with an airy, fuschia gown during the shoot, and says that she may just have to buy it if she wins the competition.

Ortiz-Lopez is a hard worker who has gotten to where she is — a successful professional who says with sincerity that she loves her job, a proud wife and mom, a community volunteer and a strong woman who woke up at 5 a.m. the morning of the photo shoot to do kickboxing beforehand — through her own inner strength.

She grew up in El Paso the youngest of six siblings with immigrant parents who only spoke Spanish.

Her parents separated when she was young, and she lived mostly with her mother until she was 13, when she was sent away to live with a father she barely knew. She says she grew up being told she would never make it past high school, that she would amount to nothing. “That pushed me to say, ‘Oh, you're gonna hold me down? I'm gonna use that as motivation,'" she says.

Determined to do well, she graduated early, at 16. Ortiz-Lopez was then accepted to the University of Texas, and her father dropped her off in Austin when she was just 17.

“No one ever helped me with financial aid forms or banking," she says. She worked full-time in the evenings and went to school full-time by day. She graduated at 20 and a recruiter for North East Independent School District persuaded her to teach for his district.

She's been there ever since.

“I love San Antonio. It's like El Paso, times 130," says Ortiz-Lopez. The only complaint she has is that her favorite foods from home are not prepared the way she likes them here. “I like the greasy stuff — the menudo, barbacoa and tripas," she says with a big grin.

Before the end of the photo shoot, her husband Chris stops by with their 3-year-old and 15-month-old in tow. She wanted the girls to see their mami modeling.

“They'll grow up and say, wow, my mommy did this," she says later. “I love it. I can go home and say, ‘You know what? I did something for me.'"