Lisa Moretti was born and raised in Los Angeles, California. She has two brothers and one sister. She studied public relations at the University of Southern California. Moretti was a cheerleader for the Los Angeles Express of the United States Football League in the mid-1980s. Before starting her career in wrestling, Moretti worked as a make-up artist for the cosmetics brand Revlon.
After leaving WWE, Moretti began working in the landscaping industry. Moretti also worked with her niece to help the pet population affected by Hurricane Katrina. She volunteered for an organization called Best Friends Animal Society. It is a no-kill animal shelter—a shelter that does not euthanize to control animal populations—in Utah. She also worked with her local animal shelter on San Juan Island in northwestern Washington. She has lived there since 2000. She opened Downtown Dog in 2007 with Jessica Ray. It is an animal daycare. It also deals with training, grooming, and cat boarding. The company is in Friday Harbor. In June 2007, they added veterinary care and later the Bow Wow Bus. The Bow Wow Bus takes the dogs on outings. Moretti has taken classes to learn how to groom animals. She now grooms them as part of the business.
Ayako Hamada
Ayako Valentina Hamada Villareal (born February 14, 1981 in Mexico City, Mexico) is a Japanese-Mexican professional wrestler currently wrestling on the independent circuit. She is probably best known for wrestling for TNA Wrestling where she won the TNA Knockout Tag Team Championship twice once with Awesome Kong and once with Taylor Wilde.
Rosa Mendes
Milena Leticia Roucka (born October 25, 1979) is a Canadian professional wrestler, valet and former model. She currently wrestles for WWE on its SmackDown brand under the ring name, Rosa Mendes. She made her WWE debut as part of the 2006 Diva Search, even though she finished fourth WWE still hired her. She won a Slammy Award in 2010 for "Best Use of Exercise Equipment". She is also a part of the main cast on the E! reality series "Total Divas". In October 2014, Mendes came out as bisexual.
Highlands and Islands
The Highlands and Islands of Scotland are broadly the Scottish Highlands plus Orkney, Shetland and the Hebrides.
This area consisted of parts of seven counties of Scotland:
Order of Merit
The Order of Merit () is an award, for notable work in the armed forces, science, art, literature, or for the promotion of culture. The order was set up in 1902, by Edward VII. Membership of the order is a personal gift of its Sovereign (the monarch does not take advice from politicians about who should be a member). The sovereign of the order is the reigning monarch of the Commonwealth realms. The award is limited to 24 living recipients at any one time from these countries, plus a small number of honorary members.
Whilst all members can use the post-nominal letters "OM" and a medallion for life, the Order of Merit's precedence, amongst other honours, differs between Commonwealth realms.
The award filled a gap in the honour system under Queen Victoria. It was only possible to reward people who held official positiions. So, for example, T.H. Huxley could be rewarded because he had sat on Royal Commissions, but Charles Darwin and Alfred Russel Wallace held no official positions. Without question their work was as important as Huxley's, or more so. This kind of problem was known by Edward VII, and when he eventually became king, he drew up this new award which had no such limitations. The idea had been discussed before.
The first mention of a possible Order of Merit was made after the Battle of Trafalgar, in 1805. It was discussed in letters between the First Lord of the Admiralty, Lord Barham and Prime Minister William Pitt. Nothing came from the idea. Later, Queen Victoria, her courtiers, and politicians, all thought that a new order, based on the Prussian order "Pour le Mérite", would make up for the insufficient recognition offered by the established honours system to achievement outside of public service, in realms such as art, music, literature, industry, and science. Victoria's husband, Albert, Prince Consort, took an interest in the matter; he wrote in his diary that he met on 16 January 1844 with Robert Peel to discuss the "idea of institution of a civil Order of Merit" and three days later he talked with the Queen on the subject. The concept did not wither and, on 5 January 1888, British prime minister the Marquess of Salisbury submitted to the Queen a draft constitution for an Order of Merit in Science and Art, consisting of one grade split into two branches of knighthood: the Order of Scientific Merit - for Knights of Merit in Science, with the post-nominal letters "KMS" and the Order of Artistic Merit - for Knights of Merit in Art, with the post-nominal letters "KMA". However, Sir Frederic Leighton, President of the Royal Academy, advised against the new order, primarily because of its selection process.
It was Victoria's son, Edward VII, who eventually founded the Order of Merit, on 26 June 1902 the date for which his coronation had been originally planned as a means to acknowledge "exceptionally meritorious service in Our Navy and Our Army, or who may have rendered exceptionally meritorious service towards the advancement of Art, Literature and Science"; all modern aspects of the order were established under his direction, including the division for military figures. From the outset, prime ministers attempted to propose candidates or lobbied to influence the monarch's decision on appointments, but the Royal Household adamantly guarded information about potential names. After 1931, when the Commonwealth of Nations came into being and the former Dominions of the British Empire became independent states, equal in status to the UK, the Order of Merit remained an honour open to all the King's realms; thus, as with the monarch who conferred it, the order ceased to be purely British.
From the start, the order has been open to women, Florence Nightingale being the first woman to receive the honour, in 1907. Several people have not taken the honour, such as Rudyard Kipling, A. E. Housman, and George Bernard Shaw. To date, Prince Philip, Duke of Edinburgh, remains the youngest person ever inducted into the Order of Merit, having been admitted by Queen Elizabeth II in 1968, when he was 47 years of age.
All citizens of the Commonwealth realms are able to be given the Order of Merit. There can only be 24 living people in the order at any given time, not including honorary appointees, and new members are personally selected by the reigning monarch of the 16 realms, presently Queen Elizabeth II, with the help of her private secretaries; the order has thus been described as "quite possibly, the most prestigious honour one can receive on planet Earth." Within the limited membership is a designated military division, with its own unique insignia; though it has not been abolished, it is currently unused, the Earl Mountbatten of Burma having been the last person so honoured. Honorary members form another group, to which there is no limit, though such appointments are rare; individuals from countries in the Commonwealth of Nations that are not headed by Elizabeth II are considered foreigners, and thus are granted only honorary admissions, such as Nelson Mandela (South Africa) and Mother Teresa (India).