HOT SPRINGS — Miss Arkansas 2011 Kristen Glover says mentoring can help troubled teens get a second chance.
She spoke for the first time as Miss Arkansas at a news conference on Sunday at the Austin Hotel in Hot Springs. The Miss Ouachita Baptist University was crowned by Miss Arkansas 2010, Alyse Eady, on Saturday night at the Summit Arena in Hot Springs.
The elegant and wellspoken Glover said the reality still hasn’t set in that she is representing the state for the next year and at the Miss America competition in Las Vegas in January.
The 21-year-old Stuttgart native has cleared her calendar and has put her plans to attend the University of Arkansas for Medical Sciences College of Pharmacy on hold to promote her platform “Second Chances: Empowering Youth to Rise Above” — a message she has already talked about in 12 cities with more than 900 people. She will also promote the Children’s Miracle Network, a group that raises money for children’s families who can’t afford expensive medical care.
Glover said her eyes were opened while she spent the 2009 summer living at Promise House in Little Rock mentoring pregnant teens. Promise House is an outreach program and emergency shelter for homeless, runaway and at-risk teens.
“That was also a time in my life where I felt as if I really needed to grow up,” she said. “I really needed to be challenged outside of what I was comfortable with. I knew it was going to be hard.”
She first entered the Miss Arkansas competition in 2008 and her platform was “Abstinence Until Marriage.” She didn’t compete in the 2009 Miss Arkansas. Instead, Glover opted to spend six days a week for 10 weeks with pregnant girls ages 13 to 18. She learned about the mentoring opportunity from an e-mail.
“... I realized these girls are desperate for a role model,” Glover said on Sunday. “They have nobody in their life, they have absolutely nobody who gives them a care, who shows them any kind of love and absolutely nobody who shows them how they can be a mother. I realized how important it is for us to pour into and invest in my generation.”
Glover says she is passionate about health-care issues. She said she hopes to build support for Children’s Miracle Network in Arkansas and outside of the state.
“I love talking about health care especially since I hope to go into pharmacy,” Glover said. “I’ve actually been told that I have to be pretty neutral here, so at the moment, I definitely could say that there are lots of great things about our current health-care bill, but we can always improve.”
While an intelligent and hard-working young woman, Glover is down to earth and can relate to people well, said Justin Harper, co-executive director of the Miss Ouachita Baptist University competition.
“She can walk into a room and make everyone feel at home,” he said.
On top of winning a $20,000 scholarship and more than $50,000 in gifts, including a new wardrobe and a new Buick Regal, Glover won the crowd favorite award and the interview award. During the preliminary rounds she won the presence and poise in evening gown and lifestyle and fitness in swimsuit awards.
The small-town girl is the daughter of Keith Glover, who is a chief executive officer of Producers Rice Mill Inc., and Mary Glover, who is a stay-at-home mom. Mary Glover plans to travel with her daughter as much as she can over the next year.
Glover has two siblings — 19-year-old sister Ashley Glover, who is a sophomore at Ouachita Baptist University, and 28-year-old Mark Glover, who is a businessman in Little Rock. Mark’s wife, Brooke, is a pharmacist, and helped Kristen realize she wanted to go into pharmacy, Keith Glover said.
Although she grew up in a duck-hunting town, Kristen Glover isn’t the hunting type.
“I have had to blow a duck call a couple of times, but it hasn’t gone over very well,” she said.
Glover has worked on her dancing talent since she was 3 years old and she said it took her a few years to get comfortable performing because she was shy as a little girl. On Saturday, she tap danced to “I Got Rhythm,” as she did in the Miss Arkansas 2008 and 2010 competitions. Last year, Glover was third runner-up.
Her dance was choreographed by long-time dance instructor Micki Konecny, who was Miss Arkansas in 1981.
“Kristen is quite a complex individual because a lot of her personality traits you wouldn’t think would connect,” Konecny said on Sunday. “She is extremely intelligent, and yet she is so artistic.”
Glover graduated from Ouachita Baptist University in May with a bachelor’s degree in chemistry and a 3.9 GPA. She graduated from Stuttgart High School in 2007 with high honors.
Konecny said Glover is well-mannered and extremely organized. At 16, Glover began her first job at Konecny’s dance studio in Stuttgart.
“You only have to tell Kristen to do something one time,” she said, “and it will be done better than you ever expected and hoped for.”
Arkansas, Pages 7 on 07/18/2011