CONWAY -- Like so many teenage girls, this one likes Beyonce, hip hop and hanging out with friends.
She's also been a Girl Scout with a beige sash displaying a U.S. flag and troop number 6023.
Started in the spring of 2016, Troop 6023 was the first to serve youngsters in a juvenile court system in the Girl Scouts Diamonds region, which includes Arkansas, Oklahoma and Texas. With that in mind, the Girl Scouts Diamonds recently honored the 20th Judicial Circuit's juvenile court with its Opening Doors Award, which recognizes those who introduce the Girl Scouts to an underrepresented area or group.
Judge Troy Braswell, who presides over that court, said he was excited "because no one else in the region, let alone the state, was offering a Girl Scout [troop] for court-involved girls."
"I remember how important Boy Scouts was to me. We were determined to make this happen for our girls," Braswell said in a statement.
Since the program took off in Faulkner County, there have been three troops, one to correspond with each school semester for girls ages 12-14. Since then, others, including the Pulaski County jail and the Benton County Juvenile Court, have started similar troops.
The Faulkner County troop's current leader, volunteer Jordan Camp, and a 13-year-old girl who participated in the group during the past school year came together last week to talk about the program and its benefits.
They sat at a table in a small building that's home to Deliver Hope, the Scouts' weekly meeting place and a nonprofit organization that provides mentoring for youngsters in the juvenile court system and some financing for groups aimed at helping them. Through a grant, United Way also has contributed by helping the court buy supplies, food and the official Girl Scouts sash.
As Deliver Hope's juvenile court program coordinator, Camp has guided Troop 6023 through journal writing, art projects, activities such as a cookout and a flag ceremony, and perhaps most significantly projects aimed at helping youths focus their energies on good things and on learning from one another.
Names of young people in the juvenile court system are not public information, and the Arkansas Democrat-Gazette is not using the 13-year-old girl's name.
She said she had gotten into trouble over some fights but is nearing the end of her probationary period.
Now, though, she's trying to do better, and she's more optimistic and goal-oriented.
Her Girl Scout journal is pink with a quote from singer Beyonce's "Freedom" lyrics on the cover: "I'ma keep running/Cause a winner don't quit on themselves."
Having completed two semesters in the Girl Scouts Cadet troop, the teenager spoke of how it's helped her. "It inspires me that there are better things in life to do" than fighting, she said.
The Scouting program started after a discussion in 2015 between Braswell and Faye Shepherd, the court's chief of staff.
"Our court saw the possibilities not just in Girl Scouting in Juvenile Court, but in the girls who would actually participate," Shepherd said.
The girls finish the school, and Scouting, year by presenting the colors at teen-court hearings. That's also when they talk about what they've learned and offer suggestions for other court programs to help more teenagers.
This teen suggested a dance club, an idea that caught on and will materialize this fall for girls ages 12-17. Over the summer, she studied dancing at Blackbird Academy in Conway and said she enjoys hip hop and ballet.
During the May ceremony, she was honored with carrying the United States flag.
At Girl Scouts meetings, she has met new people who "are kind of like" her, she said. "They inspire you to do better things."
She's already pondering whether she wants to attend college or cosmetology school, and she was awarded the Chief Executive Officer patch by Dawn Praifka, head of Girl Scouts Diamonds. Shepherd said Praifka gives the incentive badges to "girls on the rise."
The teenager also was among the Scouts who wrote about the things they've "learned & loved" about their troop.
On a heart-shaped paper cutout, she wrote of the "positive people that talk to me when I'm in trouble."
"So next time," she wrote, "I will think before I do it."
State Desk on 07/30/2017