RUSSELLVILLE — Aubrey Reed, 17, takes a personal interest in observing October as National Bullying Prevention Month. She was a victim of bullying when she was younger and now wants to empower young people to speak up for themselves.
Reed has taken her experience and turned it into the basis of a platform that she promotes as the 2017 Miss Arkansas Outstanding Teen. She wants to share her story with others, not only in October, but also throughout her reign as Miss Arkansas Outstanding Teen.
“I will go anywhere my car will take me,” she said, adding that her first appearance in October will be Oct. 11 at Russellville Middle School.
“I was bullied during my middle school years in another town,” Reed said. “I like to speak to middle school groups. When you are in middle school, you are trying to figure out who you are, what you like. … We need to give those students as much support as we can.”
Reed, who is a senior at Russellville High School and a daughter of Michael and Paula Swindle, said that when she enters a classroom to speak, “I put on my typical facade — a pretty pageant girl walking in wearing a crown, … but when I begin to tell my story, they know I am real. They can tell I have been there, done that.”
Reed said her definition of bullying is “any repetitive act that makes a child, or anyone, feel less comfortable in their environment.”
According to the website stopbullying.gov, there are several types of bullying: verbal (teasing, name-calling, inappropriate sexual comments, taunting, threatening to cause harm), social (leaving someone out on purpose, telling other children not to be friends with someone, spreading rumors about someone, embarrassing someone in public), physical (hitting/kicking/pinching, spitting, tripping/pushing, taking or breaking someone’s things, making mean or rude hand gestures) and cyberbullying, which takes place using electric technology, including cellphones, computers and tablets, as well as communication tools, including social-media sites, text messages, chat sites and websites.
Reed said she experienced bullying when she was in the fifth through seventh grades in another town.
“It started by not being invited to sleepovers, not being invited to go for ice cream, … all by people who I thought were my best friends,” she said.
“It just accelerated,” she said. “They would have a code word and pass it around the lunch table. When that word was spoken, they would all get up and stand 10 feet away from me and just stare at me.
“I spent the rest of the year eating lunch in a teacher’s office, by myself.”
Reed said it got so bad, she didn’t want to go to school.
“I would cry myself to sleep,” she said. “I felt so alone … heartbroken.
“We moved to Russellville, and [that] saved me.”
From that experience, Reed developed an anti-bullying platform and used it to compete in several pageants. Today, she calls her platform STAR: Empowering America’s Youth.
Reed said STAR stands for “Speak up for yourself and others. Think about your words and actions. Accept others for who they are. Reach out to those in need.”
“I have expanded my platform,” she said. “It started as a bullying prevention and intervention program, but now it is more about empowerment. It’s still about bullying, but it now addresses suicide and depression. … I try to encompass all of those things.”
Reed said she hopes to take her platform to every school district in the state.
“I have a meeting Oct. 16 with [Johnny Key, commissioner
of education for the Arkansas Department of Education],” she said. “I hope to get his stamp of approval to go into more schools this year.”
Reed said she does not see much bullying at Russellville High School.
“I know it happens. … It happens everywhere,” she said. “I hope to be able to speak here … to my peers. That will probably be a scary thing to get up in front of my peers, but I have a passion to share my story.”
Reed has two younger brothers, David Austin “D.A.” Reed, 12, who is in the sixth grade at Russellville Middle School, and Asher Swindle, 6, who attends Sequoyah Elementary School. Aubrey Reed said that as far as she knows, her siblings have not experienced any bullying.
“I talk about it all the time around the house,” she said, smiling. “They are aware of it and, hopefully, know what to do.”
Reed said she hopes to attend the University of Arkansas, but her options are open.
“I want to be a teacher … middle-level education,” she said. “That’s where my heart is.”
She has had an early taste of teaching as a member of the Arkansas Teacher Cadets Program at Russellville High School. This is a teacher-
recruitment program through the Arkansas Department of Education that allows students who are planning to become teachers to go into schools and observe teachers.
She also teaches dance in the STEPS (Striving to Excel With Pride and Strength) program at Oakland Heights Elementary School in Russellville.
“I love volunteering with the STEPS program,” she said. “It is for students in first through fourth grades who might not have an opportunity otherwise to learn to dance. I’ve been doing that for three years.”
Reed is captain of the Russellville Cyclone Dance Team. She belongs to several clubs at school, including Interact, a service-based club sponsored by Rotary International, and the National Honor Society. She also participates in competitive dance.
Reed attended Arkansas Girls State this summer, where she was elected secretary of state. She is also a member of the Crown Club, sponsored by the Junior Auxiliary of Russellville to promote volunteer service for girls in 10th through 12th grades.
Reed will give up her crown in June 2018.
“This has been about the craziest three months of my life,” she said laughing. “I just returned from the Miss America pageant, [on Sept. 10 in Atlantic City, New Jersey]. Several from Arkansas, including me and my mom, went to support Miss Arkansas 2017 Maggie Benton.
“My school, Russellville High School, has been so supportive of me since I won the Miss Arkansas Outstanding Teen crown. They understand when I need to miss classes because of that commitment. I am so appreciative of that.”
Reed said her goal is to compete in the Miss Arkansas Pageant. Her mother, the former Paula Montgomery, was Miss Arkansas 1995.
“I plan to take next year off, … get settled in college, … then compete in the Miss Arkansas Pageant in 2020,” she said. “That year will be my mom’s 25th anniversary — she was Miss Arkansas 25 years ago,” Reed said. “Then if I were to win Miss Arkansas, I would compete in the 100th anniversary of the Miss America contest. That would be quite a year to be a winner.”
Schools and civic groups interested in having Reed as a guest speaker are asked to contact the Miss Arkansas Outstanding Teen pageant’s booking manager, Linda Harvey, at booking@missarkansasot.org.