COVER STORY

Stevi Perry of Hamburg shows how believing in your dreams

– and having a little faith – can make big things happen

by Kristal Kuykendall photos courtesy of the Perry Family and the Miss Universe Organization

OCTOBER 2008 CELEBRATE ARKANSAS MAGAZINE 81

Imagine growing up – spending your whole life – in the small town of Hamburg, Arkansas, population 3,000. Imagine dreaming of some day being a well-known actress,

but your biggest role to date was playing Belle in your senior high school play, “Beauty and the Beast.” Getting from there to Hollywood, or New York City, would seem like a very tall mountain to climb.

But imagine that mountains can be moved.

That’s exactly what happened for young Stevi Lauren Perry of Hamburg – and in less than a year’s time. She had faith, she went out on a limb, she worked hard, and now God has blessed her, she says, with the title of Miss Teen USA.

The humble, simple Arkansas teenager – she doesn’t even own an iPod – was shopping for a homecoming dress last fall at Little Rock’s All The Rage dress shop, when the former owner, Missy Childress, approached her.

“I see something in you, and if you’ll be in this pageant for me, I’ll give you a dress, I’ll give you a swimsuit, I’ll give you everything you need,” she told a stunned Stevi, who was with her mom, Kelli Perry. “All you have to do is go out and get sponsors … and you should be in it.”

Stevi, near speechless, looked at her mother.

“There’s no way I can do this pageant that is six weeks away,” Stevi recalls saying. “I said, ‘I don’t want to waste any money,’ because I felt like I wasn’t prepared – I knew I wasn’t prepared.”

But Kelli Perry, often her daughter’s motivator and coach, wasn’t having any of the excuses.

“Sweetie, that would be a great way to open doors,” she told her daughter, a 5-5 beauty with an easy, bright smile and blond hair that falls several inches below her shoulders. “You want to get into the entertainment field, and that would be a great way to pursue that dream you have if things work out.”

So Stevi thought about it, and decided to go for it despite her fears, her hesitation and her lack of pageant experience. Not exactly a “pageant girl,” Stevi had only ever entered a few local fair pageants as a child, but none since then. However, she wasn’t a stranger to posing before an audience. Stevi started modeling a little over two years ago, signing with The Block Agency out of Nashville, Tennessee. She competed in and finished as one of twelve finalists in a ‘Cosmo Girl’ national model search, modeled for ‘Varsity Spirits’ catalog for three years, and appeared in two country music videos. And just last fall, she was named Hamburg’s homecoming queen.

So it was with some stage-presence experience, but not much more that Stevi took the stage weeks later at the Miss Arkansas Teen USA pageant. On Thanksgiving weekend, at Bentonville’s crowded Arend Arts Center, Rob

Above: Stevi with her father, Rob Perry, after being crowned Homecoming Queen.

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COVER STORY

and Kelli Perry watched as their 18-year-old daughter stunned the fans and judges and won the Miss Arkansas Teen USA crown.

“After I won, I was thinking, ‘God, is this you telling me something? Is this for me?’ So I started working really hard after I won my state title and started preparing for Miss Teen USA,” she said. Her mission: win the national crown at the August competition and, hopefully, get a hefty boost toward her goal to build a successful career as an actress and model in Hollywood.

A down-to-earth, friendly girl, Stevi truly enjoyed meeting the other contestants and making new friends at the five-day-long Miss Teen USA pageant in August at the Atlantis Paradise Island Resort in the Bahamas.

“I met Hilary Cruz, the former Miss Teen USA, and she’s actually here in New York and going to school with me at the New York Film Academy,” Stevi explained. “So we have become best friends; we’re so much alike. She’s so supportive and knows the ropes from being Miss Teen USA, so she’s here to help me out and she’s such an incredible person.”

Stevi also has stayed in contact with many of the other girls she met while competing in the Bahamas.

She never expected to win, she says; she was simply out to do her best and enjoy the opportunity.

But on August 16, win she did, much to her surprise.

“I have no idea how to explain the way I was feeling … wow. I was nervous and excited; I just remember when they didn’t call my name as the first runner-up, I was thinking ‘Wow, this just really happened,’” Stevi says. “I remember looking out in the audience at my mom, and she was crying, and we were so excited. It is hard to explain the feelings I was having, there were just so many mixed emotions going through my mind – it was just amazing. Absolutely amazing.”

Her prize package is pretty amazing as well. It includes the Miss Universe Organization tiara (her most treasured possession) created by Mikimoto valued at $15,000, which she gets to keep; a two-year scholarship from the New York Film Academy to attend its acting or film-making programs, valued at more than $100,000; evening wear gowns from Scala, designed by Sherri Hill; a trophy from Rogaska Crystal; a year-long supply of Farouk Systems hair care products, makers of Chi, the original ceramic technology hairstyling tools; a four-day, three-night vacation for two, including airfare, at the Atlantis Resort, Paradise Island, Bahamas; membership to Gravity Fitness and pampering at John Barrett Salon; a fashion modeling portfolio by leading fashion photographer Fadil Berisha; consultations with nutritionist and creator of The F-Factor Diet Tanya Zuckerbrot; dermatology and skincare services by Dr. Cheryl Thellman-Karcher; consultations with personal stylist Billie Causieestko and access to an event wardrobe from leading fashion designers; use of a lush New York City apartment for the year of her reign including living expenses; and professional representation by the Miss Universe Organization to further her personal and professional goals.

Her responsibilities now include community service and philanthropy, something she is no stranger to but is certainly excited about getting more involved in. Back in Hamburg, she volunteered with Helping Hands, taking food to the less fortunate on Tuesdays and Thursdays, and she also participated in the Special Olympics at the University of Arkansas at Monticello.

Above: Stevi with her mother, Kelli (LaGrone) Perry, and her brother Drew.Below: Stevi in Hollywood.

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“I did a few things, but I was limited with where I was in Arkansas; I had to drive so far to be involved with anything,” Stevi explains. “But now being Miss Teen USA I’m working with several new organizations, so I’m happy about that.”

Stevi, following in the footsteps of previous Miss Teen USA titleholders, over the next year will be volunteering with and representing Girl Talk, Best Buddies and Project Sunshine, all of which revolve around helping children and teens in one way or another. Having been Miss Teen USA for only a short time, she’s just getting started meeting with her new organizations and learning what they’re all about.

“I have met with Project Sunshine, and it’s basically where you go and visit children who are in hospitals – they could have AIDS, a broken arm, anything – and you go in and visit with a child a couple hours a day, and, you know, you’re just giving them friendship, because it’s so hard for children to be in hospitals,” Stevi says. “So I think that organization is really cool. And I love Girl Talk, where you go and visit different schools and communicate with a very big, diverse group of young girls and just help them out.”

“You know, they’re going through their teenage years, and I’ve been through that and am still going through that, so I am able to share my story with them and help them out in any way I possibly can. So I’m excited about that, too.”

Another thing that has thrilled Stevi has been working with her new “boss,” the owner of the Miss Teen USA and Miss Universe Organization, Donald Trump. Not long after she arrived in New York after winning her crown, Stevi was invited to his office to meet him and the rest of the staff there. “I remember walking into his office and thinking, ‘I’m terrified,’ and they said not to be nervous, and when I met him he was so friendly and really nice. He was making jokes and said, ‘We did really good this year I would say,’ about my being Miss Teen USA, so that made me feel good.”

Trump invited Stevi and her counterpart in the adult pageant, Miss USA, Crystle Stewart of Texas, to attend the U.S. Open with him and his family. Stevi says it was a thrill to be treated like part of the family and watch the U.S. Open from the Trumps’ box seats at court’s edge. “That was really neat; I felt like I was with the family and they included Crystle and me in all of that, and it was amazing,” she says. “He’s a nice man, he’s sharp, and, well, he’s Donald Trump – there you go.”

Now living in her new digs in mid-town Manhattan, provided by the Miss Universe Organization, she is getting to know her roommates, Crystle and Miss Universe Dayana Mendoza of Venezuela. She says they are very seldom all there at the same time, and each has her own room and bathroom, so it’s not a crowded living situation by any means. It’s the same apartment that was featured on the reality TV show “Pageant Place,” but when her friends who visit tell her she has a fabulous apartment, she asks, “Do I really? I think we do, but I don’t know what the average apartment looks like in New York, so I don’t know. But we love it.”

The roomies’ number one goal: learning to cook. “When we are there together we hang out and we cook – well, we’re learning to cook. That being said, I thought I was going to learn a lot about how to cook with my roommate being from Venezuela, but no, none of us know how to cook, so we’re learning how to do that,” she says, laughing at herself.

Above: Stevi on the plane after the pageant. Below: Stevi Lauren Perry being crowned Miss Teen USA 2008. Photo courtesy of Miss Universe Organization L.P.< LLLP/Photographer: Patrick Prather

Left: Stevi in the Bahamas.

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COVER STORYStevi says she loves New York City, but it’s taking some getting used to. “New York is very loud, it’s very fast-paced, and there’s so much traffic everywhere. People here are on a mission, it’s New York – they’re here in New York for a reason, they’re working hard to have their lives, do their jobs; it’s just like they’re on a mission.”

The busy-ness, the determination, the seriousness of New Yorkers make Stevi miss the quiet, small-town, farmland atmosphere of her hometown. “It’s the Southern hospitality I miss the most, I guess. People are so friendly everywhere down there; everywhere you go people say hello and they greet you,” she says. Her voice is filled with a little sadness as she describes the strong support system she enjoyed in Hamburg, where she could walk down the street without worrying about her safety. “Here (New York) you have to really look for that.”

And it doesn’t help matters that Stevi is no longer near her close-knit family, which includes her dad, Rob Perry two brothers, Drew and Tommy, and a grandmother, Pat LaGrone, who Stevi says is “my living faith” and reminds Stevi that God will make her dreams happen if she puts Him first in her life. Stevi also can’t say enough good things about her mom, who is a constant source of support. “If I told her I wanted to go to the moon, she’d say ‘Let’s get you there.’ She’s an incredible woman.” Both women are Stevi’s real-life heroes, she says.

But even though she misses her family and friends back home, Stevi is enjoying her time in New York, particularly the shopping. “Shoes are my splurge. It’s gotten to be more so since I’ve been in New York,” she says. She’s learned some beauty secrets (soaking your hair in mayonnaise really does make it shiny, and crushed aspirin mixed with water eliminates dark circles under the eyes), met a lot of new people, and is learning the trade of acting at the New York Film Academy – all while working to advance her modeling career. But pageants, at least as far as she can see, are no longer part of the picture for Stevi. “I love pageants, they’re so much fun and give me an adrenaline rush, but I think it’s time to hang up the high heels,” she says. “I love meeting the girls and being able to travel, and all those things involved in pageantry, but I feel like I’ve reached the level that I’m supposed to, and I’m going to go for it, go for my dreams. I was given a two-year scholarship to the New York Film Academy, so I feel like I’m getting everything I need out of being Miss Teen USA, and so much more. I’m not going to say a complete ‘no,’ but I think my pageant days are over.”

But, perhaps, her days of moving mountains and reaching her dreams are not. She certainly appears ready to work for her dreams of being an actress, something she has “always” wanted to do but became convinced of only in the last year. “I did my senior play this past year before I graduated high school, and that was so much fun. I played Belle and I got to really feel how it was being an actor, what you would do, and I just knew then that this is what I want to do the rest of my life,” she says. “I think it’s really important to do something that you really love, and that is acting. So I’m proud to say that is what’s going to happen – I hope it happens. That’s my next goal.”

And if the recent past is any indication, it won’t be long before Arkansans are once again saying, “Congratulations, Stevi, another goal accomplished.”

The 2009 MISS ARKANSAS USA and MISS ARKANSAS TEEN USA Pageant will be hosted on November 28-30, 2008, at Bentonville’s Arend Arts Center. For more information or to enter either pageant, see www.missarkansasusa.com. •••

Above: Stevi with her boyfriend Ben Johnson after the pageant. Below: Stevi with her mother, Kelli. Stevi credits her mother as her constant source of support and one of her real-life heroes.