“If you want to achieve great things you have to aim really high. “She had calm confidence already at that age,” Harmer said. She has one piece of advice for anyone with an idea or goal: dream big.Įlayne Harmer, Hawkes’ sister, recalls childhood memories of her older sibling.
She is the mother of five and currently works to honor military servicemen and women as president of Remember My Service Military Productions Division, which honors veterans through the creation of digital eBooks and hard-copy books full of memoirs, interviews and photos. Now, at age 51, Hawkes is still finding ways to impact the world for good. She is the daughter of an LDS general authority, was a BYU Homecoming queen and, later, an ESPN sports reporter. Born in Paraguay and raised in various South American countries, she is bilingual and plays the harp.
No one, not even she, would guess she would be delivering another life-changing speech years later on live TV as the 1985 newly crowned Miss America.īeing crowned Miss America was not the first or last of Sharlene Wells Hawkes’ accomplishments. Hundreds of eyes stared as the unusually confident eighth-grader stood before the entire high school student body and delivered a speech to run for a position in student government. As Keynote speaker for the Veterans Day Celebration, Sharlene Wells Hawkes addresses the audience in the Covey Center for the Arts on Thursday.