Lauren Saunders
Staff Wrtier
With only one other Miss USA titleholder hailing from Cabot, Ark., Kimberly Forsyth, Pepperdine alum, hopes to change that number to two as this year’s 2006 Miss Arkansas USA.
With light green eyes, long blonde locks, and an aura surrounding her of hot pink, Forsyth is set to beat to “the dumb blonde” stereotype that has tagged the pageantry for years. In an interview in her local newspaper, Cabot Star-Herald, she said that even though she knows some of her competitors fit that stereotype, to her, education has always come first.
“Winning Miss USA would be a dream–come-true,” Forsyth said. “I’m excited about the possibility about being the second [from Arkansas], and wouldn’t it be great to have both come from Cabot,” Forsyth said in an interview earlier in April.
Now a resident of Little Rock, Forsyth said that she never anticipated being a beauty pageant kind of girl, but after entering the 1996 Miss Cabot pageant on a whim and winning, she was hooked. When she might have been sucked into a world of glittering tiaras, teeth bleaching, and fanatical diets, Forsyth concentrated on her schoolwork.
Graduating from Pepperdine University in 2001 with a bachelor’s in business administration, she continued her studies at the University of Arkansas at Little Rock, earning her master’s in business administration in 2005. There, she was inducted into the Kappa Epsilon Lambda Graduate Honor Society.
With the current Miss Malibu, Ashley Jay, graduating this spring, it is no surprise that Pepperdine University has produced yet another beauty queen. Overlooking the Pacific Ocean in sea of stucco red a roofed building, reminiscent of a novae-riche county club, the University seems to attract good-looking people. There is an on-going joke around the community that students are required to submit a headshot of themselves with their application. While it may be entirely coincidental that this sunshine soaked campus is crawling with tanned limbs and bright smiles, it is no doubt that the University is proud to have Forsyth representing them in this year’s Miss USA pageant.
Teaching Kaplan Test Preparation for standardized tests such as the SAT, ACT, and GRI, and with an in interest in the real-estate market, Forsyth thinks that her skills go well beyond being “blonde.”
Combining her natural beauty with her brains, she will compete for the Miss USA title in Baltimore, Md., on April 21, 2006. So, if you need a pre-finals study break, pop a bag of popcorn and cozy up on your living room sofa, to cheer on a fellow “pepperhead.”
06-18-2006