A couple of years ago, Sharlene Wells was in London for a charity event when she was introduced to Prince Charles.
“He’s going down the line … and somebody came right up behind him and told him that I had been Miss America,” Wells said. “And the look on his face — the look of pure astonishment. Like, ‘What?!?’ Here’s the future king of England thinking, ‘That’s cool.’”
(Courtesy Sharlene Wells) Prince Charles reacts to meeting former Miss America Sharlene Wells Hawkes.
Keep in mind, this was 3½ decades after Wells, who was Miss Utah, was crowned as Miss America 1985. “That’s what’s shocking, right?” she said. “And I realized I’m going to be 95 years old and somebody is going to say, ‘Former Miss America!’”
She’s convinced that Prince Charles’ reaction “had nothing to do with me. It was the brand that is so globally recognized.”
But, as the Miss America organization prepares to celebrate its 100th anniversary, it’s not what it used to be. For decades, it was one of the biggest events on TV, right up there with the Oscars and the Super Bowl. “It used to be quite the glamour event,” Wells said.
Back on Sept. 15, 1984, when Wells — competing as Miss Utah — was crowned, about 70 million viewers tuned in. In 2019, 3.6 million viewers tuned in, an all-time low. (Because of the pandemic, there was no Miss America telecast in 2020. There were also no pageants from 1928 to 1932, or in 1934.)
This year, for the first time since it was first telecast in 1954, Miss America won’t be on either broadcast or cable television. NBCUniversal’s Peacock will stream the program live on Thursday across the country. In the Mountain time zone, the preshow will air at 5 p.m. and the program itself starts at 6 p.m.
It’s the latest attempt to find Miss America an audience. To make it more relevant for the 21st century.
“We’ve been fielding questions about relevancy since the ‘70s, I think,” Wells said. “In the ‘80s, I certainly got that.”
But Wells isn’t ready to write off Miss America yet. She pointed to Americans’ continuing interest in the British royal family.
“We are fascinated with anything with a crown,” she said. “I don’t know what it is. Is it because we’re the colonies and we miss our royalty? It’s really confusing to me.”
And, Wells said, Miss America is about more than just the national competition. There are hundreds of local pageants that feed into the state competitions, which produce the Miss America contestants.
“It’s local city councils that want to have a local representative in their parades and their chamber events. They like to have that local representation,” Wells said. “When those locals no longer care, that’s when the whole thing falls apart.”
“And we love to compete, whether it’s Georgia-Alabama in football or Miss Georgia-Miss Alabama. … The fact that we’ve been around 100 years is crazy. How many brands last a hundred years?”
No more swimsuit competition
The pageant has changed, albeit more slowly than many would have liked. There was a scandal involving the organization’s former leadership, which was ousted in late 2017, and local pageant organizers have battled the national organization over the issue of swimsuits.
“All during my Miss America year I was saying, ‘I think we’ve got to get rid of [the] swimsuit [competition],” Wells said — and it finally happened in 2018. “Some traditions stick around a lot longer than they should, just because they’re traditions.”
And because of TV executives who thought the swimsuit competition was good for ratings.
“It caused a huge internal debate, but I was really glad to see it go,” she said. “And now not a single point is given based on outward appearance.”
Wells said she considered attending this year’s finals at the Mohegan Sun Arena in Connecticut, but decided now was not the best time for her to travel. She will be watching from home, however.
“I would hate to see it go away any time soon,” she said. “I don’t know if funding will be there for the long haul. But for the time being, as long as locals are involved and locals want to see it happen, it’s going to happen.”
(Courtesy Sharlene Wells) Former Miss America Vanessa Williams, left, and former Miss America Sharlene Wells.
Crowned because she’s Mormon?
The perception has long been that Wells won because she competed the year after the Vanessa Williams scandal. Williams, the first Black Miss America, was forced to give up her crown when nude pictures of her were published. And the thinking was that Wells — the daughter of Robert E. Wells, a Latter-day Saints general authority — didn’t have skeletons in her closet.
At a news conference right after she was crowned, she said, “I was asked, ‘Did you win because you were a Mormon?’ And I think my response was, ‘I hope so.’”
She’s never entirely bought into that because “quite a few” of the other contestants “were very religious and very vocal about their religion.” And she kept quiet about her faith. When she was a senior in high school, she competed in the finals of America’s Junior Miss, “and I got really peppered about my religion” during the interview with judges. She didn’t want that to happen again.
At Miss America, “I didn’t get asked anything about my religion. Not a single thing,” Wells said. “They knew nothing about me. Google was not a thing back then. So if they were going to go based on religion, purity, whatever, there were 49 others that would fall in that category,” she said with a laugh.
Almost fired?
Wells said that midway through her year as Miss America, she “just about got fired” because she “inadvertently snubbed” one of the telecast’s major sponsors. She was supposed to sit next to the CEO at a dinner, but, instead, she went and sat with other young women she knew “and we talked boys and everything. It was so fun.”
The following day, she got a call from the Miss America CEO telling her the sponsor was threatening to pull out of the telecast. “Well, I learned,” she said. “In PR, yeah, whoever puts out the money, you’ve got to bend over backwards and make them feel like they’re important.”
(Barry Thumma | AP) President Ronald Reagan shakes hands with Miss America Sharlene Wells of Provo at the White House in Washington on Wednesday, Jan. 23, 1985.
Thanks for the memories
Some memories of her year as Miss America have faded, while other remain vivid. Like going to the White House to meet President Ronald Reagan, who “acted like he had nothing else better to do for 10 minutes.”
And it was just weird at times. Wells was at an event in Louisiana and, when it came time for Gov. Edwin Edwards to lead 2,000 people in the Pledge of Allegiance, he noticed there were no flags in the room.
“He didn’t even blink. He just goes, ‘Could everyone please stand, place your hand over your heart, turn and face Miss America and recite the Pledge of Allegiance to me.’ And I’m like, ‘What? Isn’t that sacrilegious or something?’” Wells said with a laugh. “It was really weird for me.”
No pressure on her daughters
Wells is the mother of one son and three daughters, and she never pressured the girls to follow in her footsteps. She kept her crown in a closet, pulling it out when her daughters wanted to try it on at a birthday party or something like that.
“Every year, we would watch Miss America, but every single year I’d say, ‘OK, guys, this is something Mommy did. It’s just entertainment. This is not something you need to do,’” said Wells.
The first time it seemed to make any impression on her kids was when her oldest daughter, then a first-grader, went to a new school and found herself surrounded by sixth-graders who”wanted to know all about her mom. So all of a sudden she’s, like, ‘Wait — my mom is different.’”
But Wells downplayed it.
“Really, that was one moment in time,” she said. “Quite a bit had to do with luck. Just being in the right place at the right time. Different night, different set of judges, a whole different outcome. I really believe that.”
Life-changing event
When she returned to Utah after her year as Miss America was over, “I quite literally wanted to hide, just because I had been in the press for an entire year.” She didn’t even put it on her resumé for the next 15 years.
“In hindsight, I see absolutely how it impacted my ability to develop relationships from a PR standpoint,” Wells said. “I learned tact. I learned how to navigate difficult circumstances. I learned how to expect the unexpected and go with the flow.”
When her year ended, she figured she’d just go back to Brigham Young University (where she was Miss BYU before she was Miss Utah) and finish her degree.
“At the time, I didn’t know if it would change my life. In hindsight, I learned a lot more than I thought I did,” Wells said. “It all played out in my several careers. ... I do see how it has touched absolutely everything that I’ve done.”
While still at BYU, KSL hired her as a sideline reporter for Cougar football games. That led to a gig with ESPN that lasted for 15 years (from 1987 to 2002). She went on to work in publishing and public relations, including a year as the director of communications for the under secretary for personnel and readiness at the Department of Defense.
In August, she returned to Utah as the senior vice president of public relations at Mountain America Credit Union.
“I’m loving it,” Wells said. “It feels like this is absolutely the right place at this stage in my life and my career and everything. … I’ve got two kids still here in Utah. My parents are in Utah. I have three siblings here. And I love Utah. It’s my favorite state.” She added with a laugh, “and I’ve been to all 50!”
