LITTLE GIRL IN PIG TAILS: WHO WOULD HAVE EVER THOUGHT

LITTLE GIRL IN PIG TAILS: WHO WOULD HAVE EVER THOUGHT.  That was my first assessment when I met her.

It was 1983, and I was relatively new mortgage loan officer taking calls in the office.  This business man is inquiring about financing on a condo development I was working with.  After answering more than a dozen questions, he invited me to Music Row to take an application on a young lady named Cheryl Pruitt Blackwood.  I knew that name, but from where?

I arrived for the appointment, and he provided me with all the preliminaries, and said he would have tax returns and financials the next day.  He told me she would be down in a few minutes, and based on WHO she was I was expecting Miss America to stroll into the room.  Boy was I in for a surprise--just goes to show how wrong perceptions can be.  I was feeling a bit intimadated by all this build up.  Again, I was in for a surprise.

About ten minutes later, this tiny little, freckled faced girl with pig tails pops in the room--who could this be?  She made me think of "Little Debbie" of Little Debbie Cake fame.  Unknown to me at the time, I was about to be introduced to someone I will never forget.  I'm not going to tell yet.

The next day I had to go back and pick up the financial paperwork, and here come Cheryl bounding down the steps.  She hugs me, and says "Hi Fred! I'm going over to see my condo, would you like to ride with me?"  Now folks, I was a 37 year old married man, so don't go there; but I got to go for a ride with Miss America 1980: Cheryl Pruitt Blackwood.  What a special young lady; and I'd like to quickly tell you what I learned about perceptions.

Cheryl was just a little Mississippi girl--as real as Magnollia blooms in Mississippi.  No pretense, no aires or haughtiness--she loved people and she loved God.  She loved America, and she loved her new condo.  There was no tierra, no formal gown; but there was a young lady America could be proud of.  You've never heard of any scandal surrounding her.  I proudly gave each of my daughters autographed pictures, and I proudly posses an autographed copy of "A Bright and Shinning Place": her biography.

I believe anyone could learn from her that titles don't make people--character does.  I believe any young person could learn that they can attain their goals if they dream and perservere.  But I will purposely not tell the great adversity she overcame to become Mis America: you will have to read the book.  If you have a teenage daughter that thinks she can't overcome some physical or emotional problem--you just found a great birthday gift.

THank you Cheryl for being an inspiration in a time when too few have their priorities as they should be.  Last I knew, Cherly is married and living somewhere in Mid-America [perhaps Oklahoma City].