Miss Arkansas discusses her roots

Van Buren resident went from show ring to runway

Miss Arkansas Loren McDaniel waits outside a meeting room at the Hot Springs Convention Center for her first news conference Sunday in Hot Springs. In the background is a painting by Sue Norton Kent titled "She Dares to be Different."
Miss Arkansas Loren McDaniel waits outside a meeting room at the Hot Springs Convention Center for her first news conference Sunday in Hot Springs. In the background is a painting by Sue Norton Kent titled "She Dares to be Different."

HOT SPRINGS -- There's a side to Loren McDaniel, Miss Arkansas 2015, that she doesn't talk about often.

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Miss Arkansas Loren McDaniel maneuvers the tip of her crown through the window of the new car she will be driving as she poses for the official photographer outside the Hot Springs Convention Center on Sunday.

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Miss Arkansas Loren McDaniel poses Sunday at the Hot Springs Convention Center for her first news conference.

It's not that she's ashamed of it. She says she's proud of where she comes from. The contestant who strutted down the runway in a white evening gown with the highly coveted Miss Arkansas tiara on Saturday night in front of almost 3,000 people, who sang a Barbra Streisand song and cried more than a few times after the ceremony, used to sport cowboy boots, show cattle and ride horses.

"I know, it's probably hard for the judges to wrap their heads around that one," McDaniel said at a Sunday afternoon news conference, wearing a white dress and sitting next to a 3-foot bouquet of flowers taller than her tiara.

McDaniel, from the 23,000-person town of Van Buren, walked away with $20,000 in scholarship money and $75,000 in other prizes after winning the 78th annual Miss Arkansas Scholarship Pageant on Saturday night.

The University of Arkansas at Fayetteville graduate comes from a family that's somewhat divided. Her older sister, Jordan Williams, works in the agriculture industry just like her father. Loren, she's a little more like her mom.

"We like to joke that he got one and I got one," her mother, Melissa McDaniel, said.

It was in middle school that Loren McDaniel says she began to realize she wanted to nix the cattle showing and go toward something more art-based. She grew up listening to her mom sing constantly, and one day, it all just clicked.

"I started playing piano, and I just remember hearing my mom singing and thinking, 'I want to do that,'" McDaniel said.

So McDaniel began seeking the stage, which didn't surprise her mom. McDaniel was the kid always performing around the house, her mom said.

And while the family moved around -- Texas, Alabama, eventually landing in Arkansas in 2005 -- if there was anything McDaniel could perform in, she did. Church musicals, school plays, anything.

On stage is where she found her confidence, she said.

That is why she chose "Confidently You" as her platform for her year-long tour of Arkansas, beginning next week, McDaniel said: to help victims of domestic violence find their confidence again.

"This year I want to interact with all 35 domestic violence shelters in Arkansas," McDaniel said. "It's horrible that the shelters are even needed, but I want to help them realize they're not alone, and they have something to be confident about."

Agriculture-based or not, the McDaniels support their daughters no matter what, they said. Her dad, Kevin McDaniel, wears a purple "Confidently You" band around his right wrist everywhere he goes.

Sitting in the third row of seats at the Sunday afternoon post-pageant news conference, the McDaniels looked on as their daughter adjusted her sparkling tiara and spoke about what being crowned Miss Arkansas meant to her and how excited she was to go to Atlantic City, N.J., in September to compete for Miss America.

And despite his daughter's favor to Les Miserables over a pasture, Kevin McDaniel said he still looks out for her, like taking her phone and telling her to go to bed at 3 a.m. Sunday morning after the pageant.

Metro on 07/13/2015

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