Savvy Shields will get plenty of advice but perhaps none better than what came from Donna Axum Whitworth, the state's first Miss America.
"Make it count for Arkansas," Whitworth advised Shields, who was crowned Miss America on Saturday in Atlantic City.
The Fayetteville woman, a University of Arkansas art major, is only the third Miss Arkansas to win the Miss America title. Whitworth was first in 1964. Elizabeth Ward Gracen won in 1982.
Although the pageant itself has changed dramatically in the intervening years, the Miss America title continues to offer a high-profile platform to each successive winner.
Whitworth spoke of her experience Tuesday, recalling the year of her reign as both "grueling" and "fabulous." She said she travelled 250,000 miles as Miss America.
Now a Fort Worth resident, Whitworth is an El Dorado native and, like Shields, was a UA student when she won Miss America.
She told a reporter that Shields "will have a wonderful opportunity to spread the light that is Arkansas. She's got one year to be an ambassador, not only for her own platform, but for our wonderful state of Arkansas."
Whitworth also acknowledged in the interview that she was quick to defend Arkansas if anyone said something derogatory about the state.
The comment is a reminder of how many people outside the state viewed Arkansas in 1964.
Orval Faubus was still governor and recognized nationwide for his stand against racial integration of Little Rock schools. That famous confrontation happened in 1957 and has sullied the state's reputation for decades.
The wounds were still fresh in 1964 when Whitworth was travelling the nation as Miss America. Unfortunately, for many, that was about all many Americans knew of Arkansas, although there was much more to this state's history and its people then as now.
Certainly, the racism that fostered the Little Rock Crisis more than 50 years ago is still embedded in the state, just as it is elsewhere. But that history no longer dominates public perceptions of Arkansas or of Arkansans.
The first Arkansan to be elected president reintroduced America to Arkansas in 1992. Not all the publicity that accompanied his presidency was good, but Arkansas nonetheless fared well under intense scrutiny.
Another 20 years have passed and now it is Shields' turn to take the crown and represent not just the Miss America organization but also the state.
It is a different Arkansas from the one her predecessors represented.
Politically, outsiders probably still recognize Arkansas most as Democrat Bill Clinton's home state -- and the state where Hillary Clinton's public career got its jumpstart.
Arkansas' former first lady progressed through the White House years into the U.S. Senate and then into her service as secretary of state before her own historic bid for the presidency.
Meanwhile, Arkansas' politics have shifted dramatically, with Republicans serving in all of the major elected state offices and in control of the state Legislature. National perceptions haven't necessarily caught up, although the state is not counted in Clinton's column for this election.
Interestingly, Shields drew a political question from a pageant judge during the Miss America competition.
Asked what she thought of Hillary Clinton, she chose the middle ground, saying both Clinton and her Republican rival, Donald Trump, had done a "good" job. She added that they "need to watch what they're doing." Time ran out for her answer, leaving listeners to wonder what more she might have said.
Shields elaborated for reporters afterward that what she wants is for both candidates to focus on compromise.
"Our country was founded on compromise. We're in a state now where both parties just seem to be yelling at one another," she said.
"I hope that at the end of my year, we're starting to reward politicians for compromise."
She was speaking of the national political environment, but the message works for Arkansas, too.
Commentary on 09/14/2016