Sharlene Wells Hawkes

www.sharlenehawkes.com

Born in Asunción, Paraguay the 5th of 7 children, Sharlene Hawkes spent 12 years of her young life in South America, including most of her high school years in Buenos Aires, Argentina. While there, she lettered in volleyball, swimming, softball, and captained the track team. Her family moved to the United States just before her senior year of high school.

In 1984, Sharlene played the Paraguayan harp and sang in Spanish for her talent presentation at the Miss America pageant in Atlantic City. Traveling nearly 250,000 miles that year, she often relied on her fluent Spanish as the only foreign-born and bilingual Miss America in the pageant's history.

Sharlene is actively involved in community service, such as Utah's 1999 Honorary Chairman of the American Cancer Society, member of the Governor's Charter School Task Force, the Davis School District Task Force for gifted children, board member and national advisory panelist for the Utah Tip-Off Club, member of the Utah and National Music Teachers Association, advisory board member of the Utah Regional Ballet, and an active member of the Reading Elementary PTA.

But most importantly, Sharlene, her husband Bob and their four children love spending time together, whether it's outdoors skiing, camping, biking, horseback riding or just exploring the world!