Ouachita Stories

Ouachita Baptist University will host a drop-in reception Tuesday, Dec. 7, honoring 2010 Ouachita graduate Alyse Eady, who was crowned Miss Arkansas 2010 earlier this year and will compete in the Miss America Pageant in January.

Eady will speak briefly in Ouachita’s morning chapel service in Jones Performing Arts Center at 10 a.m. The reception will follow on the Evans Student Center Bridge from 11 a.m. to 12:30 p.m., offering students, faculty and staff the opportunity to visit with Eady and wish her well on her journey to Miss America.

“The Ouachita community is extremely proud of Alyse’s significant service as Miss Arkansas,” said Trennis Henderson, Ouachita’s vice president for communications. “She is an excellent ambassador for the state of Arkansas and Ouachita in her travels throughout the state.

“We are pleased to honor Alyse with a campus reception prior to her Miss America competition,” Henderson added. “We invite her friends, acquaintances, professors and others to join in offering Miss Arkansas our congratulations and best wishes.”

Eady graduated in May with a degree in mass communications and speech communication and worked as the fundraising and event coordinator for the Muscular Dystrophy Association prior to being crowned Miss Arkansas. She is the daughter of Lewis and Lady Eady of Fort Smith. Her father is a recent member of the Ouachita Board of Trustees.

“Developing Leaders: Boys and Girls Clubs of America” is Eady’s pageant platform, and she recently participated in the launch of Arkadelphia’s new Boys and Girls Club. In the Miss Arkansas competition, she was the Coleman Dairy Overall Talent Award winner with her musical ventriloquist act, “I Want to Be a Cowboy’s Sweetheart.” Eady, who was also crowned Miss Teen Arkansas in 2004, will represent Arkansas at the 2011 Miss America Pageant. The pageant will be televised live from Las Vegas Jan. 15 on ABC.

By Brooke Zimny