OGDEN -- When you meet Mrs. America 1999, you immediately realize this one case where stereotypical form takes a back seat to extraordinary substance.
Forget her blue-eyed and honey-blonde Nordic type of beauty. Ignore the vibrantly fit 5-foot-10-inch figure that slips effortlessly into a size 4 dress. Even discount the healthy lifestyle where soda pop is "out" and fresh veggies and fruit are "in."Cut through all the traditional beauty pageant fluff and hype, and it's soon apparent that 32-year-old Starla Kay Stanley of Ogden stands on her own as a Mrs. America of strong conviction and multiple dimensions.
Consider her, instead, as:
A dedicated full-time mother of six children who spends most of her day with the three youngest kids, involving them in reading and art activities or watching them at play while she attends to her large yard and ambitious garden.
A U.S. Army veteran who who qualified as a sharpshooter on the M-16 rifle and spent a portion of her three-year hitch in Korea, where she took time from her work as an administrative specialist to help build orphanages.
A passionate artist who is spending less time working with multimedia and painting children's furniture these days in favor of metal sculptures fashioned with an acetylene torch. A musician who enjoys playing classical music on piano.
A part-time college senior majoring in English and minoring in art at Weber State University, who has been going to school on the G.I. Bill and is finishing her education by working on a secondary education teaching certificate.
A committed humanitarian who volunteers her time at the Ogden Rescue Mission and, for the past two years, has gone on 10-day medical missions to the Cache (pronounced Kaw-Chee) Indians in San Pedro, Guatemala, with her husband.
A housewife who is fiercely proud of both the title and the job description, and who believes a woman's best work is done within the walls of her own home.
A lady with a message who plans to use the bully pulpit that comes with her title to encourage women to finish their educations, develop marketable job skills and then "make the choice to stay at home and be a mother who is involved in the rearing of her children."
You'll never confuse this Mrs. America with Betty Crocker or Ma Kettle.
And her husband Scott, an anesthesiologist at Columbia Ogden Regional Medical Center, doesn't exactly mind having her around the house.
"I don't think this will change Starla at all," said Scott Stanley, who graduated from medical school at the University of Kansas and moved to Utah in 1989. "She will continue to be the same person."
Unconventional, creative and a bit of a nonconformist, Starla Stanley admits she was more surprised than anyone when she was announced winner of the 23rd annual Mrs. America Pageant on Sept. 14 in Honolulu.
Some of the contestants "called me the Granola Girl because I wouldn't wear makeup" during the pageant, she said. "One of them told me I wouldn't place because I'm too nonconformist."
But this Army vet knows how to defend a strategic position, and she refused to be intimidated by a judge who questioned her national platform of "choose motherhood" and "refocus your priorities on the home."
The judge wondered whether those principles implied women should not pursue an education or career.
Hardly, said Stanley. "It's not a choice to be a full-time mother unless you already have a self-sufficient career," she recalls telling the cynical pageant jurist.
Parenting is a job Stanley takes seriously as she and her husband raise a yours-mine-and-ours family of six. Married for about 31/2 years, Scott brought three children to the marriage while she brought two. About two years ago, their union produced a daughter.
She said one of her main goals as she travels the nation during her yearlong tenure as Mrs. America will be to "help return pride and honor to motherhood."
It offends her at times, she admits, when people make light of women who say they are full-time mothers dedicated to rearing their families. It's not a good sign of the changing times.
"You're automatically devalued," Stanley said. "It makes you feel like you need to defend yourself. That's not right."
It will be a hectic year for the Stanleys as they adjust their family schedules to accommodate Mrs. America's appearance and speaking schedule and prepare for the next step of competition, the upcoming 1999 Mrs. World Pageant in Jerusalem in November.
They hope to take most or all of the children, she said. "I am a Christian, and I'm really excited about going to the Holy Land," Stanley explained.
Because she is now the national title holder, Stanley will pass on her 1999 Mrs. Utah crown to Jacqueline Thompson of Layton, who was first runner-up in the state pageant.
The pageant, taped in Hawaii, will be shown in Utah on both Saturday and Sunday on the PAX network at 7 p.m. Utah time.