No Time To Waste
SLIPPERY ROCK — LeAnn Penn, the daughter of Jeffrey and Diane Penn of Conneaut Lake, is 20 years old and a junior biology major at Slippery Rock University. She is also frighteningly organized.
She'd have to be to be a woman who will graduate from college in three years, who has been a member of the Pennsylvania Army/National Guard since 18, who is a cadet in SRU's Frontier Battalion of ROTC working toward her second lieutenant's commission, and, oh, who is Miss Butler County and will begin preparing for the June 25 Miss Pennsylvania competition just as soon as she finishes with college finals next week.
If Penn wins the Miss Pennsylvania crown, she'll go on to compete in the Miss America pageant Sept 11.
The transition from ball gowns to combat fatigues and back doesn't disconcert Penn.
“When I lived in Ohio, I competed for Miss Ohio when I was 17,” she said.
A year later, Penn enlisted in the Army National Guard, she said.
“Friday, I enlisted. Saturday, I went to boot camp for ROTC,” Penn said.
The beauty queen had several reasons for enlisting.
“Because I'm in the Army National Guard, I receive tuition assistance, and I receive a $5,000 ROTC scholarship,” she said. “I'm getting my school paid for, and I'm getting paid for going to school. As long as I maintain a 2.5 GPA and stay in ROTC and I have.”
Of course, she's also up at 5 a.m. Monday through Friday for physical training with the ROTC.
“When I was in high school, I was scared to join the military,” she said. “It's helped me pay for school, but it means something more than that.”
Penn said she always knew she wanted to serve her country.
Her father was a Marine, her maternal grandfather and uncle are Marines and her paternal grandfather and great uncle were in the Army.
She said her father encouraged her to become an officer.
<hardreturn>As an Army National Guard member attached to the Second Brigade Special Troops Battalion based in Beaver Falls, she said she may have to miss Guard duty if she captures the Miss Pennsylvania title.<br />“You have to get approved by the brigade commander. But this could be a major recruiting advantage for the National Guard and ROTC, free publicity,” she said if she wins.<br />Capt. Joseph Barrow, assistant professor in Slippery Rock's Department of Military Science, who is the executive officer of the ROTC unit, said, “She's a very type A personality. We're working on getting her passion focused.”<br />She plans to use contemporary dance as her talent in the upcoming pageant, moving to a cappella version of “Phantom of the Opera.”<br />“My parents are really supportive. My mother is working on my dresses and swimsuit for the pageant,” said Penn. <br />Her platform statement, the cause that “speaks to my heart,” will be organ donation. <br />That's because when a close friend died in 2014, Penn said she was grief-stricken until she learned her friend was an organ donor.<br />“He gave me a reason to celebrate because he gave the gift of life to others,” Penn said. <br />“She has an organ donor platform, and she wants to go to medical school when she graduates,” said Lucy Mudrick, the co-executive director of the Miss Butler County Scholarship Pageants with Judy Hughes.<br />“She's very interested in school and she does a lot of Miss Butler County appearances,” she said. <br />Penn said she hopes to be able to attend medical school at Penn State while fulfilling her six-year commitment to the Army/National Guard. <br />But juggling medical school and Guard call-ups will seem old news to Penn, who's segueing from finals to pageant prep to Guard assignments in the coming weeks. <br />“I don't sleep much. I'm young, I can handle it,” Penn said of her upcoming schedule.<br class="hardreturn" />
