Good evening. Have the honor of being executive director of Ronald Reagan president ial foundation. I am John Heubusch and i thank you for coming this evening. Hon. Men and women in uniform who defend our freedom around the world if you would stand and join me for the pledge of allegiance. I pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States of america, and to the republic for which it stands, one nation under god, indivisible with liberty and justice for all. Please be seated. Before we get started there are a few people in the audience i would like to make sure we are recognized today and i begin with the former first lady of the state of california gayle wilson. [applause] we also have with us the Vice President of Strategic Communications for general electric. Gary . [applause] tonight is a special night as we have with us a very special group of students from around the country. 20 Reagan Foundation scholarship winners and their families. Please stand. [applause] they will be attending the university this fall, one of this countrys greatest companies and one of its greatest president s, thank you for coming. People often ask me whether there is a criterion for someone who speaks at the reagan library. Has many of the regulars no, we have posted a wide joy ryan the of political figures, some of International Importance and some who were president of the United States. We also see candidates for the presidency such as the 4 country dwell that will be here for the president ial primary and the. We also host important book authors, people who shaped the course of the nation. One thing some of these people have in common is an important connection to president reagan in one way or the other. Today we have with us correction carlson, Gretchen Carlson, in some recognizable figure in america. Cheese important given she helps to inform the opinions of millions of people around the world. In addition to her fame, her career and her very persona have a great deal, with our full refund president. How is that . There is a theory i have, one type of life and success of Ronald Reagan that is not much talked about but is most certainly true and that is i believe that people underestimate the value of underestimation and i think this is something Gretchen Carlson would agree with that let me explain. Ronald reagan got very far in life and became one of our countrys greatest president s for a lot of reasons. He was smart, he had lots of talent, he was a great communicator and had not moral compass that helped him determine right from wrong. One thing he had going for him is people often underestimated him. This served to his benefit many times. See if you remember some of these. He was a be rated movie actor, someone not serious enough to be taken for president. He was too conservative to be elected to national office. He wasnt smart enough, he came from hollywood, he shouldnt be taken seriously. The list goes on and on. All of these concerns about Ronald Reagan led many people, his critics, is enemies, opponents for Public Office to just plain underestimate him every single day. I know he didnt that these criticisms affect him. In fact i think he enjoyed the underestimation. And often allowed him to beat expectations and succeed in whatever he chose to accomplish in his life. Gretchen carlson is a perfect example like president reagan of someone who succeeded beyond while this dreams and the expectations of others because she too has been underestimated her whole life. Gretchen carlson has done well for herself, she calls it the bimbo factor. What are some of the catcalls she has experienced. This quintessential dumb blonde. She is just not smart enough. Never mind the fact that she graduated from Stanford University with honors and studied at oxford. She is the miss america type, literally. Dont take her seriously please nevermind the fact that she has succeeded in winning that contest from an organization that is to this day the Worlds Largest provider of academic scholarships solely for women. Talent counts for half of the score. I know this to be absolutely true. I was a judge for the miss America Pageant and i can tell you i would have voted for her hands down. Talent. What talent. She was trained as a classical violinist and to this day can play with just about any orchestra she might choose. I am not exactly sure how management or board rooms or society at large made decisions to promote her but it is the fact that like Ronald Reagan she has become a tremendous success in great part because she has been constantly underestimated every step of the way. I have a feeling that is fine by her. She has used it to work even harder and importantly to reach out to others who like her have dreams of their own. It is her story that provides key inspiration they might need to succeed as well so they isnt gentlemen, if you would, please join me in welcoming to the stage at coiGretchen Carlson. Gretchen carlson. Reporter i love that analogy to Ronald Reagan. Overwhelming and nostalgia for me because i had the opportunity to meet president reagan in lenovo office when i was miss america, probably the promised day of my year as miss america. I will never forget what he said to me. In new i was a student at stanford. He said that place has really gotten liberal. I was able to say to him when i came to stanford from a small town in minnesota i had just turned 18 and it was the first time he was running for president and i got to vote in the president ial election for Ronald Reagan. [applause] people may know me from television but here are a couple things they may not know. I am 100 swedish. I was a high school valedictorian. I grew up in the halloween capital of the world in minnesota. I am not the shortest miss america ever. I hate putting on makeup when im not at work, i dont know how to type, i dont know how to parallel park. I cant whistle. I grew up the chubby teen which i will get to. When i was a little girl before i had braces i could fit this finger between my two front teeth. Why did i want to write getting real . I wanted people to know the real me. Sometimes people get impressions of Television Personalities that and not completely accurate. They never had any problems, never had any struggles, they got that golden phone call from new york one day, want to come to new york can be a star . It never happened that way for me. The real me, the child who was a concert violinist from the age of 6, the young woman who took on the challenge of but not us to try to become miss america, the Television Journalist for 25 years, the mother of two whod just like so many other women with their work inside a home or outside struggle with that concept of having it all, a woman guided by her faith and my mother who always told me it night after she said my prayers to me, you know you can be anything you want to be in this world and i believed her. I knew with a tremendous amount of hard work and perseverance and pitfalls along the way that that was possible, that that the American Dream was alive and well for me. Recently in reporting the news on a daily basis in the last ten years fewer people actually believe in the American Dream than before and that is sad to need. I wanted to write this book to let people know that if the rest of the little girl from a small town in minnesota who plays a mean filing could unexpectedly become miss america and have her own tv show on the National Scene for 25 years later, if i can do a a want you to get your list of things to do that has been sitting there for a long time and feel inspired for you to be able to do it as well. Here is what i tell my kids now in an excerpt from my book about working hard. We all have some luck in our lives but i dont tell my children maybe you will get lucky. I tell them to work hard and study and give every challenge theyre all. I make sure they understand what it means to have strong values and strive to do the right thing. My dream as a young girl was to play the violin on the worlds stage. No one told me i wasnt good enough or skinny enough or any other enough, my life stretched out ahead of me full of possibilities and i lived with the everpresent idea that i could do anything if i set my mind to it and was true to myself. In life what we learned, the failures and pitfalls actually built our character and made stronger people land appreciates success that much more. I was a chubby fact teen. In retrospect that was a blessing. When it forced me to do was build my selfesteem from the inside of my soul and not worry about the next year and is that a great life lesson for young people today in 2015. Social media and technology and photoshoping, unrealized expectations of trying to be perfect. We need to go back to that idea of building who we are from our soul. My favorite hobby today as back then was to eat. I love it. My favorite thing to do. I still struggle with my weight today, it is just that i know how to deal with it a little bit better. When i was a kid i didnt care. My mom was a gourmet cook. That cannot help matters. This hole spread of food and she would leave the house and leave me with my baby sitter, congresswomen Michele Bachman of minnesota and she would say do not eat any of the doughnuts that i made or any of the chocolate chip cookies or beefs do and foreshore dont let her drink any great soda. The minute the door would close michele would look at me and go lets go for it. It was during her share period when she babysat me. Her hair went down here and i idolized her for her beauty even then. Hard to believe she is ten years older than me but we grew up in the same count and she was my baby sitter. My mom would come home and say who ate all the food . When my best friend was with me i would point to her, it was her, the only problem was molly kept getting thinner and i kept getting rounder. Remember levis genes or corduroys for those of regeneration . Why would they put the waist size and the height size on the back for everyone to see . I would immediately get out the sharky and cross it off. My wastes size would actually be a higher number than my height sides. What finally changed me to want to lose weight . It was a boy. Tenth grade. I overheard the High School Senior who i like that you know, shes a really great girl but i cant date her because she is too fast. That day i finally went on a diet and i lost 35 pounds. I didnt go on a date with him after. For me it was the violin and that is where i build myself up. I want to share with you the conundrum i had in my life growing up, lucky to have fill me cultivate. And how to live a double life. This is for much after the 9 titles sparkles, the nickname my grandfather gave me. My heart was beating in my throat. My hands felt clammy. Waiting in the wings for my name to be announced by closed my eyes and repeated the words to the lords prayer once again. At 13 i was about to give the biggest performance of my life. The Minnesota Orchestra was on stage at orchestra hall playing a rousing piece for the common man, the music was fastpaced and uplifting. I was up next to play a solo, the First Movement of the symphony. A rush of cold air came at me and i became the long walk across the stage, violin in hand. I was a chubby girl, awkward in my floor length white dress but on that day i was a Concert Artist who would lead the orchestra in a performance. The audience rose to its feet, and i heard bravo, bravo. It went on forever when i returned twice more for encore. It was a thrilling moment and then it was over. Normal life resumed. I changed out of my white dress and my mom drove me to school. I got there in time for math class and lucky for me there was a test. My fellow students had no clue where i had been that day. To them i was just one of the kids. They didnt understand the other me, the one who just performed at 13 with the Minnesota Orchestra. That is what i thought i was going to do in my life. And baath everything changed because i just liked too many other things. A famous Concert Artist, i would have to give up Everything Else in my life. It would have to be tunnel vision. I went to my parents and told the my wanted to quit. They were devastated. Because of the immense commitment that i had put into is this for my first 17 years. My parents promise to come up with another way in which to use this talent to achieve some sort of other gold. In the meantime i went to Stanford University and concentrated on my academics, a phone call for my mom and she said i found something for you to try. I said what . She said i got a brochure in the mail. It is from love miss America Pageant. 50 of the contestants points are based on talent and they interview you, they want smart people, i think you should try it this. I said i you nuts . Remember, i grew up the chubby kid, i was a tomboy, i was much happier playing army and football with my brothers than anything else. I didnt watch pageants. She said i think you might be able to try this. Lets say my mom is a motivational person and over time she convinced me to try this. I was a total novice. If you havent noticed, i am short. I was from the state of minnesota that wasnt known as a great pageant stage. I played the classical violin. It had never won and still never has again. My own grandfather was a lutheran minister in town, gave me my religious hard work ethic and he even said to me, i know you are fantastic granddaughter but you are never going to be miss america. Why not . He said because you are too short. I went to the library before the internet and looked up and found the first miss america ever, margaret gorman, bless her heart, 5 foot 1. Hi went to my grandfather and i said even your words are not always gots words. I have 21 2 inches on her. I left stanford to accomplish this dream and i told no one. When i went to tell the dean at stanford the guy was trying to go home, to try to become miss america she looked at me and said that is the stupidest thing ive ever heard. So i went home in silence and went back to my violin and worked out like crazy and studied everything i could get my hands on for the interview. When i got to the competition in Atlantic City there was this guy who had become well known for doing this Computer Program and he would pick his top ten based on dumb things. Like hair color, what state you are from, how tall you were, what your talent was. On the morning of the pageant it is published and i am no where in any of his predictions. I will never forget my mom coming to the lobby, she was shaking me saying you can do this. You have worked so hard. Forget that computer guy. You know what happened at the next year . The computer guy was out of business and he is quoted in my book as saying these contestants keep getting more talented and more smart. It is too hard to predict who is going to win. Becoming, miss america is this wonderful achievement i had worked so hard on but i have to tell you that it was a shocking revelation very soon after about how people would just try to take you down because. Almost as if my entire resume evaporated overnight. At first in the first couple hours on is dubbed the smart miss america. This is a great headline. This will be a good year for me. That lasted just a matter of hours. I went to my First Press Conference in new york city and another female reporter, a wellknown reported deliberately tried to take me down and give me a test. She asked me who is on the 50 bill, what year did the vietnam war end, and finally have you ever done drugs and have you ever had sex . At which point the entire new york press corps booed her and the two report is from minnesota in the front row passed out. They were like whoa it is true, by the way. They couldnt believe, i couldnt believe she treated me with such disrespect. I learned right then and there i was going to develop some tough skin that year. It didnt stop there. I had a really famous celebrity judge, William Goldman who i just found out also judge in 1994 why did and ask him back . Wait till you hear what he did to me. He directed. And the sundance kid, the princess bride, wellknown dive. He decided to write a book about me the year after he judge. And here is what he said, published in 1990. I say this. It is a good thing i didnt know about the book until later because it might have taken my confidential to read page after page about my inadequacies wrapped around the title he gave me, miss piggy. He also called me and god cluster because i set my faith was important to me. To goldman i was chunky at 108 pounds. Too chunky to make the top ten. He seemed downright offended that talent should surpass the score and didnt much care for my violin performance which he referred to as fiddling. He admitted to favoring miss colorado, still his criticism of me throughout the book was a little over the top. His identification of me and the other women in the pageant was demeaning. Rereading it recently, i was surprised to find that it still stunned. I was embarrassed, even ashamed. It made me realize shaming is a potent force. For decades, i hid my feelings because it was so be the ruling but i certainly have no reason to feel that way. Now i understand this kind of degrading talk is what keeps young women from being full the themselves or even trying. Knowing yourself, not letting your detracted get you down is the message of my book. Miss america toughened my skin and i needed that when i bought to fox news. Before i get to that i want to share with you why i have great empathy for anyone who has ever been fired or lost their job because it ha