Dawn Smith Jordan: Former Miss South Carolina, Pushing On Through Life’s Unfavorable Circumstances

Dawn Smith Jordan is well known around the State of South Carolina. Her ministry carries her around the state, the U.S. and the world sharing her story and singing. She was Miss South Carolina 1986 and the 2nd runner-up to Miss America that same year. Dawn is a gifted singer and has made various albums.

Despite her platform of pageants and ministry, Dawn has faced various challenges. In 1985 Dawn’s sister Shari, was abducted from in front of her family’s home and shortly thereafter murdered by her captor. It’s a situation that rocked Dawn’s family to the core, but one that made them stronger in Christ. And, after nine years of marriage, Dawn’s husband, a pastor walked away from their marriage and their two small children.

Read Seele’s Q&A with Dawn Smith Jordan below.

Dawn's sister, the late Shari Smith.

Seele Magazine: What was going through your mind in the hours that your sister was missing? And how did you react when news came that she had been murdered?

Dawn Smith Jordan: It happened May 31st, 1985, just a few days from her high school graduation. Shari, my sister stopped her car in front of our family home in Lexington County, South Carolina, got out at the mailbox and was abducted. Seeing Shari’s car outside, my father commented to my mom, “Shari’s home.” When she failed to come in, my parents found Shari’s car still at the mailbox, the engine running, the door open and her purse inside.

I was twenty-one at the time and lived in Charlotte, North Carolina, where I performed at Carowinds Amusement Park. My mom called to tell me Shari was missing, and that a patrolman would drive me home to my family.

While a team of law enforcement officers camped at my family’s home during the search for Shari, the kidnapper repeatedly called us, toying with us by telling us Shari was still alive – when actually, he had killed her within twelve hours of the abduction.

It was five days before they found her body; and almost a month before they caught her killer, Larry Gene Bell. In that time, he also killed a Richland County girl and continued to call our home, even describing how he’d taken Shari’s life.

“There was fear on so many levels. Fear of what he was doing to my sister, fear of him killing her, fear that she would become dehydrated because she didn’t have her medicine (for water diabetes), fear of what it was doing to my parents, and fear that he would try to get me (which he threatened on the phone).

Even after Bell was sentenced to death, I imagined that he might escape from prison and come after me. Fear can paralyze you if you let it. We have things happen that we don’t choose, but we can choose how to handle them. I decided to embrace the fear each time.

SM- How has forgiveness been crucial in your life, toward Larry Gene Bell- your sister's murderer?

DSJ- The mire is always going to be there in one way or another, and so many of us choose to continue to wallow around in it. But when we do, we cannot move forward. We can choose to be victims or we can choose to be victorious.

A few years later, as Bell sat on death row, he wrote me a letter, telling me that he had accepted Christ as his personal Savior and asked for my forgiveness. “How dare he!,” was my instant reaction. I put the letter in a drawer for two years.

Gradually, though, God began to take me to passages about forgiveness (Colossians 3:12-13; Ephesians 4:32; Matthew18: 21-35). I thought I had forgiven him, but realized I hadn’t. It was another choice I had to make. I sat down and wrote him a letter. It wasn’t filled with warm fuzzies, but I knew that (God) had already paid the price for that man.

SM: What was it like winning the 1986 Miss South Carolina, and being 2nd runner up in the Miss America Pageant?

DSJ: Being Miss South Carolina and second runner up to Miss America was a huge honor, as well as responsibility. I traveled in 350 appearances that year. It was a platform by which the Lord used to begin to open doors of ministry for me. I was invited to share my story on the 700 Club for the first time that year, and then invited to sing and share my story on the South Carolina Billy Graham Crusade, which continues to air today on their classics telecasts.

SM: When your husband walked out on your marriage of 9 years, how did you cope? How again did you experience the grace of God?

DSJ: When my husband left my children and me, I was beyond devastated. Our children were only one and four, and those were some deep days of despair. However, I went to Christian counseling, stayed in the word of God, read as many books as I could, and by the grace of God, he enabled me to press into him and press on.

SM: What's your message to young women on pushing on in spite of life's challenges?

DSJ: At 53 years of age, having walked with Christ since the age of nine, if there is anything that I have learned, it is that we will all have circumstances in life that we would never choose. However, we still and always have a choice with how we respond- to fall apart, stand firm on the word of God, have fear or faith. We get to choose.

It is my prayer that I will continue to choose well, to choose faith, and that is what I would encourage other young women to do as well. I would encourage them not to let their circumstances define them, but to be used by God to develop them into the strong women he has called them to be, to live lives that count for his glory. It is the very things that I thought would undo me literally, that he has used for good purposes and other lives. When we give him the broken pieces of our lives, only he can do just that.

SM: When you hear the name Jesus what comes to mind?

DSJ: Jesus, my Savior, my shepherd, my redeemer, my friend, faithful. The name above all names.