Personalties..

Miss-opportunity

Scharoun's real talent is running hotels

By Nancy Weingartner
As published in: Franchise Times - October 2008

The president of Value Place is a former Miss Oklahoma who has competed in pageants since she was 12. But don't hold that against her, she's also an entrepreneur who sold tomatoes, taught dance lessons and published her own newspaper before she turned 16.

Gina-Lynne Scharoun doesn't like to talk about her past.

It's not that she's ashamed. "I'm afraid someone will make it into something it wasn't," the president of hotel chain Value Place says. "I never want anyone to think I wasn't nice" or worst yet — that she was one of those snobby girls who thought they were better than everyone else.

Scharoun was Miss Oklahoma 1999. And for the record, she is extremely nice, and her talents extend to running a hotel chain, not just singing and dancing.

The Oklahoma native started competing when she was 12 and her mother's friend needed girls to sign up for a pageant she was organizing. Scharoun, who describes herself as shy at the time, played the piano, modeled her dress and loved every minute she was on stage. She was crowned first-runner up and when she left the stage she asked her mother, "Can I do this next weekend?"

In order to compete, she took dance lessons, shying away from singing. Before one competition, she pulled a muscle in her calf and her mother told her, "Well, kid, I guess you're going to sing." Sing, she did: winning the talent competition.

Scharoun, president of Value Place, believes who you work for is more important than what you do.

The pageants presented more than an opportunity to shine. The reward was college scholarships and, even better, an opportunity to influence young people. Her cause was the environment and recycling, back when recycling was a relatively new concept. She also had the opportunity to talk to young college students, women who struggled with body image, as well as the temptations of drinking, drugs and pre-marital sex. You definitely have influence when you "stand up there with a crown on your head," she says.

When she wasn't competing in pageants, Scharoun was being entrepreneurial. She ran a tomato stand, selling produce from her family's garden. At 12 she was publisher of a neighborhood newspaper that reported on college wrestling. "Wrestling was huge in Oklahoma," she says, and she lived in the University of Oklahoma's backyard. Her parents made the trek to Oklahoma City to watch the matches, so Scharoun reported on the matches live. The paper was short lived, however, because she charged more than the local newspaper, she says, laughing.

At 16, she taught dance out of her garage, charging $15 an hour for lessons.

Gina-Lynne Scharoun learned life lessons during her tenure as Miss Oklahoma

She and friends would also commandeer parking lots and charge admission during collegiate sporting events.

Her mother was a real estate agent and Scharoun did the books and helped her manage their apartment rental properties.That's where she learned that 100 percent occupancy was dependant on clean, well-maintained properties, she says.

Pageant highlights

Her year as Miss Oklahoma was a full-time job. She had to be accompanied by a chaperone and someone had to know where she was at all times. She drove around in a red Dodge Daytona with her name, title and the sponsor painted on the doors in four-inch-high, gold letters. Not exactly an anonymous existence.

Scharoun claims she won pageants because she studied the backstage behavior. She found the judges rewarded women who had healthy habits — no crash dieting or bad sportsmanship. Her bathing suits and evening gowns were white — "because white wins." Current events and an expanded world view were natural to her because she was a self-proclaimed nerd who liked to study.

Her world changed at 18, when she was misdiagnosed with leukemia. It took just two weeks for the doctor to reverse his diagnosis, but "it seemed like a lifetime," she says. During that time she started thinking about her legacy, what she wanted to leave behind. When she discovered she didn't have a death sentence, she still had a sense of destiny. The environment and children became her focal points.

How she ended up in franchising and hotels is also serendipitous. She had switched from an accounting major to marketing. She had been told who you work for is more important than what you do. Jack DeBoer, who created the extended-stay concept in the hospitality segment, was held in high esteem in the Wichita area — where he had also helped turn around the downtown area. "I knew that he and his wife, Marilyn, (also) were committed to charitable events," she says.

A friend introduced them and when she interviewed at his company, DeBoer told her although he didn't have an opening, he never passed on talented people with drive.

"He asked, 'Do you know anything about franchising?' and when I said no, he said, 'I'll teach you everything you need to know,'" she says.

She started with Candlewood.

In 1996, Candlewood went public and "it was like drinking through the fire hose." Her husband at the time had a job with travel so she was able to work 24-7.

Now, at 38, she has two children and little more balance in her life. She's discovered most things can wait at work for children's needs, if you plan right.

All in all, it's been a beautiful life.

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Franchise Times - October 2008