THIRD STREET As a former Miss Arkansas and a staple on the red carpet, having hosted one of Oscar night’s most exclusive watch-parties, Tamara Henry is often dismissed as another artsy blonde entertainment reporter using her looks and connections to make it big in television or film.

That’s not far off, well, most of it anyway. Henry’s undeniably attractive, and definitely dialed in to the entertainment industry. However, after a moment’s inspection, it’s clear that Henry, who also co-hosts several news programs for Santa Monica CityTV 16, has a different plan of action in mind than following in the footsteps of “Entertainment Tonight’s” Mary Hart.

In short, Henry wants to change the world. And that’s not some tired cliché. This small-town girl from White Hall, Arkansas, believes God has given her a gift and that gift is to entertain, while at the same time, keep the public informed about the issues that truly affect them. Henry believes that people are hungry for positive, uplifting stories, and she’s just the person to provide them.

“Right now, people who don’t know me well say things like, ‘Oh she’s a pretty blonde.’ There’s this stereotype,” Henry said during a recent interview at a coffee shop on the promenade, just before she was to tape an episode of the city news program “Santa Monica Update.” “But when I’m old and gray, they’ll be taking me very seriously, and hopefully, it's because I have some good messages to share.”

With a master’s degree in Spiritual Psychology from the University of Santa Monica, Henry hopes to use what she has learned about raising one’s consciousness to influence the next generation of television programming, providing news coverage to enlightened viewers weary of all the mayhem and ready to ponder the purpose and meaning of life.

Henry, 35, spoke with the Daily Press about her ambitions, her thoughts on celebrity, troubles facing Santa Monica and what it’s like to be a smalltown girl living in the big city.

Your résumé includes many different skills. Have you always had an interest in different fields of entertainment?

“Well, the funny thing about me is that it’s almost like I can do a bunch of things pretty well, but not one thing that I totally excel at. So, I wear plenty of medium-sized hats instead of one big hat … I’ve been told I need to pick one area and just go with it, but making that decision, just picking one thing … I’d rather have a lot of irons to the fire. For me, I just love opportunity and possibility. I never want to close the door, make that decision. The root of decision is to cut off from, and I would hate to cut off six opportunities for just one thing.”

What was it like growing up in Arkansas?

“Well, I grew up an hour south of Little Rock in a small town of 4,000 people, so I was a little bored. It’s a lovely place called White Hall. There wasn’t much to do there, so I found myself getting involved in dancing and singing. Any opportunity I could find, I would jump at it. I wanted to do everything, cheerleading, choir. I was just into performance for some reason. I think I have this thing, ‘Mommy, mommy look at me!’ I guess I had this thing for attention, whether it was doing a backflip off the high dive or singing in the living room. I guess I’ve always wanted to be in the performing arts, entertainment, and then I got into broadcast journalism, which in a way is performing arts. But the hard-core journalists are like, ‘No, this is serious journalism.’ So I’ve had to tap into that serious side as well, which is hard for me because I feel like I have a little flare for entertainment. I’m a little bit more flashy, so it’s hard because people are telling me I have to either go all the way to one side and really get my hair blonde, get the fake boobs and go the entertainment route, or die my hair brown, cut it real short and be a serious journalist. I just don’t feel like I’m either one of those. I’d hate to go to one side or the other. My thing is I want to have my cake and eat it to.”

How did you start singing?

“School choirs, church, in pageants. My dad always encouraged me to sing, ‘If God gave you a gift use it.’

What did your parents do?

“My dad was in the Army. I was actually born near the Pentagon. My dad was stationed in the unit for Assistant Chief of Staff for intelligence/communications from 1958 to 1973 (off and on... one year in Korea... three years at the American Embassy, Bonn, Germany....and one year in Vietnam).. We’re all from Arkansas. We just happened to be there when I popped out.”

How did you get involved in pageants?

“I actually found out that I could win scholarship money by competing in pageants. So, I did and won enough money to pay all of my college tuition and get my degree in broadcast journalism.”

What was the Miss America competition like? Was there much cat-fighting?

“That’s what everybody thinks, but it’s really like the Olympics. You’re not really competing against the other women, you are really competing against yourself. Your main competitor is yourself, just getting out of your own way and building up the confidence to shine, allowing yourself to be your best and not becoming hung up on doubts you may have of yourself.”

What was your first broadcast like?

“Oh boy. Well, I do remember my first broadcast, and fortunately, they didn’t tape it (laughs). The prompter went down. It was a new television station, basically built from the ground up, so in the beginning we would have a few technical difficulties. It was a really great place to cut my teeth in the news business. Here I was, brand new, not really adjusted to maneuvering through a newscast and the prompter goes down, or we have the wrong footage. I didn’t really know the finesse of explaining to the viewers, ‘Excuse me, folks, but we are having technical difficulties,’ and then continue with the story. So, it required me to think on my feet.”

You started out as an anchor before you became a reporter. What was that like?

“Well, that’s usually not how anyone starts out. It’s typically the other way around. I was Miss Arkansas at the time when they started this station, so I was there from the ground up, hammering boards together, building sets. My co-news anchor was a seasoned news director so he could always pull me out of trouble. But it was fun because the viewers got to see me improve. People say you want to start out at a small town where nobody can see you make mistakes, but I made those mistakes right in front of my hometown, where everybody knew me and everybody was watching. But after about a year people were saying, ‘Wow, Tamara. We have really enjoyed watching your progress, and now you’re really good now.’ From there, I got hired at one of the top Fox affiliates in tha nation in California.”

Where was it?

“In Fresno. I was there for two years. Doing anchoring and medical producing and health reporting. And a little bit of entertainment reporting.”

What was that like, having to move away from your family to an unfamiliar town?

“Well, I didn’t have to move. But the station I was at was folding. I was still under contract, so I had the luxury of sitting back and dreaming of what my next move was going to be. I had always wanted to go to Los Angeles and be in the middle of everything, so I looked on this map and Fresno looked like it was close. It wasn’t as close as I thought it was going to be, but that’s OK. I applied for whatever jobs were available online in Santa Barbara, Los Angeles and Fresno. Fresno just happened to be the one to call. So I was so excited that they were going to move me across the country. I was going to be really close to L.A., and sure enough, after a couple of years there it was a short move to Los Angeles. I’ve been here ever since.”

How are you enjoying life on the west coast?

“I love it. I go home every couple of years, most recently during Christmas when I filled in for a news anchor there. I always had this reoccurring dream of doing news there and I guess it came true … I came in and in three days I learned how to produce the whole news cast. So, I produced, had total creative control over the newscast for three weeks.”

You’ve made a lot of connections here?

“Oh yeah. I have great friends. I belong to the spiritual community here, people who are involved in spiritual entertainment. I have a lot of friends. It’s funny that in a big city such as Los Angeles, I can still go out for a stroll somewhere, maybe on the beach, and run into people I know. It’s such a small world, even in the big city. It feels good.”

What do you love about Santa Monica/Venice?

“I spend a lot of time working on my career. For me, that’s my hobby. My work is my hobby. I love it. I wake up every day and hit the computer and submit myself for different film roles or other projects. I’m involved in different organizations and causes. I’m just so blessed that what I get to do every day is what I love to do. I get on my knees every day and thank God for the opportunities I’ve been given. If I get a phone call about a job, I immediately get on my knees and say thank you. The more you have that gratitude, the more good things start coming. You start living on that higher level.”

You received a master’s degree from the University of Santa Monica in spiritual psychology, with an emphasis in spiritual entertainment. What is that?

“I’ve always wanted to do a lot of positive news stories, but my news reps would constantly say, ‘Nobody wants to hear about positive news stories. They want to hear about the blood and the guts, the violence.’ But, coming out here to the west coast, I found a groundswell of this need that is so neglected, to do things that make a difference, to do things that are uplifting, to do things that show people that you can actually have more power if you come from a place of love rather than a place of war and bombs. People aren’t really sure about that yet, they’re like, ‘No, no, no, the real way to solve the issue is to bomb them or nuke them.’ They don’t understand the power of love. When man discovered the power of fire, it was this great triumph, but once you discover the power of love, it will spark the same kind of revolution all over the planet. If you talk to a lot of spiritual people, there is something major going to happen in the year 2012. People are supposed to be reaching this higher state of consciousness, and as we evolve to that higher place, there will have to be television programming to satisfy these people. People are already turning their televisions off because they are dissatisfied by all of the negativity. We are going to have to produce some wholesome, soul nurturing entertainment.”

Do you really believe society is moving towards that higher level of consciousness. Some would argue that society is regressing?

“Well, a lot of times things have to hit rock bottom before they wake up. That’s the sad part of it. Sometimes people need pain to grow. Sometimes we have to almost destroy ourselves before we realize we need to make a change.”

It just seems that society is more and more focused on excess, celebrity.

“I saw a program on celebrity obsessions where camera crew followed around Angelina Jolie, and I felt the special really didn’t go deep enough into what is obsession, and what is the psychological need of people all cross the nation, who have this hunger for celebrity so they can constantly project the inner parts of ourselves out on these figures who are supposed to be perfect.”

Speaking of celebrity, who’s the most famous person you’ve interviewed, or a person you’ve interviewed that you thought you’d never have the chance to?

“Ooh, that’s a tough one. I guess I don’t have an answer for that and the reason is, is because the direction I need to go in, one that would light my fire, is to say that I’ve interviewed the deep thinkers in my life. If I could interview anyone dead or alive, it would be (psychiatrist) Carl Jung. That’s the type of person that rings my bell.”

Most people would be happy with the glamour and glitz? Why not you?

“I think it has something to do with being born at this particular place and time. I was a surprise. I wasn’t supposed to be here. My mother was done raising kids. It’s funny, she knows that exact moment I was conceived. It was the Fourth of July, when they were having real fireworks (laughs). I was born nine months later in April, making me a fire sign, and Aries. I just feel like I would not be hungry for all this information, if I didn’t have this mystical curiosity, this little empty hole inside of me. I think everyone has it, and they fill it up with drugs or alcohol or sugar, or whatever it is that’s your vice or whatever it is you have to have … I think the reason why I’m here is to be a light that shines. If I was just about celebrity, about my own fame, than I would be a black hole just sucking things in. I want to be a star, which reflects light out. I want to shine.”

So, who are you wearing?

“You know, I’m not really into that. But I’ve been blessed with a lot of things that money can’t buy. I’m doing things for Time Warner, CityTV, I’m working for the community doing positive interviews. I feel like I’m doing things on a very small level, but they’re meaningful to me. There’s more to life than money.”

How do you remain positive when you get turned down for a job?

“Well, you don’t want to get to the top of the mountain too fast. When you’re at the top, working yourself to death, you look back on this and realize these were the best days. That helps me so much to stop and realize this is the best time.”

What’s next for you?

“I really just want to use the gifts I’ve been given to create a show called Santa Monica CEO. I think it would be so cool. There’s so much money in one square block here, that we could cure world hunger overnight. I thought it would be cool to get all these Santa Monica CEOs on the show and have them talk about their businesses and what they’re doing to give back. I give a scholarship every year to a student back home to help them follow their dreams like I did.”

Do you get recognized on the street?

“You know, I don’t really go out that often. I go to bed every night at 8:00pm. I have been recognized a couple of times, and it really does make me feel good. I get recognized at Whole Foods!”

Being a woman and a newscaster, you hear about it being difficult as you grow older?

“I do have that fear and worry that I better hurry up and find out what I want to be before I grow up, before I’m too old. But I realize all that is a silly fear. I think while I’m young I will do more flashy, entertainment stuff, but as I learn more about spirituality, I’ll be the expert that comes on the scene to talk about these issues for many years to come.”

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Beverly Hills Times - Dec 2008