Deneen (Penn) Wiers’ journey has been anything but average. A former Miss Ohio, now entrepreneur, helps small business owners through her work at Sutton Bank, one of Ohio’s top small business and agricultural lenders.
As payments marketing and event coordinator at the bank’s headquarters in Attica, Ohio, she said her education and experiences at Kent State University at Trumbull has helped her excel.
Before graduating with her degree in business administration in 2019, the Maplewood High School graduate became Miss Ohio Collegiate America (2017) and then Miss Ohio USA (2018). She used what she learned in class to launch her own honey business. In her spare time, Wiers served as a campus ambassador and visited local schools to present workshops to show students how they could become entrepreneurs, too.
“My experiences in class, on campus, and in the different competition platforms gave me great insight into the business world and the belief that I can walk into meetings with managers and directors and be confident about my talents,” Wiers said.
Wiers now lives on Holiday Lakes in Attica with her husband, Hunter. He is a fifth-generation partner at his family's produce farm, Wiers Farm, and works with its trucking company, Dutch Maid Logistics, Inc.
Even though her days as Miss Ohio USA and Miss Collegiate Ohio USA have passed, she enjoys following the current pageants and keeping up to date with the other contestants she met from around the country.
After all of her hard work, she maintains her competitive spirit. She even plans to enter the couple’s Bernese mountain dog, Parsley, into an upcoming dog show.
“We will see if the apple doesn’t fall far from the tree,” she laughed.
Contact:
William Burgess, wjburges@kent.edu
Kent State Trumbull