When 23-year-old Erika Kirk was named Miss Arizona, contenders (including first runner-up, Caitlin Fitz-Maurice) saw her as a poised, devout woman with a sense of purpose that elevated her above the competition.
These qualities have been put to the test since her husband, the conservative influencer Charlie Kirk, was shot dead while speaking to students on a university campus in Utah last week.
Mrs Kirk, now 36, has been thrust violently into the national spotlight.
In the days since her husband was assassinated and she was forced to tell her two young children that their father would not be coming home because he was “on a work trip with Jesus”, she has emerged with her sense of mission intact.
“I will never let your legacy die,” she vowed to Kirk in a tearful address earlier this week.
Friends and political strategists believe Mrs Kirk, a real estate agent who had previously kept a relatively low profile, is emerging as a political force in her own right.
On Thursday, she was named the chief executive and board chairman of Turning Point USA, her husband’s conservative activist group.
Tyler Bowyer, Turning Point’s chief operating officer, said she was the obvious candidate to replace Kirk at the helm shortly after her appointment.
He told The Telegraph: “Charlie and Erika are one person … so it only makes sense for her to be leading the organisation. She carries not only his namesake but his legacy and his heart, his zeal.
“Nothing changes here. We’re going to miss our friend dearly, but we are going to see his legacy live on through Erika.”
He added: “Erika Kirk has been the bravest soul I’ve ever seen in my entire life. I’ve seen people go through traumatic events. This is beyond traumatic.”
Caitlin Fitz-Maurice, who competed in the 2012 Miss Arizona pageant won by Mrs Kirk, remembered her as a young woman mature beyond her years.
Upset after placing as runner-up in the competition, she recalled Mrs Kirk encouraging her to seek out a “greater purpose”.
“I was more obsessed with trivial things – back then I wasn’t really thinking about the future a lot,” Ms Fitz-Maurice told The Telegraph.
“I remember talking to her about going to law school… and her saying, you should be doing those things that matter. I remember being upset about the pageant. She was like, ‘you have a greater purpose, go for that’.”
“She really is a caring, godly person – nothing is fake. What she professes, it’s how she lives,” added Ms Fitz-Maurice, who went on to study at George Washington University and qualify as a lawyer.
Mrs Kirk, who worked for real estate firm The Corcoran Group, founded the non-profit Everyday Heroes Like You, which supports under-recognised charities, several years before she claimed the Miss Arizona crown.
She later turned down an offer to become a cast member of the reality TV series Summer House, although she did appear in one episode. “She’s beautiful and happens to be religious” was how she was introduced by a friend.
Raised and baptised as a Catholic, she also founded a brand of religious streetwear, selling t-shirts, hoodies, caps and blankets that displayed Bible scenes and verses.
“Every item we produce is created with intention and designed to spark and inspire Gospel conversation,” its website still states.
She met Charlie Kirk in a New York burger restaurant in 2018 for what was supposed to be a job interview but quickly turned into “banter over theology, philosophy and politics”, she later recalled.
“I’m going to date you,” he told her at the end of the meeting.
After marrying in 2021, Mrs Kirk cast herself as her husband’s “helpmate” in her “biblical role” as a wife and was frequently at his side during Turning Point events.
Kirk, a Maga firebrand who seemed happiest when fighting in the trenches of culture wars, appeared almost bashful when he introduced his wife on an episode of The Charlie Kirk Show podcast.
Responding to a question about which of them was more conservative, he said without a moment’s thought: “Erika.” Grinning, he added: “By far. I am a moderate compared to Erika”.
She returned to the same podcast studio – this time alone – after her husband was allegedly shot dead by 22-year-old student Tyler Robinson.
“Charlie always said that when he was gone, he wanted to be remembered for his courage and for his faith,” she said in an emotional speech. “Now and for all eternity, he will stand at his saviour’s side, wearing the glorious crown of a martyr.”
She brought her husband’s body home to Arizona with JD Vance, the US vice-president, on Air Force Two.
Some compared the grim journey made by the newly-widowed Mrs Kirk, who emerged from the plane with her head bowed and dark sunglasses covering her eyes, to Jackie Kennedy returning from Dallas after John F Kennedy’s assassination.
Kirk, who died aged 31, was one of the most influential political figures of his generation, having the ear of Donald Trump and a major voice in the US president’s Maga movement.
Turning Point USA, which he founded in 2012, has emerged as a powerful force on hundreds of college campuses.
Mrs Kirk was named its chief executive on Thursday after being urged by friends to take the reins of a movement that suddenly found itself rudderless.
Anna Scott Marsh, a lobbyist who met Kirk as a student and maintained a friendship with him for 10 years, first encountered Mrs Kirk in 2021 when she turned up to help with a political fundraiser in North Carolina.
“She was just so similar to Charlie – so kind, so gracious with her time, so intelligent. When you talk to either of them, they make you feel like you’re the most important person in the room,” she recalled.
‘Huge burden to carry’
Backing her decision to take up her husband’s mantle, she continued: “Staying the face of Turning Point I think would be really healing to her, and I think it would be really healing for a lot of Americans to see her strength and her tenacity.
“People honestly are kind of looking to her for it, and I know that’s a huge burden to ask for her to carry. But I think that she is convicted by her beliefs, both religious and political.”
Brian Darling, a Republican strategist, said he expected Kirk’s legacy to be continued through “a bigger Turning Point USA organisation”, which has reported thousands of requests for new chapters since his death.
Figures with ties to the movement told The Telegraph they were being approached by donors outraged by Kirk’s murder to grow its presence.
Ms Fitz-Maurice hopes Mrs Kirk will emerge as a major political force.
“She has that fight in her, but she said she’s grieving… I really do hope that she does take on his [Kirk’s] legacy, and I know that she will. She’s got the strength and the perseverance,” she said.
“I know people talk about it, in circles, that they hope she runs for president. I hope all those things.”