In launching three state lotteries, Rebecca Paul has built a reputation as a master marketer and industry-leading promoter who’s admired by her peers worldwide.
“As lottery executives go,” the New York Times wrote in 2007, “few can claim her knack for seizing the spotlight.”
That didn’t come naturally for the Tennessee Lottery’s take-charge CEO, who grew up the daughter of a battery-factory worker in Indiana.
Portrait of Rebecca Paul, the Tennessee Lottery CEO at the office’s headquarters in Nashville, Tenn., Tuesday, March 19, 2024.
Paul became a high school and college athlete with working-class aspirations: “I thought I’d coach gymnastics the rest of my life,” she said.
That changed in the early 1970s when, on a lark, she entered the Miss Indiana pageant. Her pageant career was brief but successful — it ended in 1973 when she finished fourth at the nationally-televised Miss America contest.
And it served as a catalyst to launch her into television, politics and lottery life, helping her get comfortable in the public eye, a place where she eventually thrived.
“I had to learn to talk,” Paul, 75, said, smiling.
Rebecca Paul as Miss Indiana, far right, at the Miss America Pageant in Atlantic City, New Jersey, in 1973
To mark the Tennessee Lottery’s 20th anniversary, and her 20th year at the helm, Paul sat down with The Tennessean in her office suite and discussed her beginnings and her evolution into a lottery industry superstar.
She currently is serving her second term as president of the World Lottery Association, the first woman to hold the post.
The journey began in a blue-collar neighborhood in Indianapolis.
As her dad worked in a Duracell factory, her mom made costumes at home, seemingly for all the kids in the city, all year long. For Christmas pageants. For plays. For dance recitals.
Daddy’s long legs
Paul sometimes tagged along to her sister’s dance classes, where teachers decided Paul might be a better tumbler than a dancer. So the little girl started doing gymnastics.
Her biggest gig: Tumbling in front of her high school’s marching band appearance in the annual Indy 500 parade. Afterward, she and her classmates got to hang out in the infield of the Indianapolis Motor Speedway, which calls itself “the Racing Capital of the World.”
Paul lived at home while earning a physical education degree from nearby Butler University. She competed on the basketball, volleyball, track and gymnastics teams and started coaching after graduation.
Her life changed in 1971 when a local TV producer walked up to her at a televised gymnastics meet and told her she needed to enter the local beauty pageant.
“But I’m a jock,” she said.
Undeterred, the producer tracked her down and convinced her to enter the Miss Indianapolis pageant that year. For her talent, she did a gymnastics floor routine on a cement floor.
A 1973 picture of Miss Indiana Rebecca Paul during the talent competition of the Miss America pageant in Atlantic City, New Jersey. Paul finished in fourth place overall at the nationally televised pageant
The next year, Paul won the pageant, went on to win Miss Indiana and flew to Atlantic City in 1973, where she finished fourth overall and won the swimsuit competition.
“I got Daddy’s long legs,” Paul said, smiling.
As Miss Indiana, Paul made appearances at Rotary Club meetings, hospitals and minor league baseball games. After being introduced at one event, the host asked if she’d like to say a few words.
No, Paul said into the microphone.
“After, they took me aside and said, that’s not the right answer.”
Big Jim and his big job offer
Because of her pageant success, an Indianapolis TV station asked her to do weekend weather forecasts. When she got married and later moved to Springfield, Illinois, Paul landed a full-time job hosting a local program at the NBC affiliate there.
As Miss Indiana, Paul interacted several times with Indiana’s governor, who in turn introduced Paul to Illinois’ governor, James R. “Big Jim” Thompson.
Rebecca Paul at the NBC affiliate station in Springfield, Illinois, where she hosted a variety of local programs from 1978 to 1985, before being appointed Illinois lottery director
Paul soon became active in state Republican politics, and in 1985, the governor called Paul to his office and offered her the lottery director job.
“I said, let me talk to my husband, and he said, ‘too late’ and opens the door to a room full of reporters for a press conference,” Paul said.
“My husband found out I was the lottery director when someone heard it on the radio and called him.”
That became the first of four state lotteries she ran. From there, Paul launched lotteries in Florida, Georgia and Tennessee.
In each state, she made appearances at public and private events, inserted herself into ads, created her own marketing and advertising plans. That chafed some politicians and stakeholders, who accused her of being a showboat.
‘She’s getting it done’
Shortly after being elected governor of Florida, Democrat Lawton Chiles replaced Paul as lottery chief. Chiles, in part, accused Paul of wasting money by hosting a yacht party for staff and stakeholders. Paul asserted that sponsors paid for it and that the party got national media coverage and was therefore a win for promoting the lottery.
Paul has had her critics in Tennessee, too, who think she sometimes is more style over substance.
But Paul’s defenders say she is an incredibly effective lottery director who steadily grows ticket sales and scholarship money.
Portrait of Rebecca Paul, the Tennessee Lottery CEO at the office’s headquarters in Nashville, Tenn., Tuesday, March 19, 2024.
“People are always going to have their detractors,” Tennessee state Rep. Susan Lynn, R-Mount Juliet, said.
“I’m going to look at results. She’s getting it done. Overall, I think Tennessee has been very fortunate to have her at the helm.”
Paul said she is unfazed with the criticism: “I think I roll with the punches pretty good.”
And she also said, at 75, she has no plans for retirement in part because she loves what she does.
“I think a lot of people who retire want to have time to spend with kids and grandkids, and I have no children. I really do feel I’m making a difference,” she said.
“I have purpose and passion — what else would I want to do besides raise money to send kids to college?”
Reach Brad Schmitt at brad@tennessean.com or 615-259-8384.
This article originally appeared on Nashville Tennessean: Tennessee Lottery CEO: How the Miss America pagent changed her life
