Beverley Roberts

Sweet Success

    Two-thousand, two-hundred, and twenty-one. That's how many boxes of Girl Scout cookies 10-year-old Beverley Roberts sold during the 2008 cookie season- enough to make her the top seller in the entire state. That's a lot of Thin Mints.
    When asked how she managed the feat, Beverley responded, "To tell you the truth, it's because my mom has a big mouth."
    A quick glance at Beverley's mother, Denise Roberts, reveals that she is completely comfortable with the statement.
    "It's okay; you can write that," Denise says, obviously proud enough of her daughter's achievement that she doesn't mind sharing some of the credit in this rather dubious way. "Beverley tells everybody that."
    Further questioning reveals that when it comes to big mouths, Beverley "guesses" she has one, too. A fifth-grader who has been a Girl Scout for five years, Beverley seems to have quite a knack for cookie selling. She has been the top seller in her troop every year she's participated. Her main motivation, she says, comes from the prizes she wins; this year the theme was "You Can Be a Star," so prizes included such thrilling items as a megaphone, director's chair, three-foot stuffed dog and a pillow with a radio built into it. "I can't sleep with it because it will turn on in the middle of the night," says Beverley matter-of-factly.
    Big mouths aside, selling that many cookies in just two months was sure to require a lot of hard work and dedication. Many were sold to friends and family, as well as to the residents of Indigo Run where Denise works. Two hundred boxes were sent overseas to troops in Iraq after people were given the chance to purchase them with this altruistic cause in mind. And Beverley even employed several original marketing techniques, such as using her own money to purchase new cookie varieties that she then gave away as samples at her booth; and composing a jingle ("Guess what time of year it is, cookies, cookies!") that was on her mom's voicemail so people would be inspired to leave cookie order messages.
    "She's so outgoing, where as I was shy and retiring," said Denise. "You couldn't get me to sell cookies when I was in school; I wouldn't do anything. But I credit a lot of that to Beverley's schooling, specifically her teachers."
    Denise, who is the leader of Beverley's troop, often feels that she's having fun and learning just as much as the girls when they go on trips and participate in Scout activities. Together they have traveled to SeaWorld and zoos in Jacksonville and Columbia, a DNR event on James Island where they learned about local animals, plus they've done a number of crafts, including gingerbread houses, making cards for people in nursing homes, and painting bags for Deep Well's Thanksgiving and Christmas projects. This year, with the money they get back for each box of cookies the troop sells, Denise says they plan to go on a number of little trips to places like Savannah, where they will take a ghost and pirate tour and earn a badge by visiting the childhood home of the woman who founded the Girl Scouts, and the Columbia Zoo, where Beverley hopes to "feed the bears apples."
    Beverley plans to be a Girl Scout until she is old enough to become a troop leader. Until then, one thing remains certain: If you run into her and it happens to be cookie season, you probably won't walk away empty-handed.

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Hometown:
Bluffton, SC Favorite subjects: reading and math Hobbies: logic puzzles, watching movies, collecting porcelain dolls, taking care of her little cousins, reading, and writing stories, poems and reports Favorite book: Marley: A Dog Like No Other Favorite kind of Girl Scout cookies: sugar-free chocolate chip, although it changes every year