Editor’s note: This story includes discussion of sensitive topics including physical trauma, sexual assault and may be triggering to some readers.
“When I first met Sharon and heard her story the words that came to my mind without reading further were resilient and triumphant with a zest for life,” Cross Timbers Family Services Executive Director Laura Gambino said about the Sixth Annual Better Beginnings Brunch guest speaker Sharon Beach. “If you have ever attended our brunch whether it is your sixth year or first year, you know this is the message we hope to highlight every year – with encouragement and support it is possible to become even stronger in the aftermath of violence. Sharon summarized that best when she told me at our first meeting, ‘A life well lived is the best revenge.’”
Tarleton’s Barry B. Thompson Student Center Ballrooms was a sea of dark teal Saturday, Jan. 31 as Cross Timbers Family Services hosted its sixth annual Better Beginnings Brunch fundraiser. (Dark teal is the color representative of sexual assault awareness.)
Well-dressed guests embracing a western flair adorned with coats for the cold snap enjoyed a fabulous brunch and drinks served by Tarleton catering, bid on a large variety of silent auction items and shopped at the Mustard Seed Jewelry tables, where 30% of proceeds went to CTFS efforts.
They also heard an extremely impactful story from Sharon Beach, who is a native Texan and a Texas A&M University grad that has had a career from pharmaceutical sales to co-owning a private equity firm.
She also operates a small ranch in Parker County and has interests ranging from competing in cutting horse events, hunting and even snow skiing.
Thirty-five years has passed since her story of kidnapping and sexual assault.
“If I can help one person, then the sharing of my story has fulfilled a higher purpose,” she said.
In October 30, 1989, while she was planning to meet someone to look at her horse she was kidnapped and held hostage for the next four days. For the first 18 hours she was repeatedly sexually assaulted, blindfolded with gray duct tape and handcuffed, by two men one of whom she knew.
“During the night of sexual assault, I went to God. I didn’t go to Him to pray. I did something I never do. I told God something. I told Him mentally, take me out of here, get me away from here,” she said. “He listened to me.”
The next day Sharon said she began to have a different kind of conversation with God, one where she prepared to die. She asked for Him to allow it to be swift, for her body to be located so her family would have closure and to ease her family’s pain.
After she was at peace, she then began talking to God about getting her out of the situation realizing she only had one weapon, her mind, which was when the psychological warfare began.
Sharon was eventually able to convince her captors to let her go, with the promise they would never see or hear from her again.
“Those four days I had just experienced were probably the easiest part of my story,” she said. Sharon then had to battle a corrupt justice system including her case not returning an indictment by the Grand Jury.
“The first question the Sheriff [of Falls County] asked me was what was I wearing,” she said. After a no bill was returned, her family tried further to get help from the justice system.
“We were instructed to go back to the county where the crime originated, which was Coryell County. Coryell County and the Texas Rangers would become my saving grace,” she said.
One of her perpetrators now has 12 life sentences and she fights the other’s parole.
Sharon also fought a medical battle and that continues to this day as she began to get extremely sick with immense pain. Eventually, after a year of not being able to keep anything down and dealing with ongoing, unbelievable pain her local doctor sent her for further testing in Dallas.
On Jan. 9, 1990, Sharon went into the hospital for exploratory surgery spending the next five months in the hospital. She was diagnosed with a severe, rare case of peritonitis as a result of the sexual assault.
“Speaking about my story isn’t telling about my tragedy for I have decided to turn my tragedy into triumph,” Sharon said. “I didn’t survive to remain silent. I chose to fight. I chose to forgive. I decided to rise about my perpetrators and I chose to live.”
Currently, Sharon is also writing a book that has already been picked up by Forbes and will publish at the end of 2026.