Gwen Hajek was raised in the small-town of Shreveport, Louisiana, but times are tough and she needed to go somewhere she could make a good, honest living. “Economic opportunities in Shreveport are, unfortunately, zilch. It used to be an oil city; there were several big oil companies, including Shell, downtown,” explains blonde-haired Miss Hajek, in her Southern accent. “But, not anymore. All the oil business seemed to move to Texas over the past 20 years.” While the town has lost many of its citizens because of lack of employment, our all-natural Playmate moved to Forest City, Arkansas, for a different reason. “I was just plumb burnt out on Shreveport. I know every nook and cranny of the city, and it was getting boring,” admits Gwen. “I grew up kind of tomboyish in Louisiana. I was thin and flat-chested when I started high school. But then, suddenly, I began to fill out very fast.” As a tomboy child, Gwen played with bugs and refused to ever wear dresses, but as a voluptuous woman, Miss September 1987 can’t hide her beautiful femininity. “The summer I turned 14, I was suddenly afraid of bugs, though I'd never been afraid of bugs before. I thought, ‘what's happening to me?’ Then I gradually got used to it,” says the buxom Arab-American Playmate. “But, I still didn't think of myself as pretty until I won the Girl of My Dreams beauty pageant at my high school.” Evidentially, she was the only one who didn’t believe she was gorgeous, because when a Playboy contributing photographer first laid his eyes on the Southern beauty, he immediately made sure she tested for Playboy. “I'd never modeled before, so posing for Playboy has been like a crash course in modeling techniques for me,” says the Playmate. Gwen was a natural and that’s why she’s our Miss September 1987.