Kentucky's first and only Miss America has been an advocate for veterans since she ran on that platform in 1999.

Since then, Heather French Henry has been commissioner of the Veterans Affairs and later made an unsuccessful run for Kentucky's Secretary of state.

Our Kelsey Starks caught up with her for inside Louisville.

You've done so much for the veteran community in Louisville, Kentucky.

The country really just raising that voice.

And you were appointed commissioner of the Kentucky Department of Veterans Affairs as well.

Tell us a little bit about what that impact has been.

The impact on the veterans community is something I've been extremely proud of, not just because I'm a daughter of a disabled Vietnam veteran, the niece of a formerly homeless veteran.

But the fact that hopefully it shows other people that they, too, can take the steps to increase awareness and make an impact for those who serve.

When you talk about a population of people who they sign a blank check, they say, I'm willing to die for you.

And now we have less than 5% of our country that steps up to do that.

You know, what can we do?

Now, it's our responsibility as a civilian to say, okay, you've done this for me.

What can I do for you?

And so as Miss America being able to work on homeless veterans, bring awareness for women veterans, those were two populations that we had not really fully developed the conversation around at that time.

We had 250,000 homeless veterans on the street on any given night.

And so working with legislators and groups like the National Coalition for Homeless Veterans, Homeless veteran reintegration programs like US vets out of LA who have like seven campuses across the country.

Louisville had a couple at the time.

We're so growing.

There was a grant per diem program that had just gotten started where the federal VA was paying money to these institutions to be able to have beds for homeless veterans and then they could keep better track of.

So it felt like in 99 and 2000, all these wonderful programs and discussions were starting to happen.

We passed legislation that had homeless veterans and had women veterans.

But I will say this today we're a little spoiled because after 911, the silver lining on that cloud is that everyone now says yes to everything veteran related.

I mean, it's really great to see that growth.

But pre 911, it wasn't like it wasn't like that.

And we had senators and congressmen that fought against us.

You know, there was an information blackout that happened in the VA that we had to expose and people got fired over those things.

And at the time when we're talking about the discretionary spending for the VA, which means the VA only gets as much money as how many veterans are coming in and federal government.

There were people that did not want the VA to grow.

They wanted to sort of lessen the foot stamp, right, for the VA.

But the reality is we shouldn't.

And we needed to broaden that.

And in a day when homeless veteran officers within the VA could barely afford a fax machine, and that's dating myself for that to where now every VA has services for homeless veterans.

Every VA has services for women veterans.

Every VA has mental health services.

And so we have created this synergy that 24 years later, we're seeing more resources than we've ever seen.

That's what makes me really proud.

And it's I'm almost also at the point where it's not about me being the leader in the veterans community.

I've done that now.

It's about watching others who they don't even know.

They were inspired by what I did.

They probably don't even know who I am, but they're inspired because of the work that we did and the work that's still left to do.

So they're picking up those pieces and carrying them on.

You can catch inside Louisville on Sundays at noon Eastern, 11 a.m. Central right here on Ket.

And you can see the full interview with Heather French, Henry and Kelsey right now online on demand at Katy dot org.