When 23-year-old Erika Kirk was named Miss Arizona, contenders saw her as a poised, devout woman with a sense of purpose that elevated her above the competition.

These qualities have been put to the test since her husband, the conservative influencer Charlie Kirk, was shot dead while speaking to students on a university campus in Utah last week.

Mrs Kirk, now 36, has been thrust violently into the national spotlight.

In the days since her husband was assassinated and she was forced to tell her two young children that their father would not be coming home because he was “on a work trip with Jesus”, she has emerged with her sense of mission intact.

“I will never let your legacy die,” she vowed to Kirk in a tearful address earlier this week.