Currently I'm querying the database to retrieve the admin email address. As in ...

Code:
$contactEmail = '';
$sql = "select configuration_value from " . TABLE_CONFIGURATION. " where configuration_key = 'STORE_OWNER_EMAIL_ADDRESS' limit 1";
$contact_emails = $db->Execute($sql);
$contactEmail = $contact_emails->fields['configuration_value'];
I'm wondering if these config values are already in some PHP array somewhere so I don't have to do an extra query.

Is there a better way than what I'm doing?