Miss Texarkana: Jessica Haas

Title: Texarkana

Name: Jessica Haas

Hometown: Texarkana, TX

Age: 21

Talent: Speed Drawing

Platorm Topic: Unbound: Freeing Our Youth to a Better Tomorrow

Sponsor: Miss Texarkana Twin Rivers Organization

Executive Director: Donna Berry

Hobbies: Making art; Public Speaking/Teaching; Mentoring girls; & Serving my church.

Best compliment ever received: I was a Bible Study leader for 7th & 8th grade girls for a summer, and one of the girls, Kayla Wallace, told me that I was her role model. I had never realized the impact I could make in someone's life by just investing in them. I have been told I am a role model by many people since Kayla, but Kayla was the first. I will never forget her compliment because Kayla unexpectedly passed away later that summer. I will be paying tribute to this young lady tonight by performing a speed drawing of her face for my talent.

Best advice you ever received: Having come from poverty as a child and being the first in my family to graduate high school and pursue a college education, the best advice I’ve ever received came from my mother. Single with two children, working two jobs and going to school full time, my mother is living proof of the words she so deeply engrained in my little brother and I growing up. She told us to follow our dreams, that we could be whatever we wanted to be as long as we went to college, and to never let anyone tell us we weren’t capable of greatness. I watched my mom work her way out of poverty, graduate at the top of her nursing class, and today she owns her own boutique and is the head manager of her Home Health agency.