Witzkoske competing for Miss Texas title

Gonzales High School and Texas A&M graduate Angela Witzkoske is competing against 41 other young women from throughout the state to be crowned Miss Texas 2022 this week in Richardson.

Witzkoske, 26, of Harwood, holds the title Miss Richardson, the host city for the pageant, which is being held June 19-25 at the Eisemann Center of the Performing Arts. Last year, Witzkoske competed in the Miss Texas pageant as the reigning Miss Southeast Texas for 2020-21. She also competed at Miss Texas Teen USA pageant in 2011 as Miss Gonzales County.

She is a 2014 graduate of Gonzales High School and a 2018 graduate of Texas A&M with a bachelor’s degree in communications with a minor in journalism.

She served as Miss Gonzales County in 2012 and has volunteered with the announcement of the Miss Gonzales County Royal Court at the past two Come and Take It celebrations. She has also performed the national anthem at several Texas A&M University sporting events.

Witzkoske is a first-generation Aggie and college graduate who has a passion for public speaking. Her social impact statement, “Educate, Encourage, Exceed: Pursuing an Education,” is directly inspired by her life experiences and pays tribute to the importance of hard work and perseverance.

Having witnessed her family's tenacity to build a successful life through various avenues of education, Witkoske has seen first-hand “there is no straight and narrow path to success.” She is an advocate for all forms of education, including but not limited to trade, technical and vocational schools and believes “we should never stop learning.”

“As a first-generation college graduate, I worked my way through school with the assistance of student loans,” she said. “Now that I’m in my career, post graduation, I am currently repaying nearly $35,000 in student loan debt. Thanks to the Miss America organization, I have been able to reduce my student loans.”

Through the Miss America Organization, Witkoske has accumulated nearly $1,500 in scholarships thus far and has applied that to her student loans. The Miss America Organization is the number one provider of scholarships to young women in the country and she plans to earn much more at the Miss Texas competition this summer. 

The Miss Texas Scholarship Organization is a non-profit organization that awards scholarships to outstanding young women to help advance them academically and professionally. Participants have gone on to achieve major success in diverse fields including medicine, law, business, broadcast journalism, theater, politics, literature and more.

For more information about the Miss Texas Scholarship Organization, go to misstexas.org.