Crowning achievement

Miss Texas crowns first immigrant-born winner at 2024 pageant

Annette Addo-Yobo was crowned Miss Texas 2024 by Ellie Breaux, Miss Texas 2023.

Facebook/Miss Texas 2023

Annette Addo-Yobo, a 26-year-old woman born in Ghana, was crowned Miss Texas 2024, becoming the first United States immigrant to earn the title.

Addo-Yobo represented the Dallas suburb of Southlake in the statewide scholarship pageant, held Saturday, June 29 at the Eisemann Center for Performing Arts in Richardson. She will now go on to compete in Miss America.

"I am humbled, honored, and grateful to serve as your 87th Miss Texas!," she posted on Instagram on June 30. "I made history last night as the first immigrant-born and first Ghanaian Miss Texas, and I hope to continue making history with the Texas community and the Miss Texas class."

Addo-Yobo’s family emigrated from the West African nation of Ghana in 1999, and she became a naturalized American just two years ago.

“My parents and I [immigrated] to the United States when I was just shy of two years old,” she writes in her bio on the Miss Southlake Instagram page. “We had two suitcases and a few hundred dollars. A few years later, my family of three turned to a family of 5, and we moved to Canada and lived there for eight years. In 2010, my parents made the decision to chase the American dream one more time and we moved to Texas.

“I didn’t become a U.S. Citizen until 2022, when I was 24 years old. I lost out on many opportunities as a teenager and college student because of my citizenship status, including competing in the Miss America Opportunity. But I’m grateful to be an American, thankful for the new opportunities..."

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After she gained U.S. citizenship, she competed in the 2023 Miss Texas pageant as Miss Dallas.

Addo-Yobo calls herself an “avid learner” who holds a bachelor of science in psychology and child learning & development with a minor in criminology from The University of Texas at Dallas and a master's in clinical psychology from Sam Houston State University. She also earned a certificate from the Lyndon B. Johnson Women’s Campaign School at the University of Texas at Austin. “I’m currently finishing my MBA at Lamar University and will begin law school in the fall,” her bio (published before she won Miss Texas) says.

As winner of Miss Texas, she will receive a $30,000 scholarship.

Addo-Yobo also is an autism advocate whose real-life experiences informed both her Miss Texas advocacy platform and her on-stage talent - performing a powerful self-written monologue about her brother’s autism journey.

“My younger brother, Andrew, was diagnosed with Autism Spectrum Disorder when I was about six years old. Since then, I have learned a lot about Autism and how to be an advocate,” she writes in her bio. “A dangerous and life-threatening wandering incident involving my brother led me to develop The SPARK Project, to include autism safety in the conversation of autism awareness.”

Addo-Yobo is also open about her personal mental health journey, recounting in a UTD alumni publication her struggles with depression exacerbated by the loss of her mother in recent years.

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Addo-Yobo was crowned Miss Texas wearing a stunning yellow evening gown with a cape, a nod to her homeland.

“Donning Yellow, Miss Southlake Annette is presenting a symbol of Prosperity,” the Miss Southlake organization posted on Instagram ahead of the final round. “Ghana is known as the Gold Coast, and in the triband flag of Ghana (🇬🇭), Gold symbolizes the mineral rich land prior to colonialism. Adorned in her yellow Sherri Hill Couture, Annette carries with her a rich and prosperous legacy of resilience as she strives to become the first immigrant-born Miss Texas.”

She beat out more than 50 other contestants from around the state and was crowned by Ellie Breaux, Miss Texas 2023, who came in first runner-up at the most recent Miss America.

“Annette, your path to this title was always clear, and I know you will wear that crown with so much poise and grace,” Breaux wrote on Facebook. “Your journey inspires countless others. Texas is truly fortunate to have you represent us, and I can’t wait to be there cheering you on at Miss America!”

Rounding out the top five at Miss Texas 2024 were:

First runner-up: Miss Space City, Chloe Burke
Second runner-up: Miss Southeast Texas, Anyssa Mujica
Third runner-up: Miss Plano, Sadie Schiermeyer
Fourth runner-up: Miss Burleson, Nicole Wingard

southlake annette addo beauty miss texas texas university-texas yobo women's health

Hottest headlines of 2024

Fabulous fêtes sparkle in Houston's most-read society stories of 2024

Courtesy of LCAHouston

2024 LCAHouston International Mothers’s Day Honorees.

Editor's note: As we look back at the most-read society stories from 2024, we see Houston philanthropists filling the tables and dance floors at lavish luncheons and glittering galas. Readers also savored a peek inside a glam Houston Rodeo VIP tent, mourned the loss of a Houston-born movie star, and more.

Here are the 10 most popular society stories of the year:

1. Houston moms sparkle with international flair at fashionable luncheon. One doesn’t have to meander far from home in Houston to have a worldly experience. On Saturday, May 11, 2024 — a day before Mother’s Day — a stopover for the 11th Annual International Mother’s Day Luncheon presented by LCAHouston sure beats the layover often necessary to gallivant across the globe. Leave the luggage at home for this one, kids.

Courtesy of LCAHouston

2024 LCAHouston International Mother’s Day honorees.

2. Peek inside Rodeo Cook-off's most over-the-top tent: champagne, caviar, and Big stars. In the Texas-sized universe that is the Houston Livestock Show and Rodeo, few things are more exclusive than the private tents of the World’s Championship Bar-B-Que Contest, which turned 50 this year. And arguably, the hottest, most in-demand wristband for the Bar-B-Que Contest (we know it as the Cook-off) is the Cotton ‘Q Clu b, hosted by Cook-off sponsor Cotton Holdings. We peeked inside.

3. Intrepid actor Shelley Duvall, who grew up in Houston, dies at 75. Shelley Duvall, the intrepid, Texas-born movie star whose wide-eyed, winsome presence was a mainstay in the films of Robert Altman and who co-starred in Stanley Kubrick’s The Shining, died on July 11, 2024. She was 75.

4. 3 Houston A-list chefs headline fundraising dinner honoring Julia Child. Three of Houston’s best chefs teamed up to pay tribute to a culinary icon. Chris Williams (Lucille’s), Aaron Bludorn (Bludorn, Navy Blue), and James Beard Award winner Chris Shepherd collaborated on a meal that honored the legacy of Julia Child, February 8 at the historic Eldorado Ballroom.

5. Music legends turn tunes into $1.25 million raised for Texas Children’s. Let's pack 16 Grammy awards from among 47 nominations, American Idol fame, a bunch of Billboard chart-topping hits, and a touch of Broadway spirit into a big party ballroom. One could say that "An Evening With Legends" truly “had it all,” which also happens to be the title of Katharine McPhee’s 2010 single that reached No. 2 on the adult contemporary charts.

Texas Children's Evening With Legends 2024 Katie Dillon, David Foster, Katherine McPhee, and Lisa McCoy. Photo by Jenny Antill; Courtesy of Texas Children’s Hospital

6. Sold-out crowd toasts Houston's culinary stars at 2024 Tastemaker Awards. A sold-out crowd filled Silver Street Studios on March 27 for the 2024 CultureMap Tastemaker Awards. Held annually since 2014, the ceremony recognizes the best of the best in Houston dining. It draws a who’s-who of chefs, bartenders, restaurateurs, and other notables who gather to celebrate Houston’s dynamic culinary scene.

7. Young professionals celebrate Houston Symphony’s grand finale. Ravel’s full Daphnis et Chloé with chorus and music director Juraj Valčuha on the podium. Former Houston Symphony dirigent Christoph Eschenbach leading the massive Symphony No. 8 by Bruckner with more horns and Wagner tubas than one can count. As the 2023-24 Houston Symphony season came to a sweet and satisfying cadence, it was the Young Associates Council group that marked such a celebratory coda with a gathering at Asia Society Texas Center on Wednesday, May 22.

8. Alex and Reagan Bregman get Wild at star-studded launch party for bomb new food line. Only Alex Bregman, his tireless crew, and his endless business and charity interests could make Major League Baseball’s quiet offseason seem so 24/7. The latest: Wild Sol, the spicy and saucy new Southwest food brand that Alex and his wife Reagan have created — and just toasted with a totally fire launch party at EaDo hotspot Chapman & Kirby.

9. Pulitzer winner Anthony Doerr headlines Houston's sold-out Poets & Writers Ball. All the literary light shined bright at the 2024 Inprint Poets & Writers Ball featuring Pulitzer Prize winning author of All the Light We Cannot See, Anthony Doerr. The record-breaking evening at the River Oaks Country Club celebrated both the power of literature and Houston’s foremost literary organization and raised over half a million dollars for Inprint’s many literary performance and educational programs, as well as support for Houston-based emerging writers.

10. Magical moonlight soirée celebrates 100 years of MFAH’s artful women. Something for the kiddos, a luncheon for sartorialists, and a pastoral evening soirée. Such was the bustling weekend at the former home of the First Lady of Texas, Ima Hogg, concluding on April 14 with the 2024 Bayou Bend Garden Party, themed “Moonlight Sonata.”