Miss Texas — Ghanaian-American Annette Addo-Yobo — wins first runner up in the Miss America pageant
The aspiring lawyer was the first immigrant to ever win the Miss Texas title on her way to competing for the Miss America crown.
Annette Addo-Yobo, competing as Miss Texas in the 2025 Miss America pageant won first runner up; Miss Alabama Abbie Stockard won the night’s big prize, the Miss America crown.
Addo-Yobo represented several firsts on her journey to competing for the vaunted title of Miss America. She was the first immigrant born outside of America to win the title of Miss Texas — Addo-Yobo is an immigrant from Ghana who became an American citizen a few years ago. After moving from Ghana to Maryland and then Canada, her family settled in the metropolitan Dallas area where she graduated from high school; she won Miss Southlake on her way to the Miss Texas crown.
She was also the first woman to compete in the state-wide pageant — and win — with short hair, according to Randy Pruett, a Miss Texas historian and author of the 2010 book, “75th Miss Texas Celebration: A Dream as Big as Texas.”
Her platform focuses on advocacy for autism awareness, in a nod to her younger brother who is non-verbal autistic. In addition to her advocacy work, she has helped to raise money for autism awareness and traveled to Washington, D.C., to urge Congress to pass H.R. 7213, the Autism CARES Act of 2024, which was signed into law by President Biden on December 23, 2024. The bill reauthorizes programs that support autism education and research.
The first-runner up to Miss America holds a degree from the University of Texas at Dallas in psychology and child development, as well as a master’s in clinical psychology from Sam Houston State University. Addo-Yobo plans to attend law school at the South Texas College of Law once her obligations to Miss Texas are fulfilled.
While Addo-Yodo did not win the night’s top prize, she did win the hearts of many following the night’s results. On Instagram, one user said that Addo-Yobo “Represented well, rocking her natural God given hair! Love it!” We couldn’t agree more; Addo-Yobo not only represented Texas well, but America, and her continued advocacy for autism looks to be a win for us all.
Panama Jackson is a columnist at theGrio and host of the award-winning podcast, “Dear Culture” on theGrio Black Podcast Network. He writes very Black things, drinks very brown liquors, and is pretty fly for a light guy. His biggest accomplishment to date coincides with his Blackest accomplishment to date in that he received a phone call from Oprah Winfrey after she read one of his pieces (biggest) but he didn’t answer the phone because the caller ID said “Unknown” (Blackest).
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