Cove sisters capture pageant titles
Special to Leader-Press
Kadence Coombs is no stranger to the stage. She and her sister, Joslynn, are both enrolled in dance and gymnastics lessons. Both girls are also not new to the pageant stage either or the feeling of loss.
Kadence competed for the title of 2019 Junior Miss Five Hills in Copperas Cove’s Miss Five Hills Scholarship Program, an activity of the Copperas Cove Parks and Recreation Department. She placed first runner-up and vowed to compete again the following year. Joslynn Coombs also competed for the title of 2019 Miniature Miss Five Hills also coming in as a runner-up.
On Saturday, both Coombs girls brought home the crowns and have developed plans to make positive impacts on their communities.
“I want to help with the weekend backpack program at my school and also raise money to help the other schools have it too so those students are not hungry,” Kadence said. “As a member of student council, this is a good project for us and we can help our friends who do not have food.”
Kadence attends Williams/Ledger Elementary that began a weekend backpack program with funds raised from an event hosted by the Miss Five Hills Scholarship Program and fellow student, Junior Mister Five Hills 2019 Jackson Gibbs. The backpack program is administered by Communities in Schools and ensures that children, who might otherwise go hungry, have food throughout the weekends. The program provides dinner for Friday night and breakfast, lunch and dinner for both Saturday and Sunday. The food is bagged weekly by the student council and placed in student lockers on Friday afternoons for them to discreetly place in their backpacks and take home.
“I participated in Lemonade Day last year and gave all the money to Communities in Schools to help pay for students to be able to do fun activities like dance and gymnastics like I do,” the 7-year old said.
In 2017, Kadence served as Little Miss Five Hills and created her Bling for Bravery service project. Partnering with the Snowdrop Foundation, she collected over 500 neck medals and delivered them to Texas Children’s Hospital in Houston. The medals were awarded to children battling cancer to encourage them to keep fighting and finish their race against the deadly disease.
This year, her sister, Joslynn, will take over that service project as Miniature Miss Five Hills.
“I want to collect as many medals as I can from my friends who have a lot of them from dance and gymnastics contests,” Joslynn said. “I can also get some from races and other events that give medals but have some left or people who have so many medals they want to help kids with cancer by giving them to me to give to the kids.”
At the end of her year-long reign, Joslynn will travel to Houston where she will turn in all the medals she has collected to the Snowdrop Foundation at the Texas Children’s Hospital and see first-hand how she helped children in their fight against cancer.