Rose Meza Harrison
U.S. Rep. District 27 - Democrat

(This biography excerpted from candidate website)

I was born the second of eight children in Benavides, Duval County, Texas, a small ranch community in South Texas. My father worked much of his life in the oil field and drilled wells throughout Texas from the 50s through the 70s. He taught me the value of hard work. My mother was a housewife and taught us the importance of an education and faith in God. She made sure we went to school every day, received piano lessons, and attended church on Sunday. Because of my parents, we are teachers, a doctor, an attorney, and hard working professionals.

When I started a family of my own, I began to understand the sacrifices my parents made for the love of their children. I am the proud mother of three beautiful children. My daughter Christina is an attorney, Michelle works for the state and my son Matthew is a college student. I also have two beautiful grandchildren, Lauren and Wyatt.

While raising my children as a single mother, I worked full-time as a legal secretary/assistant and attended college part-time. After eight years of study, I received a BA in Political Science from Texas A&M Univeristy, Corpus Christi. When my youngest child graduated from high school, I enrolled in law school to receive a Doctorate of Jurisprudence degree and returned to Corpus Christi to practice law.

My biggest thrill as a girl was to win a speech contest at the age of ten. Mother bought the LP recording of John F. Kennedy's inaugural address and stayed up late many nights after she tucked us all in bed and played it over and over until every word was transcribed in her handwriting on a piece of paper. I memorized his speech and recited verbatim as my mother had transcribed and won first place! I fell in love with government and politics about that time and later studied government and politics in college. While attending college, I became a precinct chair and attended both the county and state conventions and found them fasinating. I have been the president of various organizations from high school to law school and the president and board member of various organizations in my community and was the Democratic Party Chair for Nueces and San Patricio County.