On November 13, 2004, Wanda Madge Jones, competed in the national Ms. Senior America Pageant, where she performed a tap-dance routine while singing "If My Friends Could See Me Now."

Wanda has been partaking in pageants for over 10 years. This is Wanda’s eighth pageant to participate in. She thinks that it is fantastic that the pageant celebrates the senior woman. “It encourages senior women to be active in their community, and it also cultivates their own personal growth.” She would love to open that up to other senior women. Wanda started dancing when she was only four years old and is still going strong at the age of 75. Wanda has been teaching dance for over 50 years. In 1951 she opened the Arabesque Studio of the Dance, Inc. To date, she has sponsored over 50 teachers for certification and taught over 50,000 students. She doesn’t plan on ever retiring. “Dancing is my destiny” she says. Wanda has been in over 10,000 performances, including five national dance titles, performances for the USO during World War II and the Korean War, and she once danced for President Franklin Roosevelt’s birthday ball for the March of Dimes. “There’s nothing finer than entertaining U.S. troops,” she says. “They enjoy it so much.”

Wanda also manages 15 commercial properties and two apartment complexes that she owns. Somehow she finds time to be involved with community organizations like the Senior Boon, the Dallas Rotary Club, and many more.

Wanda is very involved with the Rotary Club in that she helps with visitor registration, sings the National Anthem, helps with the Salvation Army Christmas Angel Tree, volunteers for the Rotary Players, Senior Network Alliance, and performs with Angela’s Angels, a dance troop that entertain at retirement centers, assisted living units, Alzheimer’s Units, Scottish Rite Hospital, and the Veterans Association.

Some of her other hobbies include skiing, ballroom dancing, and working out in the gym. She also enjoys being in pageants with her daughter, Angela Ingels, who is the reigning Ms. Lone Star Galaxy. Angela, who has been dancing since before she was born, is also her business partner. Wanda and Angela are “motivators, educators, directors, and entrepreneurs. We share our God given talent and hope to make the world better than we found it in honor of our creator.”

(Excerpt from pg. 3 of the Rotary Club Newsletter, October 20, 2004).

Wanda's picture is at the top left of every page. Ladd Photography

Wanda Madge Jones, Ms. Texas Senior America 2004, (Ladd Photography)