Granddaughter of Local Family named 2023 Dallas Prosecutor of the Year

Mrs. Shawnkeedra Houston-Martin, the granddaughter of the late Verbe and Joyce Pruitt Norman of Linden, TX and the late Horace L. (Sr.) and Lurlie Watkins of Hallsville, TX and was named as PROSECUTOR OF THE YEAR FOR 2023, for Dallas County, TX. She has been a prosecutor in Dallas for over 16 years, worked on many high-profile cases and has enjoyed every minute of her tenure there. She was hired by the late Craig Watkins, the first Black District Attorney in the state of Texas.

Shawnkeedra attended St. Anthony Catholic School in elementary and middle school and graduated from Lincoln High School where she was chosen Miss Lincoln in 1996. She received her Bachelor of Science Degree In Psychology from Prairie View A & M University, Prairie View, TX and her Juris Doctorate, from Texas Wesleyan College, Fort Worth, Texas.

She was named the Top 100 Lawyers for the National Black Lawyers in 2020, 2021, 2022, and 2023, a member of the Alpha Kappa Alpha Sorority, Inc., a member of the Golden Gate Missionary Baptist Chur.ch where she is a Sunday School teacher, sings in the choir, leader of the Marriage Ministry. Minister Vincent Parker is her pastor.

Shawnkeedra Is married to Mr. Harold Martin, Ill, who is a Criminal Investigator for Dallas Couty and is the daughter of Verlene Norman Houston and the late Horace L. Houston, Jr. of Dallas, TX. She has one sister. Sha Reese Houston who is a teacher in the Cy-Fair School District. Both her mom and her maternal grandparents, her mother and her sister all are graduates of Prairie View A & M University She says she has always been so proud to know that she had roots In both Linden and Hallsville, TX.