• Originally published June 25, 2011 at 11:16 p.m., updated June 26, 2011 at 12:25 p.m.

For years it has been said that the youth of today are the leaders of tomorrow.

That cannot be more true in the Crossroads area.

We have young business owners, young managers and young business officers. But they are not just involved with their work, they are also involved with nonprofits, civic organizations and their churches. Many have young families they are also active with.

Recently the Advocate asked readers to nominate young successful business people who owned their own business, were company officers and managers or were up and coming leaders in their companies.

The only requirements were they had to live in the Crossroads area and they had to be younger than 40.

You nominated 45 young business people. Some had multiple nominations.

Your letters of nomination made it difficult to narrow down the list to 20.

In a special section in Sunday's Advocate, we spotlight 20 of the Crossroads' top leaders.

We also salute those who did not make the final 20. Here are others receiving votes:

Patricia Perez, Owner Edible Art Cakes

Phallon Crawford, West High School IPC teacher and head cheerleading coach

Robbie Zissa, Owner Victoria Iron Works

Jaime Valdivia, Owner Blue Lagoon Aquariums

Aaron Ralston, Financial consultant for Wells Fargo Bank and creator of Thesmokerking.com

Mark Talley, Owner TNT Auto and Security

Drs. Mark Besancon and Sam Williams, Owners of Crossroads Veterinary Clinic

Josh Joines, Youth director at Faith Family Church

Andy Rokovich, Manager of Double Dave's Pizza

Clay Green, Owner of Gulf Coast Audiology

Travis Gunderlach, Victoria County Sheriff's Office corporal and owner of Mobile Command

ShaNon Henson, Owner of SignFX in Cuero

Stacy Killian, Hair stylist at Hair Dimensions

Kelly Garrett Kucera, Attorney

Jason Milewski, Owner of Prautes Corp. and manager of Victoria Regional Airport

Jimmy Zapalac, Realtor at Coldwell Banker Ron Brown Co

Jennifer Hill, Realtor at Woolson Real Estate

Roselinda Berlanga, Breakfast manager at Grandy's

Cori Lee Urban, Owner of Pidder Patter Boutique

Rene D. Martinez, Owner of Cutter Perfectia

Frank Maestri, Jackson County rancher

Jeffrey "Griff" Griffin, NFL sports agent, Victoria native but lives outside the area

Vicki Pittinger, Supply chain with Caterpillar

Sally Kuecker, Dorothy O'Connor Pet Adoption Center

Johnny Gonzales Jr., Flex Fitness Gym

While not everyone can be profiled in this section, your letters did give us great source material for future stories on young business leaders in our area.

We hope you enjoy reading about some of the many future leaders of our area today and in months to come.

Thanks, Becky Cooper, Local Editor, Victoria Advocate

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