TaeCole’s Messina promoted to 8th-degree black belt

Continued from Page 3 championships and traveled the world competing. Her studio is lined with gold medals, championship belts and photographs of her travels.

Messina has received merit awards from the U.S. Congress and the state Assembly for her dedication to achieving equality, particularly in regard to children and women.

In July last year, Messina was awarded the

President’s Lifetime Achievement Award and inducted into the American Martial Arts Alliance Foundation Hall of Honor.

Messina was one of six people last year to receive the award for dedicating 4,233 of her hours to service for the nation and one of 100 to be inducted into the hall.

The achievements underscore Messina’s commitment to giving the younger generations a better platform than she ever had.

“Within these last 10 years, I’ve been able to help make history,” Messina said. “I wanted to level the playing feld for women, which is something I never had coming up the ranks. It was important to me as a leader to make sure we were able to right some of these wrongs because I endured and sufered the pain of what it felt like.”

Messina said a 9th degree is not her focus at the moment, but to keep doing what she’s been doing since opening TaeCole in 2001 and teaching thousands of students along the way.

“I wasn’t thinking about it during my last promotion, but it was a discussion I had with my grandmaster where we decided it’s time,” Messina said. “It’s been a huge honor.”