Jennifer Simonis (pronounced similar to "Simon says:" Simon is) was born in Pasadena, Texas to a working-class family-- her father owned a small business as a cement contractor, and her mother was a stay-at-home mom. At the age of three they moved to the small rural town of Santa Fe, Texas, and she was raised there with her three sisters.
She attended public schools, graduating seventh in her class. Jenni was only the second person in her family to have graduated high school (her father also graduated), and the first to attend college. She started her first college courses in the summer between her freshman and sophomore years of high school. After graduating, Jenni attended the University of Houston where she was enrolled in the Honors College.
While in high school, she received numerous awards, including being named a Hugh O'Brien Youth (HOBY) Leader; winning the Xerox award in Humanities and Social Studies; recipient of the State Board of Education's Texas Celebrations of Educational Excellence award; Navy Honors Program Certificate of Achievement; President's Dedication Awards Program Award for Educational Excellence; and the University Interscholastic League Scholar Award.
She began writing weekly for the local newspaper, The Texas City Sun during her sophomore year of high school. Her columns, often having a progressive/liberal slant, were popular with the newspaper editors as they literally brought in bags of mail from conservatives. One item, on Congressman Steve Stockman, was picked up and published across the United States-- even in Washington, D.C.
In 1997 she married Andrew Simonis of Sandy, OR. Andy, who attended Oregon Institute of Technology in Klamath Falls, served in the U.S. Army during the Persian Gulf War.
Jenni got her first full-time journalism job with Santa Fe Newspapers as a senior in high school. Starting out as a reporter, she quickly worked her way to the editor of two weekly newspapers.
From 1997-99 she worked as a Constituent Services Representative for U.S. Congressman Nick Lampson. She then went to work for Alvin Newspapers, where she worked as a reporter and assistant editor for three weekly newspapers.
While working in Alvin she became a board member of the Alvin-Manvel area YMCA executive board and the Kiwanis Club.
In the summer of 2000 they moved to Gresham in order to live closer to Andy's family.
In 2002, Andy and Jenni had their first child-- Abigail. She turned five this past April and is in kindergarten at Hall Elementary.
Jenni and family are members of Holgate Baptist Church in Portland, Oregon.
Since moving to Oregon, Jenni has worked for non-profit organizations and Multnomah County. She currently works as a web developer, creating and maintaining web sites for community groups, small businesses, and non-profits. This work allows her to be a stay at home mom and to work in the community. As this work has grown from being an "odd job" type work for friends and family to something larger, Jenni has been going through the process of creating a small business.
