Hello! My name is Melissa Haden. I have taught computer courses at Kilgore College since 1993. My office is temporarily located in the LA Building, office 257B, this semester. The BA Building, shown at the right, is now under renovation. My office number is 903-983-8134. The pink azaleas are abundant and beautiful at the college in the spring. Come visit me!
I have a wonderful family that consists of a husband of eighteen years and a seven-year-old daughter. Other close family members include a mother (deceased), father, sister, brother-in-law, niece, nephew, and three great-nieces. My daughter also has three boy cousins her age in my husband's family. We also have many special friends with whom we spend a lot of time.
We love working with all kinds of animals. We raise spotted donkeys that we mostly sell online. Each year we have new baby donkeys. We have sold donkeys nationwide. We own six jennies and one jack. Donkeys protect other animals and make good pets. Patches, our jack, pulls a cart in local Christmas parades and for birthday parties.
We also enjoy riding our horses. We own two appaloosas, one quarter horse, and one miniature paint pony. Our daughter participates in local play-day events. We also ride our horses in the Tatum and Beckville hunting clubs and on trail rides. We are members of both the national and East Texas appaloosa horse clubs. I once showed my appaloosa stud at various area horse shows.
We own several other kinds of animals including two black Great Danes (a male and a female), two cats, an Amazon parrot (25 years old), a hilarious miniature pig, and a turtle. My daughter loves playing with all of the animals. The animals are always a big hit at her birthday parties. We seem to feed and take care of them all of the time.
We have many hobbies including scuba diving, riding four-wheelers, horseback riding, skiing, knee boarding, and vacationing as often as possible. We have logged over 100 dives in many tropical waters. Since our daughter was born, our vacations have been mostly to Orange Beach, San Antonio, and New Braunfels. We have also taken her to Cozumel where she loved swimming with dolphins and snorkeling.