LareDOS August Issue

Locally Owned

Now it’s time to focus on basics for people in our neighborhoods... and real ethics reform at City Hall.

— Laura Miller A JOURNAL OF THE BORDERLANDS AUGUST 2012

Est. 1994

Vol. XVII No. 20 64 PAGES

@lareDOSnews

LareDOS Newspaper

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Santa María Journal

So many keys, so few locks; of pilfered tools and their pilfered replacements

By María Eugenia guerra

By MARIA EUGENIA GUERRA LareDOS Publisher

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hen my Uncle Oscar Gutierrez died almost 30 years ago and my father and I plowed through establishing the mechanics for operating the ranch Oscar and my mother owned, there were two mysteries we had to solve quickly.

One was where the miles of water lines were buried, and the other was to figure out which keys opened which doors and padlocks.

We knew where the water well was and its northernmost delivery point at the house and the corrals.

All we had to do was figure out the

location of everything in between.

Over years, the water line grid evidenced itself as pipes broke, charcos appeared, repairs were made, and my father began to draw a good map.

The keys on so many key rings and enough loose keys to fill a purple Crown Royal bag, however, presented us with so much brass and so much consternation. There were Master, Yale, American, and National keys. We made piles of Schlage and Kwikset door keys and antique lever lock keys. The Yale and American padlock keys were easy enough to identify because the keys are distinctly different. The Master padlock keys, however, were the killer. Almost any Master key will go into a

Master padlock, but it won’t turn the tumbler, of course, unless they are a match.

As it turned out, there were far more keys than there were locks. I was pretty sure that what we were looking at was probably my dear uncle’s lifetime collection of keys.

Or not. I seem to have amassed in a mere three decades a key collection that is pretty much a duplicate of my uncle’s mystery of brass and case hardened steel – keys for homes

will not be a mystery to those left after my demise to sort through that aspect of my life.

Certainly other parts of my life may give rise to enigma, but the keys to the many doors of my office, now labeled, will not.

There will be a point soon, after which I have exhausted making all the matches I can between ranch keys and locks that I will still be left with dozens of keys that open nothing I own.

I no longer own, cars and trucks I no longer drive, and locks no longer in my possession.

I’ve spent two days sorting through keys and locks that have left my hands black with metal tarnish. I began by first sorting keys germane to my office downtown, which by comparison to the ranch key collection, was tame because most of the keys were for doors and not padlocks. That’s in good shape now and

The rompe cabezas of 40 pounds of ranch padlocks and keys has prompted the question, “Where are all the Master padlocks for all these keys?” Are they keeping homes and property safe in Jilitla, Mex.? They must have had legs because they are not here anymore. They are probably located where all my Americanmade bolt cutters, fence tools, and t-post pounders and their multiple replacements are now living. ◆

publisher

María Eugenia Guerra

meg@laredosnews.com Staff Writers

Mariela Rodríguez Silke Jasso Sales

María Eugenia Guerra

ads@laredosnews.com

Contributors

Macedonio Martínez

Juan Alanis

José Antonio López

Mika Akikuni

Cathy Kazen

Circulation, Billing & Subscriptions

Cordelia Barrera

Randy Koch

meg@laredosnews.com

Bebe Fenstermaker

Monica McGettrick

Layout/design

Vantage Graphics

design@laredosnews.com

Sissy Fenstermaker

Salo Otero

Denise Ferguson

Evelyn June Perez

Neo Gutierrez

Lem Londos Railsback

Steve Harmon

Jennie Reed

Henri Kahn

Write a Letter to the Editor meg@laredosnews.com

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Pam Burrel, adult services librarian; María Soliz, Laredo Public Library director; and Mary Gonzalez, child services librarian, organized this year’s Laredo Book Festival which included 27 authors from across Texas.

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Emily Altgelt

Mariela Rodriguez/LareDOS

Literary Festival organizers

Covering the ethics ordinance KGNS reporter Annette García and cameraman Alberto Olvera, who present Laredoans with news on the issues that most affect them, have given extensive coverage to the City’s ethics ordinance.

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Maria Eugenia Guerra/LareDOS

Mariela Rodriguez/LareDOS

Ad hoc ethics committee meeting John Sharp named Mr. South Texas 2013 Minita Ramirez, Senator Judith Zaffirini, and John Sharp and his wife Charlotte Han are pictured at the Mr. South Texas 2013 announcement on Thursday, August 9 at the Texas Community Bank.

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Committee members Pastor Miguel Zuniga, Tomรกs Izaguirre, Jesus Mendoza, and Cesar Vasquez are pictured with Assistant City Attorney Kristina L. Hale at the August 8 meeting of the ad hoc ethics committee. They are pictured at City Hall in the third floor conference room.

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Maria Eugenia Guerra/LareDOS

Courtesy Photo

At Uni-Trade Stadium Among those enjoying the Laredo Lemurs game against the Grand Prairie Air Hogs were a group of Killam Oil employees from Mirando City.

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At the Kiwanis Club meeting Kiwanis Club members Benny Salinas and Sylvia Martinez are active members who enjoy being part of the organization’s work in the community. They are pictured at the Holiday Inn’s Covey Lounge on August 7.

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Mariela Rodriguez/LareDOS

Mariela Rodriguez/LareDOS

Mayor Salinas salutes soldiers

Row-row your boat

Mayor Raul Salinas visited volunteer soldiers in training who are flying reconnaissance over the border as part of the Joint Task Force North maneuvers. He is pictured with Lieutenant Colonel Todd Turner of the U.S. Army’s Task Force Iron Knights.

Ivan Santoyo of the City Environmental Services Department and Rita Dominguez took to the water as they supervised and assisted RGISC Eco-Campers Mikey Cabello and Matthew Gause on their first kayaking experience.

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M ailbox L

etters to the publisher

On August 1st, 19 House Democrats and a majority of Republicans voted against a bill that would have extended tax cuts to the middle class and ended tax cuts for the wealthiest Americans. One of those Democrats was Henry Cuellar. Given that his district includes some of the poorest taxpayers in the country, I am appalled by his decision to side with millionaires on this matter. It’s time for him to explain himself to his constituents.

Mr. Cuellar, do you represent the majority of people in your district or only the ones who give big money to your coffers? You should be ashamed of yourself.

If you expect better representation in Congress, as I do, then I urge you to call his office at (202) 225-1640 and voice your displeasure. It’s time to take a closer look at who we elect to represent us.

Sincerely, Juan Buentello

Write a letter to the publisher. meg@laredosnews.com

Meg, Congratulations! You have always been a great journalist since our high school days and you get better every year. Thanks for all you mean to Laredo. Keep up the great work since nobody will pay you a million to buy the rights to your newspaper. Adelante Laredo!

Water is Life, Mike Barrera P.S. I love the online paper.

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News Brief

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ominations are underway for the first annual National Association for Chicana and Chicano Studies (NACCS) Tejas poetry prize, which will be awarded to an outstanding publication of poetry by a Tejano or Tejana. The award will be presented to the winning poet at the spring NACCS Tejas conference at UT-Pan American on February 21, 2013.

Criteria for the 2013 prize the criteria are: The poetry book must have been published in 2012.

The book may be a chapbook, but it must have no fewer than 40 pages of poetry.

Preference will be given to work that reflects the Tejan@ experience.

A copy of the book must be sent to each of the committee members (Norma E. Cantú and Isaac Chavarria) and postmarked no later than 5 p.m. November 15, 2012.

The recipient of the award will be announced December 15, 2012.

Copies of the nominated work should go to Norma E. Cantú, 25026 White Creek, San Antonio, Texas 78255; and Isaac Chavarria, 608 No. Linares St., Alton, Texas 78573.

For further information contact Isaac Chavarria at ichavarria@utpa. edu – LareDOS Staff

Goyo López

Nominations open for NACCS Tejas poetry prize

No place like home, no one like Alex Lopez Alex López is pictured at his performance, “There is no place like home” at the Laredo Civic Center on Friday, August 17. Proceeds from his summer farewell go towards his studies in New York.

Can’t find a hard copy?

Go to www.laredosnews.com

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Opinion

Who is Eduardo Garza and why is City Council so enamored of his wishes?

By MARIA EUGENIA GUERRA LareDOS Publisher

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don’t always agree with Hector Farias, but I will defend his right to speak up in a public forum. I admire him for being outspoken and brazen in his approaches to what is done with taxpayer money.

If we are all part of the democratic process of speaking up, going on record with an opinion, and trying to inspire action that changes how government serves us, Hector Farias’ role is to sound the alarm, to express outrage, and to put local government on notice that he and VIDA (Volunteers in Democratic Action) are on the issue – like chicle.

Relentless, acerbic, and often punishing with his public pronouncements, Farias makes his point and puts the unsavory item on the table for the rest of us to digest or turn away from.

What Farias really accomplished at the City Council meeting of August 20 – in his effort to discredit Council member Charlie San Miguel as one who has allegedly voted with a conflict of interest – was to throw businessman Eduardo Garza on the table for us to scrutinize and for us to understand how widespread Garza’s influence has been in city government.

A generous donor to local political campaigns, including City Council races, Eduardo Garza enjoys a healthy business relationship with the City of Laredo.

The pyrotechnics of words afire in the exchange between Farias and City Attorney Raul Casso, as Casso tried to silence Farias at the podium from the public flailing of Charlie San Miguel – that was actually a sidebar of highW W W.L A R ED OS N E WS.CO M

pitched assertions about whether or not Farias had the right to accuse San Miguel publicly of conflicts of interest and whether or not Farias’ comments were defamatory and unfounded until proven otherwise.

Casso instructed City Council members not to comment and told them that Farias’ allegations could be heard by an ethics commission, once empaneled.

Farias, alleging that San Miguel was employed by Eduardo Garza, was armed with the minutes of two City Council meetings (March 21, 2011 and Nov. 7, 2011) in which the record posted on the City’s web page reflected that San Miguel had voted favorably for leases at the airport between Garza and the City.

Had he been given the opportunity, Farias could have made his point about the two instances of conflict of interest, but Casso was unrelenting in his attempt to silence Farias.

Farias, directing himself to Casso, said, “I detest the manner in which this man who is paid by the taxpayer uses his position to protect the councilman. What I gave you came from the City Secretary. Can I not discuss what Gustavo Guevara writes in the minutes? This is public record. It’s from your website where the councilman voted for his employer.”

Casso continued his attempt to keep Farias from speaking.

“This is not a public accusation. It’s got dates of council meetings. What are we, in Russia?” Farias sparred.

“I’m not here to defend a particular individual, but I’m here to protect my client. Allegations and accusations made to any one of you is an affront to this body. It is not to be condoned,” Casso asserted.

“We are the clients,” Farias fired back.

As he left the podium, Farias told San Miguel, “Councilman, as you go around God blessing everybody with your pious façade, say a few prayers on behalf of the taxpayers whom you abuse.”

Returning to the podium a few minutes later, Farias told the Council that VIDA wanted an investigation into the dealings of indicted airport employee Humberto Garza to uncover any possible collusion on inside information that may have been given to Eduardo Garza in advance of leasing airport property in proximity of a site U.S. Customs would build at the Laredo International Airport.

PALPABLE TENSION Casso’s admonition to Council members to refrain from speaking up was unnecessary. The inescapable tension of the drama was palpable, as much with them as with the audience and nearby slack-jawed City administrators.

What might they have said anyhow? “I have accepted campaign contributions from Eduardo Garza, so what?”

Despite Casso’s derailment of Farias’ presentation on behalf of VIDA, Farias had made his point, not so much about San Miguel as about Eduardo Garza’s prominence as one who through campaign contributions and other considerations might exert influence on council decisions that benefit his interests – which to this writer is the real point of this debate.

Farias characterized Garza’s ties to the City and this council as “extensive,” with all or most of the sitting council and the mayor being recipients of Garza’s political largesse.

“Once you follow the money, you can see how insidious his efforts are.

He has donated to council members, our Congressman, the Sheriff, and the District Attorney,” Farias said, adding that the City’s contract with Garza’s company GARROS to operate the two cold storage inspection facilities at the World Trade and Colombia bridges was especially freighted with questions. The City awarded the contract last November to Garza and his partners Salvador Rosas, and Raquel San Miguel to operate the City’s $1.7 million dollar facilities. Farias is quick to point out that Raquel San Miguel is the sister of Councilman Charlie San Miguel.

AFTERWORD Council member Charlie San Miguel refuted that he is employed

by Eduardo Garza. “As a contractor, I have done a finish-out on an apartment complex owned by Eduardo Garza. I did a building inspection for him in May or June of 2010, and I have done some development work for him in Cotulla. I’m still doing that work,” San Miguel said.

Of the two votes for which Farias alleges conflict of interest, San Miguel said of the Council’s March 21, 2011 vote approving an airport lease for Garza’s Uni-Trade, “RFPs had gone out, the whole nine yards. I voted for it. It was a unanimous vote. It would have passed without my vote.” According to Farias, San Miguel made the motion to approve the lease.

As to the November 7, 2011 vote to approve an airport property lease to Air Trade Laredo, San Miguel said, “I had no idea Eduardo Garza had anything to do with that.”

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Election 2012

Campos announces for City Council District V

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ine-year UISD trustee Patricia Campos has announced her run for City Council District V, a position currently held by two-termer Johnny Rendon. Campos will face Roque Vela Jr. in the November 2012 election.

Campos said that besides wanting to be part of city government’s fulfillment of its responsibility to provide Laredoans police and fire protection, health services, water and sewer services, and roadway infrastructure, she envisions herself a part of a City Council that develops a comprehensive plan for future development – a plan for how to have enough water for growth, for how to provide more north-tosouth infrastructure to relieve traffic congestion, and for how to encourage an economic climate that invites new businesses to Laredo and stimulates employment.

“I don’t know how Laredo has survived without a plan for the future. We weren’t prepared for NAFTA, and I’m not sure we seized all the opportunities that were there. We should be better prepared for what will come our way from the Eagle Ford Shale,” Campos said.

“There has been much discussion of coming up with a plan, but plans don’t move forward by themselves. Responsible elected officials, administrators, and citizens with good ideas move them forward,” she continued, citing “Imagine Austin,” Austin’s progressive 30-year plan for sustainable development.

She said Laredo’s success as an international inland port and as a venue for businesses to thrive depends on several variables. “One is how well we plan and execute infrastructure for

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the movement of traffic and goods. We need to work to extend Bartlett to Del Mar Boulevard, Springfield all way to International Boulevard, and University Boulevard from McPherson all the way to Loop 20.”

The other variable, she said, is “what we do as a city to draw business to Laredo and to support it.” Campos said there is a need to facilitate the permitting process for new businesses by offering a one-stop point for businesses to secure all their permits. “We should be offering incentives and tax rebates to draw new businesses to Laredo.

From mom and pop operations to the largest international corporations, we need to foster a business climate that grows job opportunities,” Campos continued.

Maximizing the employment and development opportunities of the Eagle Ford Shale are priorities for Campos. “The big players have told us that they are all looking for skilled oilfield workers. One of the largest drilling companies has told us that 80 percent of the company’s work force comes from Laredo. We would do well to be part of an oilfield workforce training effort that begins in high school, such as Corpus Christi’s Craft Training Center of the Coastal Bend, which prepares its students to become welders, crane operators, pipe fitters, electricians, and plumbers. That trained workforce will spend its money here, raise families, buy homes and cars, and educate their children,” she said. “We would be remiss as community leaders to not capitalize on the economic benefits of the Eagle Ford Shale.”

Regarding the lamentable state of the downtown business climate, Campos said, “It needs a lot of help. We don’t need more half-million dollar studies on downtown revitalization.

We need action.” Campos added, “Reviving downtown as a business venue

and as a heritage, theater, arts, dining, and tourist destination would do a lot to counter the image that ours is a violent city,” she said.

Campos said that though the increased number of city recreation centers and parks has been of much benefit to the youth of the city and to senior citizens who walk, swim, and exercise to keep active, that council members also need to address the bigger issues that face the city. “It’s time to stop thinking of Laredo as eight separate districts. We are one Laredo. We need to make decisions and choices that help Laredo become a prosperous city, a city that offers job opportunities,” she said.

The District V candidate said that 30 years in Webb County employment, nine years as a UISD trustee, and service on countless boards, have taught her the value of teamwork and consensus. “No one person can do anything

alone, nor can one entity. I commit myself to work with the mayor, the council, city administration, the business community, and educational institutions to create an environment for sustainable growth,” she said.

Campos retired in 2011 as director of probation services for the Webb County Juvenile Department.

“Let’s drop the negatives and make more positives,” she said.

Campos said the one thing she would want the voters of District V to know about her is “that once I give my word, I am totally and fully commited.”

David Cardwell, Sandra Cavazos, and Belinda Guerra spearhead Campos’ election bid. The executive committee for the Campos campaign is comprised of Blas Castañeda, Erasmo Villarreal, Rudy Chapa, and Robert Chapa. ◆

Maria Eugenia Guerra/LareDOS

By MARIA EUGENIA GUERRA LareDOS Publisher

Pat Campos, longtime UISD trustee, has announced her candidacy for City Council District V. She is pictured at a recent Kiwanis Club meeting with Erasmo Villarreal, David Cardwell, and Luis de la Garza.

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Mariela Rodriguez/LareDOS

Maria Eugenia Guerra/LareDOS

VIDA members discuss ethics, possible removal of CM San Miguel Members of VIDA, Volunteers in Democratic Action, met Saturday, August 18, to discuss the City’s ethics ordinance and a plan to ask for the removal of Council member Charlie San Miguel.

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Laredo Book Festival The Laredo Public Library held its 2nd Annual Laredo Book Festival on Saturday, August 18. Authors from across Texas along with attendees gathered at the front entrance of the multipurpose room to commence the festival with a with a ribbon cutting ceremony.

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Election 2012

Yolanda Salinas files for run for City Council District VII

By MARíA EUGENIA GUERRA LareDOS Publisher

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olanda Salinas – no stranger to Laredo politics and the soon-to-be former wife of Mayor Raul Salinas – credits re-districting and divine intervention with moving her from contemplating a run for City Council to actually filing for the race.

“The day I got the letter from District VII Councilman Jorge Vera informing me I now lived in his district, that was the day I decided to run,” she said.

She will face incumbent Vera and Sid Holden and Hector Lee Patiño.

Salinas fared far better in a oneon-one interview with LareDOS than she did before the TV cameras on the day she announced for the position. She was organized and articulate, and honest about having to gain speed on the issues she believes need to be addressed in District VII. “I am a fast learner,” she said, “and a quick thinker.”

There’s little doubt that should she take the Council seat from Vera, that her presence at the dais – one seat away from her ex-husband – would ratchet up the drama at City Council meetings. She dispelled the notion that her run might be a grudge match to counter the Mayor’s official acts and pronouncements.

“My time on City Council will be all business. I have a burning desire to help people and to make government work for the people who pay for it,” she said.

Salinas said her time in the cotton fields near Benavides and Alice were the classroom for learning about hard work. She was born in Concepción, “La Chona,” a small

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Yolanda Salinas ranching community near Benavides. “I know that you lose in order to gain, and that God will fill your empty hand.”

Salinas wants the City’s Civil Service Commission to function. “I worked hard to help get the commission before the voters for a referendum. Now it needs to function to protect City employees,” she said.

Salinas said the welfare of veterans is another of her priorities. “We owe them so much. I want to do all possible so that they do not have to go out of town to get medical help.

I am committing myself as a voice here and in Austin and in Washington to help move legislation through that benefits veterans. In 2009 I worked very hard to bring home

the 109 reservists of the National Guard’s Bravo Unit so that they could spend Thanksgiving with their families before deploying overseas for a year,” she said.

Salinas considers herself an advocate for the elderly. “They are used in elections and then forgotten by the politicians and sometimes by the City and their families. They are an ever-increasing population and they need representation in the form of an organization that advocates for them.

They need a place for social events and a place where they can learn about services and legislative changes that affect their welfare.”

The aspirant for District VII envisions more green spaces across the City, natural settings that are xeriscaped so as to use a minimum of water and pesticides. “Environmenally,” she said, “the City should lead by example by making native plantings and reducing the consumption of water at City offices.

Our children will learn from our good practices.”

Salinas, an animal lover – as evidenced by her care for her pet Chihuahua Princess – said her dream for Laredo is a no-kill shelter. “Animals have no voice. We are their voice. We need to educate people about animal care, and if we catch them abusing them or abandoning them, we need to enforce the laws

that are on the books,” she said.

If elected, addressing flooding in the Mines Road area would be one of Salinas’ priorities. “There are serious drainage issues we need to deal with. Unfortunately we were not prepared for the floods of 2010. I visited many flooded homes in that area. It was a tragedy. We need an advance warning system,” she said.

She said a branch library in the Mines Road area would go a long way to promote literacy, to give children computer access, and to teach parents English and computer skills that would help them study with their children. “Libraries change lives,” Salinas said.

Traffic, she said, is one of the most important Mines Road issues she will prioritize. “We need lanes dedicated to truck traffic, and we need another police sub-station in the Bristol Road area. We need more of a police presence in the area,” she said.

Another priority, Salinas said, is stimulating economic development in the Mines Road area. “Small businesses are the heart of every community. They create jobs. We are glad for the dollar stores and the fast food restaurants, but we need incentives to invite other businesses to the area,” she said.

Her plans for the part of West Laredo that falls in District VII include the revitalization of the Farias Recreation Center with new exercise equipment. The baseball parks adjacent to the center also need to be updated, she said.

Salinas said she knows of a private sector investor who has expressed an interest in building a water park in West Laredo.

“No, I have not accepted campaign contributions from Eduardo Garza,” Salinas said, concluding the interview. ◆ W W W.L A RED OS N E WS.CO M

Silke Jasso/LareDOS

Maria Eugenia Guerra/LareDOS

Sweets and treats Adriana Hernandez and Nemecio Due単es of the Laredo Job Corps are pictured with students of the LJC culinary program who were selling baked goods at the August 18 Farmers Market in Jarvis Plaza.

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Carnival of Madness Lead singer from Chicago alternative metal group Chevelle, Pete Loefflerof, performed at the Laredo Energy Arena on August 14 at the Carnival of Madness sponsored by Monster Energy Drink. Chevelle has sold over three million albums in the United States.

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Feature

Dr. Marcus Nelson – a candid and articulate educator

By MARíA EUGENIA GUERRA LareDOS Publisher “I’ve loved every second of it,” Dr. Marcus Nelson said of his role as superintendent of the Laredo Independent School District.

Nelson, who came on board in 2009, has surpassed the brief tenures of his eight predecessors who served in the 14 years between 1995 and 2009.

“I’ve learned so much about faith from the people of Laredo. I’ve learned how Latinos feel about family. That’s been a beautiful experience,” said the career educator who was raised in a single parent household on San Antonio’s East side.

“I’m from the projects. I grew up in poverty,” said Nelson, who learned the example of hard work and the value of an education from his mother Mary, a retired nurse.

“I still live in the hood,” Nelson said, “and I’ve learned to speak Spanish so that I can articulate my passions about education. I feel like family here.”

He called the issue of race in Laredo “obviously fascinating,” noting that for many Laredoans it is likely that meeting him is “the first time they’ve met a Black person face to face.” He said he’s aware of “old school” Latino racism. “But that’s race and culture,” he said. He noted that in Laredo race is less of an issue than social standing and income levels. “But here at LISD we are leveling it out – all kids are all kids,” he said.

“This is what I know – if it hadn’t been for coaches and the choir director and a few special teachers, I wouldn’t be here today. Those relationships were so important to me. They formed me and opened my mind. And that is why as educators you have to get to know the parents and the kids and build relationships. The parents are an invaluable part of the child’s education,” he said.

Nelson said that one of his strengths as superintendent is that he is not from

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Laredo.

“Politics are crazy here. I’ve learned who will work with me and who to stay clear of. I can navigate without compromising what I know about getting things done,” he said, adding that his actions are driven by results and data.

“Laredo deserves a superintendent who speaks up,” Nelson said. “When I

stand up, I say what I am thinking. I am confident, I keep a positive image, I’m calm under pressure, and when there is disagreement in discussions with the board, I treat them with respect. We are a team, not a circus,” he said.

He cited the transformation of Martin High School – about to be taken over by the Texas Education Agency when he arrived – as an example of his management style. “People there were unwilling or unable to teach the students over the last eight years. We set high expectations, put a qualified teacher in every classroom, and changed the school’s leadership. Teachers and kids came in on Saturdays. You could feel the change,” Nelson said.

He noted that in San Antonio’s edu-

cational climate, a teacher would “get plucked” if 12 of the 24 students in a classroom didn’t pass.

“We worked very quickly to improve academics according to the standards of the Texas Education Agency, and we have not let up on that. It goes back to having a qualified teacher in every classroom and a qualified principal at every campus – professionals who understand the expectations and can deliver a product,” he said of the goals he first set in 2009.

Nelson said some of the administrative and organizational changes he made in his first 30 days at LISD proved to be significant in improving the morale of teachers, administrators, and staff.

He elaborated on dealing with what he calls “not the usual challenges” – a 97% economically disadvantaged student population, 68 percent limited English proficiency, getting students into rehab, and 14-year-olds having babies. He called the district’s 91 percent attendance level “an embarrassment” and said, “We want 98 percent, and this is the effort we are making. The absent students are looking for pressure and a home visit.” Nelson said he exerts that pressure with routine home visits with an LISD police officer. “Our goal is to get the kids back into school,” he said.

Nelson said that one of his strengths as superintendent is that he is not from Laredo.

“Politics are crazy here, but I seem to have figured out how to produce positive change without compromising what I know about getting things done,” he said, adding that his actions are driven by results and data.

Nelson said the TEA will no longer classify schools as “recognized.” He said, “This year was a pass, but in the future all LISD schools will either be acceptable or unacceptable. We can do Continued on page 49

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SIDEBAR I’ve been remiss in getting to know LISD Supt. Dr. Marcus Nelson.

After I heard him speak (articulate in Spanish and English) at a recent press conference about the getting out the vote initiative in Laredo, I made an appointment to visit with him.

I met a man who is intelligent, welleducated (BA, two Masters Degrees, and a Doctorate), and thoughtful.

We talked about whether the product of our interview would be one that folks wanted to read or whether it would be one they needed to read.

Some of both, as it turned out.

Dr. Nelson was candid about race perceptions in Laredo and about the refined art of politics that seem to play a hand, blatant or hidden, in the workings of all aspects of local governance. It was clear to me he makes weighty decisions for positive educational outcomes without the taint of Laredo politics, which he characterized as “intense.”

I found him to be sincere, which is what many think of him. I appreciated his sense of humor and his self-deprecating third-person voice in which he refers to himself as “Nelson” as in “Nelson does not want to end up as a clown on the cover of LareDOS,” “Nelson hasn’t been on trips at the taxpayers expense,” “He may have taken a taco offered to him, but Nelson hasn’t taken any free trips or gone to any San Antonio Spurs games.”

Let it be known, he said, that from 2009 to the present, students of LISD became more inspired, teachers were trained and had better results, the dropout rate declined, a larger percentage of LISD students speak English, Martin High School was not taken over by the state, all money was accounted for, and the district moved ahead progressively.

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Tire blight

Dengue Fever, Hemorrhagic Dengue Mosquito Haven Less than five minutes along West Laredo’s Anna truck route and San Ignacio Street evidenced about 60 castaway tires ripe for mosquito breeding. Why worry? Your city government is secure in the knowledge that the mosquitoes that have caused the 236 (and counting) cases of dengue fever reported in Tamaulipas will no doubt contain themselves to Mexico, like the cartel violence.

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The Great American Cookie store at Mall del Norte thanked Laredo customers for over three decades of fun and delicious cookies. A Super Cookie Cake made of 42 individual cookie cakes that measured 12– feet by 15–feet was also unveiled, and slices were sold for $1each, with donations going to the South Texas Food Bank.

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Mariela Rodriguez/LareDOS

Mariela Rodriguez/LareDOS

Great American Cookie celebrates 35 years

Gateway City Book Lovers The Gateway City Book Lover Club met on Wednesday, August 15 at the Laredo Public Library conference room. Herlinda Niteo-Dubuisson, Anita Guerra, and Sylvia Reash discussed how their life experiences tied into Jonathon O Dell’s The Healing.

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Feature

Brown: special ed law is civil rights legislation “Regardless of a person’s ability or disability, what you find out as you become closer to them is how you are alike rather than how you are different,” said Randel Brown, associate professor and director of Special Education at Texas A&M International University, “What fascinates me about working with people with disabilities, or anyone for that matter, is that we all have the same hopes and dreams. We want to be loved.

We want to love. We want joy and happiness in our lives.”

Brown, who also serves as interim chair of the department of professional programs, has worked at TAMIU for the past 17 years. A native of Tulsa, Oklahoma, he attended the University of Central Oklahoma where he earned a BA and MA in Special Education. Brown received his Ph.D., also in special education, from Oklahoma State University.

His interest in special education came from his own family experience.

Brown and wife of 10 years, Guadalupe Garza Brown, share six children from previous marriages.

“I had three children that struggled with some learning disabilities early in their school life, so my interests in special education stemmed from that,” he said, adding, “My children who struggled became successful as a result of the good teachers they encountered in their academic years.”

Brown has worked in one capacity or another as an educator for 30 years.

He began working with adults with disabilities as a house parent in group homes and residential facilities in Oklahoma. He also worked as a school teacher prior to taking a compliance officer position with the State Department of Education in Oklahoma.

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their procedures. “By and large I saw a lot of good teachers. We don’t ever do it exactly right, but what I saw most of the time were individuals who really in their heart wanted to do what’s right for students,” said Brown.

Over the years, Brown has developed a strong interest in special ed law.

“In its purest form, it is civil rights legislation. It guarantees that people with disabilities will not be discriminated against simply because they have a difference in the way they learn,” Brown said.

“Disabilities are just simply things that fall in that normal range of what it means to be human. Rather than viewing disabilities as abnormal, they should be viewed as absolutely normal,” he added.

Brown’s research interests also pertain to the human rights issues of individuals with disabilities. He disclosed, “The things that make me feel really wealthy as a person are my friendships, the opportunity to practice my religion as I choose, and the opportunity to marry and have children. These are human rights that I think are sometimes denied to individuals with disabilities.”

For instance, he pointed out, some may assume that a person with a cognitive disability cannot maintain a romantic relationship or should not take communion at church because they don’t possess an understanding of what it means. Brown said the assumption that a person with a cognitive disability does not have the capacity to experience those kinds of moments is “short sighted.”

He continued, “Not allowing a person with a disability to have a rich and full life like everyone else is a human rights issue. Sometimes in an effort to protect somebody, we want to shield them from things, however, it is our job to really prepare them for life and work, to ensure they have rich experiences as adults. That’s what teachers do.”

Brown said he understands Laredo’s cultural connectedness and strong family support system. “Laredo has a great opportunity to really build meaningful lives for individuals with disabilities. It doesn’t always happen, but it happens more often than people think. People here have pretty rich lives,” Brown said, adding, “When they don’t, that’s when we as professionals in this field can actually help families and institutions build systems of support for individuals with disabilities.”

Brown has been involved with Special Olympics throughout his career and has served as a volunteer with Special Olympics Texas in Laredo since 1998. “We have a great Special Olympics regional office that makes an excellent effort for students with disabilities within our community,” he said.

He has instilled in his students the desire to become involved as well. “In the beginning of my classes, the students and I talk about the importance of the field they are pursuing and the importance of learning to give back,” said Brown, adding “I try to incorporate in

my classes the opportunity for students to do that through the Special Olympics, which give them the opportunity to work with students with disabilities in a different capacity and engage in fun activities with them. It also serves to provide them with a bit of real world experience.”

Brown reassures students interested in pursuing the special education field that it’s a high need area. “While at TAMIU, I’ve never known anyone who wanted to be a special education teacher here and didn’t get a job. It’s a difficult job, but it’s the most rewarding job as a teacher,” he said.

Brown added, “I love my job because I get to teach people how to help change lives. How many people really get to say that they do that – change the course of someone’s life?”

Brown has also served for over 20 years as a member of the Council for Exceptional Children, a national organization for professionals who work with individuals with disabilities, and the Association of Individuals with Developmental Disabilities. ◆

Mariela Rodriguez/LareDOS

By MARIELA RODRIGUEZ LareDOS Staff

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Author, historian, and archivist Richard G. Santos spoke at the recent Pureza de Sangre event hosted by the Webb County Heritage Foundation. His focus was on the influence of the Crypto Jews in this region, those Jews who in the face of the Spanish Inquisition chose to convert to Catholicism while secretly maintaining their Jewish faith and culture. He is pictured at the Villa Antigua Border Heritage Museum on August 17.

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Maria Eugenia Guerra/LareDOS

Courtesy Photo

At the Pureza de Sangre presentation

Martial arts demonstration at Farmers Market Students of Centro Cultural Aruande Capoeira pulled in a crowd at the August 18 Farmers Market. Their fast-paced martial arts demonstration held attendees rapt.

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News

LPO prepares for Texas-themed annual gala; TAMIU’s Dr. Ray Keck to be honored

Courtesy Photo

is near and dear to my heart, and has played a vital role in the evolution of this community. I am extremely proud to be selected to be the honoree at this event.”

Mick Cruz and Diamond Back, back for the third Celebrity Chef Gala, will provide the evening’s music.

LPO board members are actively soliciting donations for the live and silent auctions that will be conducted once again by Robert Summers. Auction items will include dining packages, hand painted violins donated by artists Ginger Richter and Linda LaMantia, jewelry by Deutsch & Deutsch, and items donated by Cantu Interiors.

The doors open at 7 p.m. with food

LPO Maestro Brendan Townsend, Mick Cruz, Dr. Ray Keck, Graciela Ramirez, and Chef Pete Mims are putting the final touches on plans for the September 14 gala at the Laredo Civic Center ballroom.

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sampling beginning at 7:30 p.m.

“The foot stomping begins at 8:30 p.m.,” said Maestro Townsend.

Mike’s Western Wear will provide prizes for bestdressed cowboy and cowgirl.

All proceeds from the Celebrity Chef Gala support the ongoing mission of the Laredo Philharmonic Orchestra to enrich, enhance, and educate the community through concerts and musical educational outreach.

For ticket information and reservations for the 3rd Celebrity Chef Gala, contact Angeline Townsend at 956236-7772. ◆ Dr. Ray Keck – LareDOS Staff Courtesy Photo

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embers of the Laredo Philharmonic Orchestra (LPO) are in high gear to prepare for the Third Annual Celebrity Chef Gala on Friday, September 14 at the Laredo Civic Center Ballroom.

Grill maestro Pete Mims is the lead chef for the Texas style event that will honor TAMIU President Dr. Ray Keck, the founding president of the LPO. Dr. Keck will be recognized for his role in bringing together TAMIU and Laredo Community College in collaborative efforts that foster the arts and art education in Laredo. It was Dr. Keck who recruited Maestro Brendan Townsend to Laredo in 2003.

Of the recognition, Dr. Keck said, “The Laredo Philharmonic Orchestra

 Continued FROM page 11 He said that though he does not derive 10 percent of his current income from construction projects for Eduardo Garza, and though 15 percent of his income last year did not come from construction projects for Garza, he abstains from votes that have anything to do with Garza.

San Miguel continued, “I am not perfect, but I have judgment for what is right and wrong. If I had done anything wrong, I would have resigned.

I’ve done nothing wrong. I would much rather have sat down with Mr. Farias and VIDA to have a discussion about their issues, but I don’t think they are looking for solutions.”

FAIR ENOUGH INTERVIEW SHOULD HAVE ENDED This would have been a good place to end the interview, but Charlie San Miguel continued.

“In my opinion, Mr. Farias is trying to satisfy a personal vendetta. He is there to serve himself about LAPS

(Laredo Animal Protective Society, on whose board Farias’ wife and two of his daughters serve).

San Miguel said Farias “is upset” that the city withdrew its annual $300,000 contribution to the operation of the animal shelter.

“He is not truly a watchdog for transparency. They should have looked at LAPS for the $87,000 that was given to them for a spay/neuter clinic. That would have been a good starting point to address diminishing the population of strays,” San Miguel said.

“That many family members on one board is a conflict of interest,” he said of the Farias volunteers on the LAPS board. LAPS is a non-profit foundation.

THE SALIENT POINT This is a good time, as we consider for whom we will cast our vote in the November 6 general election, to be informed about which candidates – for all offices, city and county government, school boards, and college trustees – have accepted money from Eduardo Garza. ◆ LareDOS I AU G US T 2012 I

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Commentary

Commentary

An open letter to Mr. Ted Cruz

We deserve a truthful explanation for military presence in the skies above Laredo

By JOSé ANTONIO LóPEZ LareDOS Contributor

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ongratulations on winning the Republican Party nomination to replace retiring Senator Kay Bailey Hutchison.

The reason I write to you is that I am concerned about a quote attributed to you after your victory against Lt. Governor Dewhurst: “Millions of Texans, millions of Americans are rising up to reclaim our country, to defend liberty and to restore the Constitution.”

Sir, let me remind you and your Tea Party supporters that the Constitution you refer to, in its original state and intent, leaves out millions of Texans and U.S. citizens. When the Declaration of Independence, the U.S. Constitution, and the famous Bill of Rights were signed by the U.S. founding fathers in 1776, they did not apply to minority groups. In short, they were written by founding fathers who were white, Anglo Saxon Protestant men and they wrote them for white, Anglo Saxon Protestant men.

It may surprise you, but “states rights” has been the tool of choice of racists in our country’s history. It was that horrible system of Jim Crow apartheid that minorities (and supportive Democratic Party leaders) bravely confronted and defeated to win amendments, acts, and statutes.

Those precious victories ensured that minorities received human rights and privileges automatically guaranteed for whites.

Specifically, in 1954, the U.S. Supreme Court (Class Apart Decision)

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directed the State of Texas to end their official discrimination against its citizens of Mexican descent who occupied the status of second-class citizens, an injustice that had existed since 1848. FYI, the discrimination continues. For an eye-opening experience, sir, may I suggest you visit South Texas whose residents are mostly of Mexican descent, many who are descendants of the original Spanish Mexican pioneers who settled the area in the 1700s. As you do so, please note the stark, state-sanctioned economic disparity between the regions North and South of U.S. Highway 59 (Rio Grande Valley).

Since you are a Cuban-descent Hispanic, I doubt that you are familiar with or are sympathetic with the long history of issues that affect Mexican descent citizens, by far the largest group of Hispanics in the U.S. The 1964 Civil Rights Act and the 1965 Voting Rights Act were approved due to Black community pressure and the key support of liberty-minded white leaders who could no longer be part of existing bigotry. For minorities, these “corrections” to the trajectory of the U.S. Constitution paved a level playing field framework that their children now utilize to achieve the wellknown American dream.

In your quest to “take back” the country and “restore” the Constitution, please understand that the 1954 Class Apart Decision, the 1964 Civil Rights Act, and the 1965 Voting Rights are sacred to Black and Mexican descent U.S. citizens. Leave them alone! In other words, don’t tread on us! ◆

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By BOAKE LACY LareDOS Contributor

t is dawn and I take my first sip of coffee while enjoying our backyard garden. The morning stillness slowly gives way to a now familiar sound that gradually fills the air. No longer is it the sound of the lone Border Patrol helicopter; rather it’s the drone of a half-dozen or so military choppers.

It seems to take forever as they head northwest seemingly following the Río Grande. Our house in Del Mar provides a fairly unobstructed view towards the west. I watch them fade into the horizon, and I am left questioning the official explanation that this a training mission.

When I think military and flying, I harken back to our country’s most impressive aeronautical events of my time.

In 1947 Chuck Yeager broke the sound barrier in the Bell X-1, and Scott Crossfield exceeded Mach 2 in the famous X-15. Other major achievements from the 50s and 60s were the development of famous spy planes such as the U-2 and the Blackbird.

It is evening now and I settle down in my backyard for a sip of wine, a reward after a good workout in the garden. Off in the distance, I spy a formation of whirlybirds slowly closing the distance from their approximate location at the river to our neighborhood. They are flying a northwesterly to southeasterly direction, presumably back to the airport.

Much later, perhaps around 2 a.m. while I groggily listen to an old movie on Turner Classics I am vaguely aware of helicopters flying over our house.

I calculate that they are on a heading as they were earlier in the morning – from the airport towards the northwest.

Those significant aeronautical accomplishments I earlier evoked – what they all had in common was that these events happened on military bases surrounded by millions of acres of virtually uninhabited desert.

It was the start of the Cold War, which began a little after World War II. A fierce psychological/military battle developed with the Ruskies to see who was going to outperform he other with regard to military achievements. Edwards Air Force Base (formerly Muroc Air Force Base) and Rogers Dry Lake were the perfect place – remote and removed from sight.

Edwards Air Force Base and later Area 51 in Nevada, likewise remote desert locations, were the sites chosen by the Air Force to conduct these tests.

The aviation world as well as the Russians were taken by surprise when the successes of Yaeger and Crossfield were made known, proving that the choice of this remote location for testing had been a wise decision.

Area 51, the still controversial and super-secret military base in Nevada, was also witness to history-making aeronautical achievements.

Back to the military helicopters in Laredo. The reason they are here is in preparation for deployment of Afghanistan, or at least that was the reason given by the huffing and puffing individual interviewed by Pro-8 News as he stood at the airport with the copters in the background. This individual lectured us as to why it was perhaps Continued on page 24

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Feature

CBT No. 234’s Club Ecológico: an environmental force; making a difference, heightening awareness

By CELIA GARZA GUERRA and HELMUT NUDDING MARTINEZ LareDOS Contributors

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hat began as an environmental research project for Nuevo Laredo high school students under auspices of Club Ecológico has grown into proactive initiatives to collect materials that can be recycled, including plastic, paper, aluminum, batteries, cellphones, and printer ink cartridges. What was once being tossed in the trash and causing grave environmental harm, is now collected and recycled by students of CBT No. 234.

The environmental efforts of the students develop their critical thinking

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skills by allowing them to contribute to sustainable development in a critical manner and with responsible actions.

The goals and attributes of the organization are to solve environmental problems at local, national and international levels; to recognize and understand the implications with biological, economic, political and social aspects of environmental damage in an interdependent global context; and to contribute to reach a balance between short and long term interests in relation to the environment.

The successes of Club Ecológico have been the collection and recycling of 1,400 kilograms of paper; 1,800 kilograms of plastic; 250 kilograms of aluminum; 1,000 kg of batteries; and 100 kilograms of cell phones and toner ink

cartridges.

The organization has begun a reforestation campaign on campus and has worked in tandem with the International Boundary and Water Commission of México (Comisión Internacional de Limites y Aguas or CILA) to clean the riverbanks of Nuevo Laredo.

Club Ecológico has participated in the cleanups and water testing efforts of the Rio Bravo during the annual river monitoring events of the Rio Grande International Study Center (RGISC).

The enthusiasm of students and fellow teachers have earned firsts in the 2010 and 2011 Dia del Rio events, which showcase the participation of over 70 schools on both sides of the river from Colorado to Brownsville and Matamoros. The water testing efforts

cover a set of parameters to determine the health of the river.

Club Ecológico has taken much interest in participating in the annual RGISC event in light of the World Wildlife Foundation’s assessment that the Río Grande is one of the 10 most threatened waterways in the world.

The Club strives to raise community consciousness to better preserve the river, the only source of drinking water for both Laredos and for millions of residents of the international border.

As instructors who work with these dedicated students, we are proud of them for making a difference in their community, for contributing their energy to environmental solutions, and for raising awareness for better stewardship of the river. ◆

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 Continued FROM page 22 unpatriotic for Laredoans to complain about the noise, that we should all understand that these individuals were training for a mission to Afghanistan, and that we should all be aware of the dangers therein of such a mission.

I have to agree on one point – it is no doubt a dangerous mission, but that is where Mr. Huff-N-Puff and I part company.

If in fact these troops are in training for such a precarious mission, it would seem that a preliminary and primary factor would be for the terrain and climate to conform as closely as possible to those of Afghanistan. Laredo seems a very poor choice for this training exercise contrasted with Edwards Air Force Base and Area 51, which both have conditions approximating Afghanistan – millions of acres of desert in the middle of nowhere.

Arizona also has a great vastness of desert lands from the border with Mexico stretching eastward for several hundred miles. Another remote Ari-

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zona military base is Luke Air Force Base, which includes three million acres of desert as part of its vast terrain between Yuma and Tucson.

The Mojave Desert, one of the most uninhabitable places on earth with its 130° temperatures, closely mirrors Afghani-like conditions. I dare say that not one Afghani would want to trade places with the desolation of the Mojave.

By comparison to these sites, Laredo is a virtual oasis in contrast to these desert lands that are closer in topography and climate to Afghanistan.

To pick Laredo as a launching pad for forays into Afghanistan is not only questionable, but it is an absurd supposition. It would appear that the reporters of Pro-8 News had the same idea when airing the matter, reporting that many Laredoans do not think that these maneuvers have anything even remotely to do with practicing for deployment to Afghanistan.

Perhaps it is just a coincidence that military helicopters are also stationed

in the green, cultivated flatlands of the valley – a place even less like Afghanistan. And is it a coincidence, too, that in Laredo the Río Grande is now patrolled with a number of new million dollar patrol boats mounted with 50-caliber machine guns and the latest in radar technology?

And don’t forget the drones, which, being somewhat invisible and therefore less intrusive than helicopters and gunboats, are nonetheless patrolling the skies over Laredo.

Perhaps these military units are actually going to Afghanistan and our government decided that they could be sent to Laredo under the guise of

training for a kill-two-birds-with-onestone proposition.

Like many Laredoans I am a dubious of the explanation for the presence of these military helicopters in Laredo.

And to Mr. Huff-N-Puff, I will not only complain, but I will complain loudly and continue to do so as long as they are here.

As a final note to the chaps stuck here on this mission, I have no qualms about your presence in our town. I, too, served in the military. Troops do not determine their destination – that starts at the Pentagon.

I remain a disgruntled and “complaining” citizen of Laredo. ◆

SUBSCRIBE

meg@laredosnews.com

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Mariela Rodriguez/LareDOS

Laredo Book Festival

Healing Arts Lizbeth Aguilera is pictured with one of her art pieces and with instructor Paty C. Orduña at the American Watercolor Society and Children’s Advocacy Center exhibit at the Laredo Center for the Arts on August 16.

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Mariela Rodriguez/LareDOS

Mariela Rodriguez/LareDOS

Authors from across Texas, including Heather Herschap author of My Friends and I; Lupe Ruiz Flores, bilingual children’s author of The Battle of the Snow Cones or La guerra de las raspas; and Christopher Ferguson, adult fiction author of Suicide Kings were present on Saturday, August 18 at the 2nd Annual Laredo Book Festival to promote, sign, and discuss their literary works.

Another birthday, another century Mayor Raul Salinas celebrated Eva Flores Ramirez’s 101st birthday at her home on Santa Cleotilde. Salinas surprised Ramirez with a bouquet of flowers and a birthday cake.

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Mariela Rodriguez/LareDOS

Eco-Campers learn water safety RGISC Eco-Campers Daniela Gonzalez and Fiorella Chapa received paddling and water safety instruction before taking to the water in kayaks. They are pictured near the Rock Pond on Muller Park taking instruction from Stephanie Dolansky-Mahathey of Big River Outfitters.

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News

Empty Bowls gala and concert fuel STFB’s mission

By Mariela Rodriguez LareDOS Staff

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he South Texas Food Bank’s (STFB) most prestigious fundraiser, the annual Empty Bowls gala, featured captivating works of art and the musical styling’s of Creedence Clearwater Revisited. The August 2 event was held at the Laredo Energy Arena.

The doors opened at 6 p.m. for the public to enter, view, and bid on the plates, bowls, and platters painted by famous and local artists for the silent auction. These plates and bowls are meant to represent the plight of Laredo’s families in need.

Mayor Raul Salinas contributed a bowl painted to represent some of our city and state’s most iconic images. Student Vanessa Sigrist’s artwork caught the mayor’s attention at a City Council presentation that recognized students from the St Peter’s Elementary school for winning a national art contest.

“I was blown away by her artwork,” said Salinas.

The Mayor met with Sigrist to provide her with direction and input on what images he wanted on the plate. He said, “I felt that her artwork would capture the color, spirit, and most of all, hopefulness I wanted my plate to convey.”

The platter featured well known images including the seven flags that have flown over Laredo, International Bridge I, San Agustín Cathedral, and Uni-Trade Stadium.

“I was so proud and honored to be asked by Mayor Salinas to be the one to bring his plate to life, especially, to be able to do so representing my school of St. Peter’s,” said Sigrist.

“I hope people like it, and I hope it brings in money for the South Texas Food Bank.”

Food and beverages were served on the concourse of the LEA at 7 p.m. Attendees had an opportunity to view the array of items for auction while mingling with the artists themselves. Carlos Limon’s Alice in Wonderland-inspired plates stood out among some of the whimsical artwork.

Salo Otero, marketing director of the STFB, said, "Empty Bowls VI was a resounding success. I would like to express my deepest gratitude to the media, who went the extra mile to help bring awareness about Laredo’s hunger issue, volunteers including H-E-B employees, LEA staff, Laredo Job Corps, and various students from local schools who made the event run smoothly. Also thank you to all who attended the concert.”

About 3,000 individuals attended the gala and nearly $100,000 was raised between bids and the sale of tables.

Sponsors for the event included diamond sponsor H-E-B; platinum sponsors the A.R. Tony Sanchez Family Foundation and the Fernando A. Salinas Trust; and gold spon-

sors Tano Tijerina, Angel Laurel, and Laredo Energy Arena. There were 10 silver sponsors and more than 50 bronze sponsors.

A bowl painted by STFB resident artist Pancho Farias of the original H-E-B in Kerrville was presented to H-E-B executives Eddie García and Danny Flores by Empty Bowls cochairs Kevin Romo and Anna Benavides Galo, members of the STFB board.

“The community’s continued support is a blessing and extremely important,” added Otero.

All proceeds support the STFB’s mission to end hunger in Laredo.

To make a donation or to get more information, contact the STFB at (956) 568-3673 or visit their website www.southtexasfoodbank.org ◆

The best kept secret in Laredo

Mariela Rodriguez/LareDOS

1, 2 and 3 bedroom floorplans available. Prices starting at $725 Town houses and corporate suites also available For more information, please contact: www.carmelapts.com Carmel Apartments Office Hours 830 Fasken Blvd. Laredo, Texas M-F 8:30-5:30 956.753.6500, 956.753.6502 fax Sat. 10:00-5:00

STFB board member Felipe Perez Garza and his wife Olga Perez Garza

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Feature

Zarate: the world is her canvas

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By SILKE JASSO LareDOS Staff

ibi Zarate, a Nuevo Laredo visual artist, imagines the world as her canvas. An artist since the age of 12, she works and teaches art in a home studio called ‘Pintarte.’

“I always wanted to be an artist.

When I was little I told my parents that I wanted to paint,” said Zarate. “Now that I think of if, I don’t think I knew what that meant. I just knew all I wanted was to paint. I remember I went with my father to Laredo Paint and Paper to get materials for my class, and I knew I was doing the right thing,” she said. Zarate’s first art class was with Nuevo Laredo artist Didi Duran de Peña, who encouraged her to continue painting and to pursue an arts degree from Tecnologico de Monterey.

Zarate grew up hearing stories about Diego Rivera, Frida Kahlo, Dali, and other famous artists that inspired her to paint about her emotions and events in her life. She said Mexican artists have been a major focus in her development as an artist. Her main inspirations, she said, are women, history, justice, and anything that prompts her to speak her mind. “I like to find topics that evoke emotions and motivate me to keep on working. For example, I can get a blank sheet and just transmit what I’m feeling that exact moment. There is no art that says ‘Here. I’m stopping here,’” said Zarate With more than 58 exhibits to her credit, Zarate concentrates on mixed media, which allows her to experiment with different materials. Oils are some of her favorite paints, but she says acrylics allow her to work faster.

Her studio is behind her house, where she secludes herself from distractions. “That’s the best part of being an artist – you are your own boss. I get to do what I do best when I want to do it.

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drawing the line too thick,” said Zarate.

Before she starts a piece, she draws the image in her mind, investigates the topic, and later sketches it out. Depending on the media she uses, time, and the size of the canvas, an art piece can take up to a month or more to finish.

Zarate devotes some of her work to serious topics such as rape, kidnapping, and the dangers now prevalent in Mexico. Good reviews of her work have given her the opportunity to exhibit in Monterrey, Mexico, D.F., and Texas.

Her greatest pride has been a piece called ‘Testimonio y legado del espacio fronterizo de Mexico’ which was recognized in Toledo, Spain. She is excited when people recognize her work and when it inspires emotion. “I like when people come to tell me their own story of my paining. They sometimes tell me something very different than what the painting represents to me, but that’s the beauty of it. Two people have come up to me and cried because a piece of my work reminded them of somebody or a phase in their life. It’s the best feeling,” she said She takes much pride in “Pos Soy Soldada/ Well I Am A Soldier,” a painting selected by the National Institute for

Women in Mexico in honor of the Bicentennial of Independence and Centennial of the Mexican Revolution.

Zarate said she is an introvert who has poured her emotions into her paintings. She believes that art has given her the opportunity to grow up as a person and has expanded her confidence. She said that art has shown her that the main purpose of being an artist is being able to reach other people, that art has a voice.

Her family has been her biggest fans – children Pedro, Eli, and Alan and her husband Eleazar. “The worst thing about being an artist is that you need to dedicate your time to it, but I also have a family, and they mean the world to me. When my father passed away a few months ago, I felt like giving up and letting the brush go. It changed my perspective. I sometimes still struggle a bit, but I know he wouldn’t have wanted me to give up.”

Zarate has taught art for 14 years at ‘Pintarte,’ which she established in 1998.

The school is well known on both sides of the Río Grande. “It all started with children and their imagination. I wanted to find something or somewhere where children were able to get their creativity out and exercise their imaginations,” she said. Children four and up are able to take paint wherever their imagination takes them, she added.

Zarate said that teaching art is not only a hobby, but that it lets her learn from her students. She said she feels their energy, happiness, and the simplicity of their artwork.

She teaches them about color, texture, and culture. There is a focus every month on a different topic. Whether it’s animals, Mexican Independence, Easter, or Día De Los Muertos, she asks students to come up with a story that will make it to the canvas.

“To those who want to be artists, work hard and be productive,” she said, adding, “If you love it, then do it. Don’t be afraid of anything. The main purpose of art is expressing what I feel and get-

ting to others. My job is my voice, and I don’t intend on keeping quiet anytime soon,” Zarate said. ◆

Remembering Pintarte I began painting at the age of six. I would walk three blocks from my house with our housekeeper Paty to go to art class at a studio called ‘Pintarte.' I couldn’t wait to get there to start paining whatever I could think of, to see my favorite ‘aunt’ Bibi Zarate.

Looking back, I think I saw Bibi as the big sister I never had. Her home and studio were a safe haven. For as long as I remember, Bibi was always there for me.

It came to a point that I felt comfortable enough to stay the whole day instead of leaving when the art class was over.

Her classes were full of joy and laughter, and every Saturday she would have a new story to tell us. I learned the history of art, where Frida Kahlo and Diego Rivera got their inspiration, and why Leonardo da Vinci liked to focus on faces and their images. I remember picking up the pencil and scratching away on the canvas, while she tried not to laugh and then gently showed me how to fix my lines.

I was 14 when I left Pintarte, and to this day, I miss every piece of it. I still paint and draw, and I wonder what would have happened if I’d stayed as one of Bibi’s students. Being able to see how much her art has grown and where it has taken her, has made me so proud to have been her student.

Bibi and Pintarte have been and will always be an important part of my life and my childhood. More than an art teacher, she opened my eyes to the world and taught me how to be myself and express myself with a simple pencil and a piece of paper. She has given children an opportunity to observe the wonders of the world around them and to record them as art.

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Lt. Col. Todd Turner, commander of the Task Force Iron Knights, and City Council member Jorge Vera discussed complaints about the noise level generated by military helicopter traffic hovering over the city.

Vera said Laredoans needed to put up with the noise, which he called “a minor inconvenience” that has created a safer border.

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Courtesy Photo

Mariela Rodriguez/LareDOS

Vera: the mission comes first

Team Killam Diana Ramos, Ridley Goodpasture, Cliffe Killam, and Rosa Chandarlis were among the Killam Oil employees who gave a helping hand at the South Texas Food Bank. Also pictured is Christina Treviño. The group re-packaged two palettes of pinto beans.

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Maria Eugenia Guerra/LareDOS

Maria Eugenia Guerra/LareDOS

Peace and love on wheels Catching up Odie Armabula of the Laredo Morning Times and Joe Laurel caught up on local politics and local history after the August 8 Kiwanis Club meeting at the Holiday Inn Covey Lounge.

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The 60s might be over, but there was evidence everywhere at the Second Annual VW Border Jam that the memories live on. This vintage VW Type I Beetle was a standout among models of VW buses and Kharmann Ghia coupĂŠs. The event was held Saturday, August 18 at the Laredo Civic Center.

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Fort Davis:

Window

West to the

By MARIA EUGENIA GUERRA LareDOS Publisher

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here is something about West Texas that calls me to it. Sometimes it’s the long drive and the conversations along the way; other times it’s what I do with my time. I’ve always found the muses there in the craggy lichened rocks of the West Texas mountains, and I’ve always found that I write well there, that I want to write well there.

One of my most memorable trips out west, other than the childhood road trips with my parents through Texas on our way to California, was to raft through Santa Elena Canyon. It wasn’t one of those cushy trips where hired hands move you in pampered style along one of the most incredible stretches of the Río Grande; rather it was an all-women’s trip in two rafts, most of us in one

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raft and our gear packed and tied down in huge waterproof bags in the raft behind us.

We did the paddling, practicing for the first few serene miles of river out of Lajitas and then moving through white water as our outfitter Mary Humphrey – now a distinguished water rights attorney in Taos – expertly called commands to keep us from overturning and from bashing into some of the treacherous boulders in the river.

I had signed up for this adventure reluctantly, but ended up enjoying it immensely, the memories and a few photographs lasting over decades, the landscape immortalized in an un-published novel I wrote.

It was Thanksgiving 1980-something, 20 river miles on a four-day sojourn that ended at Terlingua. It was there in the thrill of white water and the 1,500-foot ochre and burnt umber depths of the canyon that I

felt my heart open to the vast spaces of the natural world and to the contemplative solitude of traveling on this particular river.

As though it was yesterday, I recall the canyon’s echo, what white water sounds like right before you are in it, campfires and good meals with people I’d just met, sleeping by the gurgling storied river that is the lifeline of the international boundary, waking to the biting cold of a norther that had howled through the canyon, and the early morning sight on a steep hill in Mexico of a vaquero on a sure-footed horse rounding up an errant pony – a muted clatter of hooves, and the rocks sliding fast under them.

On another venture out West, I came to Ft. Davis 13 years ago to write at the last house on a road that dead-ends at the base of Sleeping Lion Mountain. The little two-bedroom deco bungalow had wooden

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floors and a décor of pink and turquoise, modern blonde furniture, and round-edged appliances that evoked a time the roadways were traversed by folks in Studebakers, Edsels, and Nash Ramblers.

The cottage proved to be a fruitful place to write. Deer, goats, and many, many birds filled the views out my windows. The isolation and poor cell phone reception heightened my ability to write, and so did being a stranger there.

I traveled west again last year with my son and granddaughter, moving through tens of thousands of acres of country ravaged by the Rock House fires of 2011. Lajitas was where we spent a better part of a week. Between the fire and the drought, the landscape en route evidenced a devastation that had been fast and punishing, so fast that the fire traveled more quickly the 23 miles from Marfa to Fort Davis than

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could the Fort Davis volunteer firefighters helping in Marfa, where the fire originated.

It’s late July 2012, and I’m back in Fort Davis, happy to see that recent rains have brought much of the country back to life. Still, there are everywhere reminders of the fire – burnt fence posts held up by wire, charred stumps, the foundations of some of the town’s historic homes, and huge, dead cottonwood trees.

Though the montane landscape is lush and green, conversations with the locals bespeak the horror of their losses – personal losses and those across the county.

FT. DAVIS STATE PARK While my son George and granddaughter Emily made the RV part of the park their home during our recent visit, I opted for a stay at Indian Lodge across the valley from them.

In every direction the park offered spectacular views of mountains and

hills now green with forbs and foliage. Indian Lodge was built in the 1930s in the thick of the Depression by the young men of the Civilian Conservation Corps.

The adobe brick rooms in the original part of Indian Lodge are beautiful, terraced against the mountainside like an American Indian pueblo. The windowsills are surfaced with flat lajita and the base of the beehive fireplace is dressed with native stone. The cedar furniture in the rooms is also the handiwork of the CCC workers – many of whom were unskilled when President Franklin Roosevelt formed the CCC to put America back to work.

They left the corps as carpenters, stonemasons, and welders.

While the old rooms of Indian Lodge were eye pleasing and cool, they were not quiet. There was little

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Bob Weathers, president–elect of the WBCA, and Douglas Macdonald, president and CEO of Texas Community Bank, welcomed the public to the announcement that TAMU regent John Sharp has been named 2013’s Mr. South Texas.

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Maria Eugenia Guerra/LareDOS

Mariela Rodriguez/LareDOS

WBCA and Texas Community Bank recognize Sharp

In Jarvis Plaza Former Laredo Mayor Betty Flores is pictured August 19 at the Farmers Market with centenerian Panchita Martinez, a Gold Star Mother.

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Feature

Laredo’s go-to shoe repairman

By MARIELA RODRIGUEZ LareDOS Staff Shoemaking, while some see it as a dying art, is a craft for true artisans, such as Aurelio Campos of Aurelio Shoe Doctor at 401 Houston Street. This quaint business derivative of the Mexican culture continues to serve as a historic testament to this city’s true family oriented spirit of entrepreneurship.

“Not a day has gone by that I don’t learn something new about this craft. Like Socrates said, ‘As for me, all I know is nothing.’ So all we can do it continue striving to learn more day after day,” Campos said.

A native of Guadalajara, Mexico, Campos keeps the family business tradition alive through his work.

He established and has maintained a respectable business with the help of Guadalupe Villarreal de Campos, his wife of 45 years, for over 20 years.

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“In Mexico, it is customary for children to help bring food to the table for their families. I began helping my father, who taught me this craft from the moment I learned how to walk and talk,” Campos said, adding.

“As far back as I can recall, I was a young boy with my USM hammer (the standard hammer for general shoe factory use, smooth face, and cast steel) manufacturing shoes,” said Campos.

Campos made his way to Nuevo Laredo at the age of ten.“We relocated after my mother’s tienda de barrotes received an embargo as a result of some fraudulent accusations,” recalled Campos, adding “In 1973, the Lucchese boot manufacturer, helped me reach immigration status.”

A year later, Campos relocated to Chicago, where there were more opportunities in the shoe manufacturing business as well as available

jobs in various zapaterias.

“I was fortunate enough to work at Sanderson’s Shoe Doctor, while in Chicago, for three years. A former co-worker of mine named Nick referred me to an Italian shoemaker who was looking to retire,” said Campos, adding, “He sold, for a mere $900 all the manufacturing and repair equipment you see here today.”

Campos added that given the antiquity of his equipment along with the knowledge and skills he developed over the years the boots and women’s shoes he produced back in the day were of a substantial quality.

“This art, this craft has provided us with a better opportunity to sustain ourselves on our own terms.

As proprietors of this business, we choose when and how we’d like to work,” said Villareal de Campos.

She added, “It has been a blessing to have this business. I’ve learned to love the craft as much my husband, and I enjoy helping him with repairs.”

Campos interjected, “If it were not for all her support, I don’t know where I’d be today.”

Campos is father of Aurelio Campos Jr., Bertha Campos, and Pablo Campos. Although not formally educated himself, he always attempted to motivate his children to pursue their studies. All three of his children have careers in the medicine. His eldest son resides and practices medicine in Napa Valley,

California while his daughter is a physician out of Houston. Son Pablo continues his studies in the University of Texas in San Antonio.

“This business also allowed me the means in which to aid my children with any additional expenses not covered by their financial aid,” said Campos, adding “I never expected for any of my children to keep this business going. They pursued their interests in medicine, and all a parent can hope for is that their children find their happiness.”

Preserving the craftsmanship of shoemaking, in an era where cheaper mass produced products are sought out more than original handcrafted items has proven difficult for Campos. He stopped manufacturing shoes and now focuses strictly on repairs.

“Ten or 15 years ago the shoe manufacturing business was a successful one. Nowadays mass produced shoes are manufactured in a way not conducive for repairs.

Despite low business sales, I will continue to do what I love until my health no longer permits. This is a part of my life. Me favores estar aquí haiga o no haiga negocio,” said Campos. ◆ LareDOS I AU G US T 2012 I

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Feature

Scottish cabbie bites off heads

I

By DENISE FERGUSON LareDOS Contributor

thought a trip to Scotland might be an opportunity to capture vestiges of my ancestry. After all, as a resident of Laredo, I frequently observe the locals happily moving back and forth across the border to visit kin and revisit the culture of their ancestors.

As we stepped off the Edinburgh Airport shuttle bus to a taxi station in late June, a fierce-looking banshee with white hair blowing in the cold, damp wind came flying toward me prepared for attack.

The cabbie was a thin, wiry man of diminutive size who demanded to know our destination. Unfortunately, after having not slept well for two nights and having been on a plane for 10 hours preceded by a stopover at Newark Airport, I was not in the best mental condition. From the pit of my brain I did manage to drag out the name of our hotel and answered, Holiday Inn Express, Royal Mile. The cabbie delivered a high-pitched scream, “I need more that that, what is the address?”

Since I realized that the confirma-

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tion was still somewhere in my luggage and that I was too tired to think, I pulled my bags aside and told him to take the next customer. “No!” he replied, “I’m in the cue!” while at the same time pointing to his cab, which was first in line. So I searched my bag and pulled out the full confirmation sheet. He grabbed it out of my hand. “This is it,” he cried. “I need the whole address, how am I supposed to know which Holiday Inn to go to?”

I felt like telling him that there was only one Holiday Inn Express that included the title Royal Mile. Furthermore, at that point I was sufficiently angry to tell him to get lost. However, I bit my tongue when I realized he had already put our bags in the cab. Thankfully, he got us to our destination swiftly, safely, and with no added surcharges.

So this is an example of the kin

I was looking for? To be honest, the man did bear a resemblance to my paternal grandmother on the occasions when she was at her wit’s end.

As we entered the hotel at 9 a.m., I braced for the worst. But the manager greeted us with a smile when I asked him if we could leave our bags at the hotel until check-in time. “Of course,” he said. “I will also go ahead and find a room for you right away

so that you can rest from your journey!” So far, I thought, my Scottish kin were batting 50/50.

But if the cab trip was curious, the hotel elevator experience was even more so. We were given a security card key that had to be inserted in a slot in order for the elevator to move.

The problem was that the elevator usually would not consistently respond to our card. We reported the situation, so the manager used his own key card. His wouldn’t work properly either. As a result, we, along with the other guests, spent our hotel stay at the Holiday Inn Express Royal Mile inserting our key card five to ten times before each elevator use.

On the plus side, the hotel provided a great free breakfast for guests in a large, pleasant room on the basement floor, well worth the trouble of numerous card key insertions.

In the evening, I appreciated the availability of hot chocolate at the bar. Another thing I liked about the Scottish hotel was that the guests actually observed the “No Smoking” signs, unlike guests who visit hotels in the city of San Antonio.

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Feature

Tahoe: an evening paddlewheel tour while feasting and dancing

O

Courtesy Photo

n my recent trip to Lake Tahoe, I discovered that the very big lake lies in both Nevada and California. In fact, within the city of South Tahoe, I crossed the Nevada-California border nearly a dozen times: it was only about two blocks north from Harrah’s Hotel and Casino and situated on a city street. Whenever I walked to the U.S. Department of Agriculture’s “Explore Tahoe” exhibit/ mini-museum, to one of the general stores, or to one of the eateries in the neighborhood, I crossed the state boundary.

Lem Londos Railback I journeyed from Laredo to South Tahoe via DFW, Los Angeles, Reno, and a one-and-a-half-hour bus ride.

I was surprised to learn that South

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Tahoe is a bustling city and that there is another bustling city named North Tahoe. Lake Tahoe is over 6,200 feet above sea level and it is the second deepest lake in North America and one of the oldest lakes in the entire world.

I presented a scholarly paper to the Summer Seminar of the National Social Science Association in Lake Tahoe. As usual, my participation with such a competent, attentive, interactive, bright, and helpful group of scholars from many disciplines marked the high-point of my visit.

After a day of presentations, several of us enjoyed an evening tour of the Lake on the Dixie Queen paddlewheel. We enjoyed an extended meal, danceable music by the boat’s own band, and enormously beautiful evening scenes. We floated by an island on which several decades ago a very wealthy woman had built her own tea-house at the very top of the island.

Just a short time later, we passed by her spacious home of Nordic architecture on the shore. After feasting, drinking, dancing, and talking, we docked and returned to Harrah’s.

On the next morning, we took a bus tour around the southern part of the Lake. Our tour guide was a retired federal forest ranger who had just completed 20 years of service in the South Tahoe area. Obviously, he had interacted with the locals and the lake so that he knew well all of the sites that he explained as we experienced them. He revealed “the old days” when the steamboats delivered logs onto the dock to be picked up by railroads for delivery by water plumes to Carson City for use in the mines during the famous gold rush days. He identified the German engineer who was brought in to solve the

problem of cave-ins in the mines.

Our guide took us by several beaches, several small settlements, and, even, by Frank Sinatra’s CalNeva Club that Sinatra’s Rat Pack, Judy Garland, Marilyn Monroe, and the Kennedys had liked so well. After Sinatra passed, the Club fell into a disarray that we sadly noticed.

Our bus tour guide took us by the Ponderosa Ranch where the old Bonanza television series had been filmed, the area where John Wayne’s The Shootist was filmed, and other movie sites. He explained that 86% of Nevada remains federal land, that nearly the entire state of Nevada is a giant basin, that Lake Tahoe itself is fed by rain and melted snow from the mountains, and that the Sierra Madre mountains are “growing taller” via syncline/anticline action while the Rockies are not.

He took us to Squaw Valley where the VIII Winter Olympic Games had been held. He estimated that “nearly $100,000,000.00” had been spent to prepare the undeveloped rural Squaw Valley for the Games and to build the first athletes’ village. He indicated that today Squaw Valley and 13 other ski resorts are still doing thriving business.

The next day’s presentations lasted so long that I could not make efficient connections. So I suffered through another wonderful meal at the American River Café, walked over to the Friday House and Estate that used to contract to feed and house the riders and horses of the old Pony Express, took photos of the local theater at which the Summer Stock Two Gentlemen from Verona was being presented, and viewed various statues in the streets and inside the hotel. ◆

Courtesy Photo

By LEM LONDOS RAILSBACK LareDOS Contributor

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News

La Posada Hotel’s annual Wedding Expo showcases trends, vendors, and services

by MARIELA RODRIGUEZ LareDOS Staff

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opportunity to sample La Posada’s various catering options and brides are encouraged to register for the opportunity to win door prizes as well as obtain discounts on products and services.

Brides will also be eligible to register to win a white-glove Dream Wedding at the majestic San Agus-

tin Ballroom inside La Posada Hotel, a beautiful morning-after brunch for the wedding party at Zaragoza Grill, or an all expense paid wedding night suite.

For more information about the expo, call Roxann Gonzalez at (956) 753-4401 or email her at rgonzalez@ laposadahotel.com ◆

Andy Segovia

Andy Segovia

evered for its sophisticated style and historic presence, La Posada Hotel continues to be the favored site for countless intimate, elegant, and memorable weddings. In that spirit, the hotel is gearing up for its third annual Wedding Expo to be held on Sunday, September 9 from 1 p.m. to 5 p.m. in the San Agustin Ballroom at 1000 Zaragoza Street.

“If the turnout from previous years is any indicator, we will be having a very successful expo this year. What we are trying to do with the expo is showcase the leading

vendors and services in each category that are absolutely vital when planning a wedding,” said Luis Saldaña, La Posada Hotel’s marketing communications manager.

Among the local vendors who will showcase the latest wedding trends are Holloway’s Bakery, Andy Segovia Fine Art Photography, Traveling Photo Booth, International Tuxedo, Mariachi Los Alazanes, La Sposa Bridal Boutique, and Carmin’s Flowers.

Two fashion shows through the duration of the expo will feature wedding couture for the bride and bridesmaid.

Admission is free and open to the public. Attendees will have the

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ter in London. A waitress at the hotel restaurant at St. Giles Hotel brought me spaghetti when I ordered a fish plate. When I pointed out the error, she said, “I distinctly remember you ordered the spaghetti.” In response, I recounted our earlier conversation in which she had highly recommended the quality of the fish. “You will have to pay for both meals anyway,” she replied. So I kept the spaghetti, which fortunately was good. That waitress won the distinction of my leaving no gratuity for the first time ever.

Anyway, putting aside the dispositions of some Scots and Brits, the trip was quite lovely. I took particular pleasure in a van day trip along the south coast of Scotland to quaint fishing villages and a visit to Falkland Castle and the adjacent town. In London, we meandered around the gardens of Hyde Park and Kensington Gardens and visited the Princess Diana Memorial – a peaceful and beautiful respite from my temperamental kin. ◆

Mariela Rodriguez/LareDOS

 Continued FROM page 36 We got to experience the first strike connected with the extra income expected from the 2012 London Olympics. On July 7, the day we left Edinburgh, some of the local bus companies set up roadblocks at critically busy intersections.

Unfortunately, rudeness tended to prevail throughout our meanderings. When a clerk turned to the next customer in line at a jewelry store, two ladies intercepted to ask for a service which required a lengthy discourse. In another scenario, a woman requested a gentleman to leave the area while she used a public hotel computer because she was using personal bank security codes. A few days later, as we proceeded by train for a few days in London, a fellow traveler barged ahead of us when we hesitated briefly to check coach numbers. He then took his time loading several bags on the deck as we cooled our heels.

Social discourse wasn’t any bet-

Opening reception for Children’s Advocacy Center Pictured at the August 16 opening at the Laredo Center for the Arts are Manuel Rodriguez III, Manuel J. Rodriguez IV, Norma Rodriguez, and Annabelle Hall who admired the artwork and supported the silent auction that benefited the Children’s Advocacy Center.

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Review

beat: a play on words brings Allen Ginsberg to life

By Mariela Rodriguez LareDOS Staff

Courtesy Photo

“I saw the best minds of my generation destroyed by madness, starving hysterical naked dragging themselves through the Negro streets at dawn looking for an angry fix.” So opens Allen Ginsberg’s poem “Howl,” one of his most celebrated works.

L.I.T.E Productions and the Laredo Center for the Arts recently presented Kelly Groves’ beat: A play on words, which centers on the life of Ginsberg, one of this country’s most controversial and beloved beat poets.

The Beat generation – a group of post-World War II American writers who broke from societal expectations and limitations and pushed the boundaries in creativity and expression – was condemned by many as hipster thrill seekers.

Told as a partial documentary drama, this production of beat included a poetry slam between some of the most popular Beat poets, along with musical jam sessions. As the play reveals, Ginsberg finds himself at the end of the rope with society’s views on what is accept-

able after his suspension from Columbia University. With Jack Kerouac, Lucien Carr, Neal Cassady, and William Burroughs, Ginsberg embarks on a bohemian journey to expose, among other things, the injustices of censorship and the limitations imposed on life. beat examines Ginsberg’s relationships as well as and the infamous trial surrounding the publication of “Howl.”

Despite the style of the poem that challenged conventional themes and the use of provocative language, it was eventually recognized as a testament to the freedom of artistic expression.

Robert “Chibbi” Orduña, who earned a BA in theatre arts from the University of Texas at Austin, made his directorial debut with beat. His vision and casting for the show was spot on.

Orduña did not sugarcoat the controversial aspects of Ginsberg’s life – drug use and his homosexuality.

“The play’s underlying theme deals with freedom of expression,” said Orduña, adding, “This is something that continues to be an issue, not as drastic in art as we have seen in the past, but currently in our criticism of government and politics.”

beat: a play on words Bobby Batey, Marco Gonzalez, Mark Garner, Oscar Pena, Chibbi Orduña, Richard Resendez, and John Sabas are pictured during the performance of Beat which was directed by Orduña and his sister Julia Orduña.

The production ran from July 26- August 5, and was based on the life of poet Allen Ginsberg.

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Bobby Batey, a TAMIU music major, has gained much of his theatrical experience as a stage-hand. His profound appreciation and excitement for theatre was evident in his brilliant portrayal of Ginsberg’s inner turmoil to a tee. He conveys it all from his feeling of loneliness and longing for companionship to his strained relationship with his postdivorce parents.

Richard A. Resendez, who portrayed Jack Kerourac, Russell Wood, and David Kirk is no stranger to the stage. His recent credits include Cabaret, Dog Sees God: Confessions of Teenage Blockhead, The Taming of the Shrew, The Lion in Winter, The Importance of Being Earnest, Measure for Pleasure, and The Complete Works of William Shakespeare Abridged. Confident and comfortable in beat, Resendez is just where he belongs – onstage.

John Sabas Pérez has returned to the stage after a six-year hiatus. Perez portrayed Neal Cassady and Luther Nichols. While certain parts his performance lacked emotion, his performance overall was well received by audience members.

Mark A. Garner, a student at TAMIU pursuing a BA and MA in Political Science, is in his second year with L.I.T.E Productions. He made his debut in musical theatre as Angel in Rent. Garner continues to hone his singing, dancing, and acting skills. His portrayal in beat of Lucien Carr, William Hanrahn, Mark Schorer, and Eugene Ginsberg further displayed Garner’s versatility as a performer.

Orduña not only directed the show, but he also took the roles of LeRoi Jones, Jake Ehrlich, Lawrence Ferlinghetti, and Herbert Hucke. His love of the arts was irrefutably clear in his direction of beat and in the four roles he played.

Attorney Oscar O. Peña portrayed William S. Burroughs, Ralph McIntosh, and Louis Ginsberg. Peña, who is also a writer and producer, brought Burroughs to life, evocatively engaged the

audience, and drove home his theatrical versatility.

A recent UT graduate, Marco Gonzalez has been in theatre since the age of 11. He has appeared in Side Man, Measure for Pleasure, The Foreigner, and The Tragedy of Macbeth. Gonzalez assumed five roles in beat as Tristan Tzara, Gregory Corso, Namoi Ginsberg, David Kammerer, and Carl Solomon. Gonzalez has the ability to lighten some of the more emotionally heavy scenes with his quirky nature, while inspiring an array of other emotions with his portrayal of Ginsberg’s mother.

One of the best executed scene in which Ginsberg (Batey) — at the end of his rope with society’s constraints on him and the unrelenting expectations from his family — is shooting up, while a heart wrenching letter by Namoi Ginsberg (Gonzalez), is recited.

She pleads he have her removed from the mental facility in which she resides and begs her son not to indulge in mind altering substances as it is rumored he does.

The stage setup was for an interactive theatric performance. A thrust stage format as opposed to a proscenium stage made the production viewable from different angles. Lights would dim then come on only to display some of the characters among audience members reciting poetry or their monologues.

Perhaps the most eye-catching prop was a large handcrafted shelf full, by NAME, of books and fully stocked with plenty of alcohol for the indulgence of the beats.

Julia Orduña assisted her brother as assistant director, and Hacel Arias was the stage manager.

The actors collectively evoked the spirit of a revolutionary literary movement. Orduña’s production was a lively piece of theatre that gave the audience a feel for the arts in the 1940s and 1950s New York and San Francisco scene. ◆ W W W.L A RED OS N E WS.CO M

Election 2012

Sherwood announces Position 4 re-election bid for LCC trustee

BY LINE GOES HERE LareDOS Staff

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He also worked with fellow Board Member, Rene De la Vina, to establish at L.C.C. the first ever continuing education opportunities for physically and mentally challenged students.

Sherwood pointed to the extensive business and management experience that he has brought to the board to help shape many important board decisions for student tuition and fees, employee salaries, property taxes, and resolving personnel conflicts.

He has served as vice president of the board since January 2012.

Sherwood said he has been part of L.C.C. for over 30 years as a student, an adjunct faculty member, and as the first President of the LCC Education Foundation.

A past president of the Laredo Development Foundation, Sherwood was the co-founder and past president of the Laredo Logistics and

Courtesy Photo

d Sherwood, vice president of the Laredo Community College Board of Trustees, has filed for re-election in the upcoming November 6 general election. Sherwood, who has served on the board since July 2007, is running for Position 4.

Sherwood made his re-election bid announcement at a kickoff party August 17 at the Guerra Communications Center ballroom surrounded by supporters, family, and friends.

Citing his contributions to the success of the board during the last five years, Sherwood asked for support in the upcoming elections. He told supporters that he had sponsored board action to reduce and cap L.C.C. taxes in 2008 for those ages 65 and older,

and for the disabled. He also pointed to his leadership in helping to plan and implement the current Fort McIntosh campus restoration projects, and for the building of the new Student Academic Building instead of renting portable buildings to house classes during the project. The new building, now renamed the Lewis Energy Academic Building (after a $1million donation), is now a land-mark three story state of the art facility for students and faculty.

Sherwood recalled his participation with other trustees in twice making presentations in New York City to three bond rating agencies, which resulted in L.C.C. bonds being financed at the lowest interest rates in 50 years.

This financing is saving Laredo taxpayers millions, while providing a modern, technologically sophisticated, campus for generation to come.

Candidate Ed Sherwood, second from right, is pictured with his wife Carol, former Webb County Judge Mercurio Martinez Jr., and Senate Candidate Paul Sadler.

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Manufacturing Association, and past president of two Rotary Clubs. He also served for five years on the Laredo Police and Firefighters Civil Service Commission – two years as chairman. Sherwood and his wife Carol were named as Laredoans of the Year by the Laredo Morning Times in 1991. He currently serves on the board of the South Texas Food Bank, the Laredo Development Foundation, and is the training director for Laredo-Webb County Habitat for Humanity affiliate.

Sherwood received a degree in mechanical engineering from Kettering University, an MBA in international trade from Texas A&M International University, and has completed graduate studies in advanced mathematics and economics at Michigan State University and Rider University.

He is currently employed at Falcon International Bank as a senior vice president and director of human resources. Previously he held senior management positions in the U.S., Europe, and Mexico with General Motors Corporation, ITT Automotive, and Carbone Lorraine.

Sherwood spoke of the pride he has in his family’s commitment to service – his two daughters and daughter-inlaw are teachers; his son is a Laredo Fire Fighter Captain, a son-in-law is a Corporal with the Webb County Sheriff’s Department, and the other works in public service in Bexar County. His wife Carolwas a full time volunteer for Habitat for Humanity for 13 years, and for the past 10 years has served as the affiliate’s executive director.

The couple has nine grandchildren who are also active in school and community, and one great grandchild. ◆ LareDOS I AU G US T 2012 I

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En la plaza Jesus Hernandez “We have a lot of history, but we need more book stores, a music school, or a science museum, something that could raise our reputation as a city. If you really love Laredo, do something about it. Make a difference, change the community and clean your words towards the City. Speak about Laredo and its beauty, not the violence. It’s pointless to have a beautiful city with a wonderful history if it can’t be appreciated.”

Elvia Aguilar “I feel so much safer in Laredo than in Nuevo Laredo. I guess it’s because it’s very family-based. Also, it’s great to live here, plus it’s clean. I don’t believe anything they say in that TV show (Bordertown: Laredo). It’s all stereotyped; it makes us look like our city is full of criminals.”

Mauricio Tamez “I would say Laredo’s biggest problem is immigration and discrimination. You see a person of a different color and instantly think, ‘he’s Mexican.’ It’s the fear of immigration authorities that doesn’t get Laredo far. People are afraid. Yet, I love Laredo.

It’s a good place to start a family and bring out the culture in someone. I’m proud to say I found the love of my life here.”

Leandro Echavarria “I should be scared, due to all the problems on the border. That’s what they always tell me, but I never listen. I’ve been here since I was a kid, and I used to run around Laredo like a crazy boy. My mother used to always get mad at me because I’d go around the block about six times! I love it, it’s my home, and people are very nice here.”

Silke Jasso/LareDOS

Brenda Andrade “I have to give a thumbs up to education, I would definitely send my children to school here. It’s very comfortable to live here, family-wise, and money-wise, although, the apartments and houses are expensive.”

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Movie Review

The power of the small: Beasts of the Southern Wild

By CORDELIA BARRERA LareDOS Contributor

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hot in the Louisiana bayou with a cast of mostly non-actors, Beasts of the Southern Wild was a favorite at this year’s Cannes and Sundance Film Festivals. It is director and writer Behn Zeitlin’s first feature film. Zeitlin, whose parents are folklorists, moved to Louisiana after Hurricaen Katrina, where he helped form the independent filmmakers group, Court 13.

Beasts is based on the stage play, “Juicy and Delicious” by Lucy Alibar, who cowrote the screenplay along with Zeitlin.

The narrator of Beasts of the Southern Wild is six year-old Hushpuppy (Quvenzhané Wallis), who lives with her father, Wink (Dwight Henry) and a group of mismatched outcasts in the Bathtub, a marshy scrap of land off the shore of New Orleans. The time and place in Beasts is deliberately vague. This looks like a postKatrina bayou, but the levee that separates the residents of the Bathtub from the world of modern industrial ugliness is so obtrusive and massive that we logically question its existence.

Hushpuppy’s father has a boat cobbled together from used oil drums and a rusty truck bed; he fishes with his hands and teaches her to do the same. The slipshod houses perch uneasily on bits of high ground, and when news of a great flood comes, some people begin to rebuild the shacks into arks that they hope will float through the flood. Can such a self-contained community of outsiders really exist in our 21st-century world of industry and commerce? Or are those industrial parks and oilrigs we see in the distance the dinosaurs of an extinct world?

Even as we ask ourselves such questions, we realize that the answers do not matter. Beasts of the Southern Wild is a fable – an epic odyssey of the heart and soul that is nourished by folklore W W W.L A R ED OS N E WS.CO M

and a grand mythology. It is so full of fanciful images and sensory details that it will touch you to the very core.

At the simplest level, Beasts is the story of a little girl and the people and the places she loves and cares for.

Hushpuppy is watchful and fierce.

She is keenly, and sometimes magically, attuned to her universe. For Hushpuppy, life and play are bound by the same rules, the same magic.

The truths of her universe are not abstract and remote, but as alive as her own heartbeat, and the pulse of the animals—the birds and the pigs—she cares for. Her father, like so many who live in this impossible basin, is an alcoholic mess. But he teaches her to be instinctual and fierce, to stare down and combat all manner of earthly terrors, whether they be hurricanes and winds, or the great flood of Biblical

proportions that portends the end of her world.

Hushpuppy belongs to a collective, and so she lives and breathes the energy of an army of stories, folktales, and memories.

Like the other ragtag children in the basin, she is “schooled” in the primal, intimate ways of nature.

Everything in the universe, she understands, is contingent upon everything else. When the polar icecaps melt and the basin floods, a new order of gigantic horned beasts will roam the landscape.

But if she is strong and embraces the essential rootedness to the earth that nourishes her, she will survive.

Beasts of the Southern Wild is lyrical and daring, and full of images that flicker and dance to the beat of hope and promise — as well as dysfunction and danger. The film is a mythic crusade of stunning and enigmatic im-

ages laced in 21st- century ecological anxieties. In Beasts, we are reminded that childhood is never a waste of time when one is inculcated with an appreciation of the vast webwork that binds all living beings on the planet.

One of my favorite books is Benjamin Hoff’s The Te of Piglet, first published in 1992. Ostensibly, this is a book about Taoism, but it’s also a book about small things. Specifically, the significant principle of Taoism called Te, which means “virtue of the small.”

Hushpuppy is poor, a motherless child. Like those in poverty, or those who are sickly, or downtrodden, she is small. But small stature, whether politically, economically, or physically, does not inherently signify small worth, or small output.

Beasts is an extraordinary film that compels us to challenge the most terrifying beasts in our worlds — whether real or imaginary. What would happen if we each refused to deny our smallness, and instead apply it? Could we staunch a flood? Might we arrest an icecap from its inevitable collapse?

If we’re anything like Hushpuppy, we will at least give it a try, and in doing so, give it our all. ◆

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Laredo Community College

Cyber security degree to be offered this fall

I

BY Line goes here LareDOS Contributor

n an age of exponential technological development, the resources used to stay protected in a virtual environment are ever changing. Companies and governments alike continuously seek to improve current security measures to keep up with constant online threats.

As the world becomes more dependent on technology, the need for professionals to address these growing concerns increases every day.

For those individuals interested in being a part of the rising demand of online security specialists, Laredo Community College is offering an exciting new degree in Network and Cyber Security Technology.

“The degree provides intensive knowledge and skills that will equip an individual with the ability to setup defenses on computer systems that will virtually eliminate security vulnerabilities,” Robert Moore, chair and instructor for LCC’s Computer Technology Department, said.

“In addition, the degree is founded on networking principles and industry curriculum involving CISCO and Microsoft technology.”

Data breaches are numerous and increasing at a fast pace. To counter these threats, the program encompasses technologies related to firewalls, operating system security, network security, computer forensics, and incident response and handling.

“Black Hat Hackers, people who specialize in breaking into computer systems, have developed sophisticated gear specifically designed

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LCC Nursing Programs receive HRSA grant to take advantage of security weaknesses that are inherent in computer systems,” Moore said. “Sophisticated software tools enable the security specialist to safeguard information and detect unauthorized intrusions. Some of the training of the specialist is geared towards ‘thinking and acting’ as a hacker, this prepares the specialist to better take preemptive measures to avoid a malware catastrophe.”

The Network and Cyber Security Technology degree can be completed in two years and features an articulation pact with the University of Texas at Brownsville for graduates wishing to continue their studies towards a Bachelor degree in Cyber Security. The program is currently negotiating a similar articulation pact with Texas A&M University at San Antonio.

Plans to include the use of En-

Case software also are scheduled for the program. EnCase is the leading forensic software used by law enforcement agencies nationwide to analyze digital media.

Fall registration is under way through Aug. 25. A $10 fee applies during late registration, Aug. 21-25.

To be part of the LCC Network and Cyber Security Technology program or for more information about the degree, contact the LCC Com-

puter Technology Department at 721-5317.

Congressman Henry Cuellar (D-Laredo) and Laredo Community College administrators announced a $911,670 grant from the Health Resources and Services Administration (HRSA) to help increase the number of graduates from the college’s nursing programs; the announcement was made on Monday, Aug. 13 at the Lopez Nursing Building. The grant, which will span three years, will provide funding for the Leading and Advancing MinorityNurses Project (LAMP), an initiative designed to increase the number of highly qualified registered nurses prepared to serve the South Texas region. Pictured at the press conference are (from left) LCC Vice President for Resource Development Dr. Nora Garza, Vice President for Instruction Dr. Dianna Miller, Congressman Cuellar, HRSA LAMP Grant Director Maria Concepcion “Connie” Madrigal, and Nursing Programs Director Hilda Cavazos. ◆

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Commentary

Our Second Amendment Dilemma (SAD)

By JOSé ANTONIO LóPEZ LareDOS Contributor

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s with previous massacres in our country, the tragedy at the Aurora, Colorado movie theater once again took over the airwaves with the subject of guns and the brutality they can cause. In this case, it was viciously devastating.

Sadly, the bad news cycle is now very predictable: (l) the massacre takes place; (2) the news media grabs on to the story 24/7 and the murderer’s life is minutely examined; (3) books and movies are produced on the tragedy; and (4) after a short while, everything goes back to normal as the country waits for the next act of violence. Regrettably, to borrow the phrase, the situation has become the new normal.

Perhaps we have become accustomed to gun violence due to the Afghanistan and Iraq wars whose images of carnage have filled our TV screens for over a decade. We have become used to it. In fact, we seem to have come to accept as inevitable the terrorizing of innocent U.S. families carrying out the popular activity of attending a premier showing of a blockbuster movie.

The plain truth is that the U.S.A. is No. 1 itself – in mass murders.

How notoriously wicked is our gun-toting reputation around the world? A dark joke made the rounds some years ago that illustrates the unusual relationship between some U.S. citizens and their guns. The story goes that as two young men entered a gun rights meeting, one of them said, “There’s my dad,” pointing to a group of men across the room. When his friend asked “Which one?” the young man takes out his .45 and fires his weapon. “My dad’s the one who just hit the floor.” Morbid humor aside, the entire gun rights topic is to say the least, disconcerting.

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As expected, the two-sided debate is polarized and confrontational. On the one hand, those who wish to revisit the Second Amendment say that there’s a lot of difference between owning guns to hunt and to protect one’s home versus purchasing domestic weapons of mass destruction (WMD). Since many are gun owners themselves, they wish to preserve that right. Their aim (no pun intended) is to keep assault weapons and extra capacity ammo clips away from mentally unstable individuals and criminals.

Who can argue that theirs is a sensible and noble goal?

On the other hand, the gun ownership activists’ position is rigid. They do not wish to give up “any” gun rights and rely on an enormous amount of political contributions to keep it that way. In defending their uncompromising position, they have long maintained that (l) guns don’t kill people; people kill people, and (2) when guns are outlawed; only outlaws will have guns.

Those on the other side of the argument counter with their claim that “outlaws” already are very clever at manipulating the laissez-faire rules of gun ownership. They believe that the Colorado theater outlaw was able to use loose existing laws to order, buy, and own assault weapons and hoard thousands of rounds of ammo and other domestic WMD in his small apartment. Nonetheless, what exactly does the Second Amendment say? “A well regulated Militia, being necessary to the security of a free State, the right of the people to keep and bear Arms, shall not be infringed.”

With all due respect to gun rights activists, the amendment was included in the document as an urgent necessity of the time. Our young nation expected war with England. Since the U.S. had no standing army, its citizens were authorized to act as citizen-soldiers to

defend their independence from the Redcoats. So, its intent is clearly obvious and leaves no room for misinterpretation. Most importantly, it is apparent that militias were the original military units that evolved into today’s state national guards. Besides, as every school child knows, we won the war with England. Simply stated; no Redcoat threat, no need for citizen militias.

In the end, the debate is a question between individual versus community rights. Unfortunately, we seem to have slipped into a period in our history where the individual’s rights overshadow those of the community in which they live. It is in applying this one-sided interpretation of the “rights” of the individual that city councils and county commissioners have lost their control to regulate questionable activities at the expense of the “rights” of the community. In doing so, they have allowed unwholesome establishments to invade our neighborhoods. It is also this freethinking interpretation of the Second Amendment that some individuals exercised when they brought their .357 Magnums and assault weapons to intimidate citizens attending rallies supporting the peaceful, nonthreatening health care reform.

Using the Second Amendment as the source for total gun ownership rights grants individual rights to everyone. It means that mentally disturbed people, crooks, and criminals have individual rights also. They then purchase domestic WMD, and use those abhorrent weapons to terrorize public gathering places in our neighborhoods.

Finally, elected officials must look at the grave situation as if the next massacre was going to happen in their district. Whatever it takes, they must avoid having to console yet another set of grieving families. The sad truth is that they can stop the madness now.

They must say “Yes” to the wellbeing of their constituents. They must say “No” to those who want them to ignore the link between mass murder and the easy access to domestic WMD. Above all, they must listen to their hearts as parents and support a more sensible approach to the Second Amendment. The next massacre doesn’t have to happen. It’s time for moderation. It’s time for compromise.

It’s time for both sides to use common sense to reach common ground. It is the right thing to do for the right reasons. ◆

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By randy koch Randy Koch earned his MFA at the University of Wyoming and teaches writing at Bloomsburg University of Pennsylvania.

L

ast month in the San Antonio airport, I shuffled with other travelers through the rope-lined maze leading to the security checkpoint, the strap of my black laptop case cutting into my shoulder, my rolling luggage nipping at my heels. A uniformed man stood at the podium and checked ID’s and boarding passes. Beyond him, passengers pulled shoes off, unbuckled belts, and emptied pockets into gray tubs that they pushed onto the conveyor belt. Then, one by one they stood stocking-footed inside the scanner, feet spread, hands over their heads as if rehearsing for their arrest. Above them hung a sign: “If you were born before this date in 1937, you do not need to remove your coat or shoes when passing through security.” I tugged at my luggage and did the math.

Twenty more years. That’s how much longer I’d be considered a potential threat, apparently still capable of bending over to ignite my shoes or loading the elbow patches of my sport coat with hazardous materials. Twenty more years during which I might incite anarchy and disrupt the accepted order of things despite my devotion to daily flossing, my compliance with speed limits, my alphabetized bookshelves, and my appreciation for parallel vacuum cleaner tracks in a carpet.

Twenty more years--through my 60’s and into my 70’s--even though I’m essentially a pacifist, have never thrown a punch in anger, and haven’t fired a gun since the 1970’s when I shot blackbirds with Dad’s .22 because they were shitting on Mom’s clean laundry drying on the line.

Like the other travelers around me, I was suspect but obedient. I

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Serving Sentences

In Security stayed in line, shuffled along, politely said, “Yes, sir” and “Thank you, ma’am,” and tried not to draw attention to myself. But lately I’ve been bored not only by my own consistent orderliness but also by the repetitive patterns of drama in people’s lives, the banal resolutions of mainstream movies, and the bland, chatty predictability of Billy Collins’s poems. Even the shooting sprees in Colorado and Wisconsin are maddeningly redundant. All of which has recently made the idea of disorder that much more attractive. Maybe that’s what the TSA knows or believes about people like me. Or maybe the sign at the security checkpoint in San Antonio simply echoes what I’ve already been thinking.

If only the officer standing next to the X-ray booth hadn’t shooed me away from security with my belt in my hand, my laptop uncased, shampoo and deodorant in the baggy begging to be repacked. If only he’d looked at the book I carried, Dean Young’s The Art of Recklessness, and flipped it open. If only he’d skimmed the page where the marker was wedged and read the incriminating lines: “The oppressive weaponry of lexicon must be turned back on the oppressor, exploded, so the poem not only seeks to incite rebellion in society, it enacts rebellion in language. Burn, baby, burn.” If he had, he might have reconsidered my harmlessness, interrogated me about the dangers of language arranged into meaninglessness, maybe even extended my stay in San Antonio.

But he didn’t, so I hurried to my gate, trudged down the jetway, and boarded the 757 bound for Atlanta.

I hoisted my bag in the overhead

compartment and found my seat by the window behind the right wing.

I pulled Young’s book out of my laptop case, which I secured under the seat in front of me. I buckled my seatbelt. I turned off my cell phone.

I made sure my seat back was in its full upright position. This was neither the time nor the place for anarchy, for chaos, for recklessness.

But when it comes to writing and especially poetry, I feel the need to make mayhem manifest. I admit that I have long gravitated toward symmetrical syntax and prepositional metaphors, lines uniformed in pressed and starched meters, and subtle but recognizable resolutions that reveal the writer’s paraphrasable wisdom. The order and craft of

such work have long provided a security that appeals to me. But lately it seems like sleepwalking, and too often I feel that I know what writers will say even before they or I say it. Writing shouldn’t just reenact the past or endlessly chew regurgitated ideas like so much cud. Writing should feel dangerous, should arrest our attention, jerk us out of line, ransack our baggage, and hustle us onto a plane whose destination isn’t apparent until after we’ve landed.

Just once, I want to misbehave, vandalize, desecrate. I want to unshackle language serving standard, grammatical sentences. For once, I want my writing to incite the kind of chaos I’ve too long been incapable of. ◆

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 Continued FROM page 16 this.”

According to Nelson, in 2012, 30 percent of LISD schools met the federal Adequate Yearly Progress (AYP) standards. “The passing standard for reading is 86 percent. In 2014, 100 percent of our students will have to meet the standards.” As a measure of comparison, Nelson said that 13 of San Antonio’s 16 school districts failed to meet all AYP criteria, and neither did the United Independent School District.

Changing gears from educational philosophy and method, Nelson discussed the realm of property acquisitions, campuses, and expansion.

“LISD wants to end up with Veterans Field. It’s where Martin High School plays baseball. The City wants to sell it to us for $3.6 million, but it is on the appraisal rolls at $2.3 million,” Nelson said, adding that LISD would also like to purchase the old Mercy Hospital campus in

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the Heights.

A planned $35 million re-make of Nixon High School will begin over the 2012 Christmas break. Students returning to classes in January 2013 will do so in 50 portable buildings while the campus is razed and rebuilt in three phases that will culminate in January of 2015. The rebuilding will include incorporating the Vidal M. Treviño School of Fine and Performing Arts into the campus.

Moving the VMT magnet program to the Nixon campus will vacate several of the district’s properties in the St. Peter’s Historic Neighborhood. “We have plans to keep the old Urbahn Elementary building and to turn it into a non-traditional high school,” Nelson said.

The superintendent said he would like to establish an early college high school with Laredo Community College, duplicating the joint effort in place between LISD and TAMIU. ◆

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49

By Juan Alanis

Alanis, former of Laredo, is currently a meteorology student at Mississippi State University. He is a member of the American Meteorology Society (AMS) and Webb County Coordinator for the CoCoRaHS/National Weather Service rainfall observer program

T

he latest weather data shows July 2012 finished as the nation’s hottest month ever, though ironically, still does not compare to the heatwave of July 1936.

In a release earlier this month from the NOAA’s National Climatic Data Center, July 2012 ranked as the hottest month ever recorded in the lower 48 states, with an average temperature of 77.6ºF, which is 3.3ºF above the 20th century average and surpassing the previous record of 77.4º from 1936. Record keeping began back in 1895.

Looking through archived data and news reports, July 1936 was so hot, highways and bridges were melting – literally.

Similar to 1936, this summer’s heat was focused on the Great Plains and Great Lakes region of the United States. Although very hot indeed with thousands of temperature records broken, 1936 still makes the summer of 2012 look “cold” – relatively speaking.

For example, only one state, Virginia, recorded its all-time hottest July ever in 2012, running about 4º above average. Meanwhile, in July 1936 a total of eight U.S states and two Canadian provinces recorded their hottest July’s ever, which still stand to this day.

These eight states ran about 8º above average at the time.

This summer, while the heat was persistent, running between 105º to 115º in many areas, temperatures still did not top those of July 1936. All states in the Great Plains, except Oklahoma, hit 120º or higher during that year.

The states of North Dakota and South Dakota recorded their second warmest July ever this year, running about 5º above the normal. These same two states had their hottest July ever in 1936, runnin,g a whopping 11º above the normal. In other words, 2012 was

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Keeping a Weather Eye

Heat of Summer 2012 pales alongside heat wave of 1936 not even close to breaking the heat records from 1936 in the Midwest where no locations have hit 120º this year.

The average high temperature of all of Iowa’s 113 weather stations on July 15, 1936 was a whopping 108.7º. This year, it was not even close, with some locations not even hitting 100º on July 15 or at some point during the month.

Many cities across the Midwest have had between 20 to 30 days with 100º+ heat this year, which is well above the normal, however they’ve not come close to 1936. In Missouri, data shows that despite this summer’s heatwave, 1936 had many more 100º days.

St. Louis has had 21 days over 100º this year, and Columbia 23. In 1936, these cities had 37 and 44 respectively. In Topeka, Kansas, there have been 23 days over 100º, which is well above the yearly average of 7. In 1936, however, the city recorded a whopping 57 days over 100º according to National Weather Service data. So yes, it has been hot this summer, but for these cities to match 1936, they would need almost another full month of 100º heat, which is not likely.

And in places such as New York City, Detroit and even in Canada, all which had temperatures between 105º and 110º for days at a time, the heat of July 1936 was so intense, that asphalt streets and sidewalks began to buckle and soften. Railroad tracks and metal bridge girders twisted and warped in the heat, according to archived newspaper reports. According to the Farmer’s Almanac, soil temperatures soared to over 200ºF at the height of the July 1936 heatwave.

It is suspected that one reason temperatures went so high that year was the lack of vegetation caused by many years of drought across the Great Plains.

In all, that year’s 110º to 120º + heat

REGIONAL RAINFALL REPORT STATION

LOCATION WB2

Heights-Garfield St

WB 5 Callaghan Ranch

WB 6 McPherson Rd/Chacon Creek

WB 9 Mangana Hein Rd 8E

WB 12 Del Mar C

WB 13 Del Mar N/Preston Ln

WB 17 Riverhill

WB 18 Hillside @Springfield

WB 21 Shiloh /Woodridge

WB 22 Laredo 23.7 ENE

WB 23 Freer 29.5 WSW

WB 25 United South MS area

WB 26 Zaragoza St-downtown

WB 27 Jacaman Rd/ Saldana

WB 34 Mines Road—Investment Ave

WB 40 McPherson Rd/Country Club

WB 41 Mines Road-Green Ranch

WB 43 El Cenizo

Laredo KGNS TV

Laredo Airport

Cotulla Airport

Hebbronville Airport

JULY 1.57” 2.96” 1.29” 0.92” 1.96” 3.65” 0.67” 2.64” 3.54” 4.27” 3.10” 0.66” 1.49” 1.92” 5.39” 3.82” 3.11” 2.07” 1.35” 1.39” 2.49” 4.69”

Source: CoCoRaHS/National Weather Service

LAREDO WEATHER STATS:

July 2012 Normal* Avg high Avg low Rain

99.5 77.2 1.35”

100.1 76.0 2.20”

*Normal refers to climate normal from 1981 to 2010

killed over 5,000 in the United States and at least 750 in Canada. What made things worse of course was that there was no air conditioning in 1936 and many did not have power for fans.

Many cooled off in lakes, ponds, or on blocks of ice that were brought in, though even then, it did not help much. In some areas such as Michigan, heat index values reached near 130º, according the NWS Detroit.

And while much of the nation has been warmer than normal this summer, Laredo has only had “normal” heat. The Gateway City finished July 2012 at 88.3º, which is almost at the

normal of 88.1º. Among temperature records for Laredo, July 2012 does not even rank in the top 20 warmest, with the hottest July ever recorded in 1998 with an average temperature of 92.8º.

For comparison purposes, July 1936 had an average temperature of 86.1º, which ranks below the long term average.

The latest outlooks in climate prediction show the warmer than normal weather likely to continue through the rest of the year across the Midwest and Great Lakes areas of the country, with south Texas running closer to normal toward the late fall and winter. ◆ W W W.L A RED OS N E WS.CO M

Feature

News

Gateway Gatos, PETCO host Cat Appreciation Day

Caravan for Peace stops in Laredo

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By BERTA TORRES LareDOS Contributor

aredo feline lovers came out in good numbers for Cat Appreciation Day co-sponsored

by Gateway Gatos and Petco.

The third annual event was held July 28 at PETCO’s San Bernardo store.

Prior to registration for a 10-category contest, City Council member Jorge Vera and Mayor Raul Salinas proclaimed Saturday, July 28 as Cat Appreciation Day. PETCO donated prizes for the winners.

Categories and winners for the Live Cat Category were: Longest Whiskers (Gracie) , Most Vocal (Mango) , Best Dressed (Sasha Sphynx) , Bushiest Tail (Purrl) , and Sweetest Face (Luna) .

The categories and winners for the Cat Photo Category were: Most Relaxed (Miracle) , Most Unique Outfit (Sasha Sphynx) , Cutest Expression (Crocket) , With Most Unique Friend (Bibi) , and Silliest Pose (Mango) . A special award was given to Oliver for the Most Moody cat.

Judges for the event were Lulu Liendo, Herlinda Martinez, and Vera.

The $1 contest entry fee was donated to Gateway Gatos, and all proceeds are in a special fund to bring the SNAP neuter/spay mobile clinic from

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San Antonio to Laredo.

Upcoming Gateway Gato events are the Blessing of all Animals on Sunday, October 7 from 4 to 5 p.m. at St. Peter’s Plaza and the Christmas Animal Posada on Sunday, December 16 from 3 to 4 p.m. also at St. Peter’s Plaza.

The mission of Gateway Gatos of Laredo is to protect and foster respect for all cats in the Gateway City.

Last February Mayor Salinas and the City Council furthered the Gateway Gatos’ mission by funding the SNAP Neuter/Spay mobile clinic to Laredo in May. One veterinarian and two technicians neutered/spayed 85 cats in two days.

With the help of all cat lovers in the community, Gateway Gatos hopes to bring the SNAP neuter/spay mobile clinic to Laredo at least three or four times a year in an effort to reduce the ocat population of feral cats.

The board meeting of Gateway Gatos of Laredo are held the first Tuesday of each month at 7 p.m. in room #2 of Our Lady of Guadalupe Church, 1700 San Francisco Ave. If you would like to become a board member or a volunteer, or if you need further information on the organization, please contact Birdie Torres at (956) 286-7866. ◆

by MARIELA RODRIGUEZ

he Caravan for Peace with Justice and Dignity, led by Mexican poet Javier Sicilia – leader of the movement for Peace with Justice and Dignity (MPJD) – stopped at St. Peter’s Plaza on August 23.

After his son Juan Francisco was murdered at the hands of traffickers in Cuernavaca in 2011, the poet retired from his literary career and has led other caravans across Mexico, managing to collect numerous personal stories of the destruction the drug trade has wreaked.

Sicilia, along with the families of other victims, seeks to create a dialogue on drug policy, gun trafficking, money laundering, immigration, U.S. border security, and the failed war on drugs. The caravan also seeks to provide and commence the healing process for the families of victims of drug violence.

“Our purpose is to honor our victims, to make their names and faces visible on both sides of the border,” Sicilia said, adding, “We will travel across the United States to raise awareness of the unbearable pain and loss caused by the drug war and of the enormous shared responsibility for protecting families and communities in both our countries.”

Many family members of victims from both sides of the border expressed in their own words the consequences of the escalating violence of the cartel wars.

Daniela Ortiz, the wife of Sergio R. Ortiz who disappeared from Nuevo Laredo on Januaray 2, 2003, spoke of the loss of her husband. When Ortiz initially contacted the police she was met with a lack of regard. She said, “It felt like I was brushed off. Like my husband’s disappearance meant he was into bad things or had been living a double life, as suggested by one of the officers – which was not the case. My husband was a good man.”

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“They went to my home and raided his office for hours; until I finally asked what it was they were looking for, because if it was dirt on him so as to justify his disappearance, they weren’t going to find it,” said Ortiz.

Fed up with the lack of help from authorities she turned to a private detective to search and find those responsible for her husband’s disappearance.

Ortiz proclaimed, “It’s no longer about why this happened. What hurts more is not knowing what became of his physical body.” She said, “I heard about this caravan through support groups of individuals in similar situations: I commend Sicilia for bringing so many people together and representing the thousands of individuals plagued by clouds of uncertainty about the whereabouts of their loved ones.”

The caravan is seeking diverse forms of drug regulation and decriminalization. It also seeks to stop the illegal smuggling of weapons across the border, to combat money laundering and hold financial institutions accountable; to immediately suspend U.S. assistance to Mexico’s armed forces; to end the militarization of the border and the criminalization of immigrants; and to ensure the adoption of policies that protect the dignity of every human being.

The caravan is on a 6,000 mile journey across the U.S., making stops in over 20 cities in an effort to create a bi-national movement against the cartel wars and the failed drug war that has resulted in a death toll of more than 70,000 in Mexico and along the border in the past five years. The moving presence of the Caravan for Peace with Justice and Dignity in Laredo called the hour — now — to demand new policies that will foster peace, safety, justice, and human dignity on both sides of the border.

For more information visit www. caravanforpeace.org ◆ LareDOS I AU G US T 2012 I

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Feature

Letter from the Village, Olympic edition

By IDA SWEARINGEN LareDOS Contributor

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than you wanted to know about slugs.

Also, a female slug lays 30 eggs at a time unless she happens to be one of the Spanish slugs that have made their way to our fair isle and apparently lay hundreds of eggs every chance they get.

The only real solution to the problem is to go out late at night with scissors or secateurs and snap them in half. When we first moved here someone told us about doing this – a sweet and mild woman who looked as if she wouldn’t harm anyone. “I take my secateurs and cut them in half,” she said. We were shocked. Six years later and we are out every night on a search and destroy mission in the garden.

In the name of common decency I have insisted on a dedicated pair of scissors. I refuse to cut paper with scissors

that have slime on them. We recently read you can trap the little monsters inside melon skins so we have been stuffing ourselves with cantaloupe and honeydews and setting up the residue for slug traps. It does seem to be working.

This all comes as such a surprise because in Minnesota our slugs were small and fairly manageable. You just set out a pan of stale beer and they would all come and drink themselves to death. Here they consider beer traps as the local pub. They have a few and toddle on their way, eating the dahlias down to the ground.

Summer has finally come to us and we actually had a full week of sun. After all the moaning through early summer, everyone is out frolicking and playing. We were due for a break. ◆

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hose of you who have television sets probably know that on Friday, August 3, our Queen parachuted into the Olympic Stadium, assisted by her loyal consort, Prince Phillip, and Mr. James Bond, better known as 007. She is a grand old queen and the rest of the royals are doing pretty good, too.

Yesterday Zara Phillips, the queen’s granddaughter, won silver in the horsey business. As for HRH herself, word on the street is that she plans to compete in the high hurdles. Stay tuned.

Here in the village we are fighting things that threaten our f lowers, our

vegetables and our eggs. Let’s deal with eggs first. I have always been fairly sanguine about foxes. So they eat a few bunnies, lurk around the hedges, and trot across gardens. We must learn to share our planet with all creatures, right? Well that was okay until the fox killed all the egg man’s chickens, and we can no longer have fresh eggs out of the roadside box on the way to the store. Suddenly it is clear to me why fox hunting is a sport here. I say nuke the devils and bring me my eggs.

Then there are slugs. We are truly fighting a war against them this year.

Did you know that slugs are hermaphrodites and that they have corkscrew penises? When two males mate up, one penis falls off and that one has to finish its life as a female. Bet that was more

Our view at Crackington Haven Cornwall

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Notes from Lala Land

By dr. neo gutierrez

Former Laredoan Julia Vera co-stars in Aztec Warrior

Dr. Neo Gutierrez is a Ph.D. in Dance and Fine Arts, Meritorious Award in Laredo Fine Arts recipient 2009 from Webb Co. Heritage Foundation, Laredo Sr. Int’l 2008, Laredo MHS Tiger Legend 2002, and Sr. Int’l de Beverly Hills, 1997.

Contact neodance@aol.com.

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ulia Vera, Laredo’s gift to Hollywood, spent most of last month in New Orleans in grand style, co-starring in a new film, Aztec Warrior, an action comedy starring Luis Guzman of Boogie Nights fame.

Luis plays the warrior in the lucha-libre inspired movie, where he goes up against his rival, El Diablo, played by Mexican TV star comedian Eugenio Derbez.

Vera, who said the film was shot July 9 through August 3, writes, “New Orleans is one of the most beautiful cities I have ever seen. Rich in history. Beautiful homes. And the Pontchartrain Hotel, where we stayed, is one of the oldest hotels in this city. The accommodations were exquisite. I am not exaggerating when I say I could have put a family of 10 in my suite, all this thanks to our Screen Actors union, which assures that actors on location stay in 4-star hotels and fly first class. My first day there was a Sunday and the next day I was fitted for my wardrobe. Also, I met with hair and make-up specialists. The costume designer had many outfits that were pretty nice. Graciela Mazon, the wardrobe designer, is very well known for having worked on all of Robert Rodriguez’s movies. She also designed costumes for Antonio Banderas’ movie in which he made his directorial debut. She had small sizes for my character because they had been picked for Lupe Ontiveros, may she rest in peace. Because of Lupe’s illness, she opted out of the film and I was cast at the last minute. Little did we know just how sick she was. So Graciela had to go shopping for my size. Shoes were no problem because I had brought mine.

“Bud and Tom were the hairdressers. I will never forget how kind and

Julia Vera with Eugenio Derbez nice they were to me. For make-up we had two very lovely ladies, Gillian and Hally. They all have such amazing credits. After all those consultations, I was driven back to the hotel.

Then came time to explore my environment. The restaurants around the hotel are the best. I had to keep reminding myself that I had just been measured and fitted for costumes, which meant I had to watch what I ate. It was so difficult not to try the variety of the exotic food available.

“The cast was a surprise to me – starting with Nadine Velasquez. I played her mother on My Name is Earl. Actor Harvey Guillen I had met at a film festival where I saw his short film The Tux. I remembered back then we end-

ed up sitting together during a banquet for the film at Paramount Pictures. I remember telling him then that he was very good at this craft, and that I felt sure he was going to be working a lot.

Harvey was kind of bummed out at the time because they kept telling him that he needed to lose weight. Yet, his career zoomed, and he is still gordito. After our work on this film, he flew to Georgia to do a movie with Owen Wilson.

He has not stopped working since we last met. In this movie Harvey plays my wimpy son.

“While watching TV in my room, I saw three movies in which Luis Guzman appears. He is a very cool, easy-going guy. The story line for the movie begins with a Mexican luchador, the Aztec Warrior, who loses to El Diablo, played beautifully by Eugenio Derbez. Aztec Warrior had never lost a match, ever, but he got lazy and drank too much and got out of shape. He was humiliated, so he came to the USA, where he drinks himself to homelessness. His sidekick, a midget named Esquinkle, played by Gabriel Acopa, is a very well-known luchador in Mexico. In the film, he comes to the USA to find El Diablo to redeem his standing because people are calling for him because El Diablo has ruined la lucha libre.

“Azteca comes to my tire shop to buy tires for his car, and that is how we meet. My son, El Gordo, had just been beaten up by a gang while standing on a corner that had the arrow sign advertising our shop.

“We all worked hard and fast because of the weather. It rained every single day we were shooting. Then the heat would come up. You think Laredo is hot...but in New Orleans the humidity is a killer. Therefore, adjustments had to be made. Day shooting became night shooting. The whole crew was very cooperative. I never heard one single person complain.

“I found Eugenio Derbez to be a total gentleman, very humble. He was friendly with everyone, he took his role very seriously. He did a scene that, when he finished, we all applauded. Of course, lately Derbez has been all over the tube with his recent wedding, featured in great detail via video on Mexican TV. “As you can imagine, I had very little preparation for my role, but the producers and the director went out of their way to answer my questions and help me understand the action.

Since we shot scenes out of sequence, it was hard for me to keep up. But everyone would help me out. And I am a quick study. Every night I would come back to my room and would reread the script. Then I would get to the honey wagon and there would be new re-writes, which is not unusual.

It happens all the time on all shows.”

As of now, there are 40 films, TV shows, and commercials being filmed in Louisiana. Heat, humidity, and all, Julia would still love to go back and do another movie in New Orleans – anytime.

And on that note, it’s time for – as Norma Adamo says – TAN TAN! ◆ LareDOS I AU G US T 2012 I

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Maverick Ranch Notes

By bebe & sissy fenstermaker

Time wasted trying to find historical commission meeting; hen house restoration comes to completion

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e wasted one whole day trying to appear before the Bexar County Historical Commission. We may have made our appearance more difficult by taking the city bus from the IH10/Hwy. 1604 bus stop to downtown. We’ve become fans of this express bus, which is highly air-conditioned, fast, and a cheap ticket to business downtown.

We got to the meeting on time, but alas, waited over an hour for the commissioners to appear. When the secretary finally came back from lunch she informed us the meeting was underway across the city at the Witte Museum.

She said she’d posted that change on the courthouse door (so it was legal) but not on the website. Who drives downtown daily to check the courthouse door (a 60 mile roundtrip from NW Bexar County)?

Since we had no wheels to make an effort to get to the museum in time we left mad as wet setting hens. We had time sensitive questions to ask them and now have to ask via email and try to get their responses in time.

I have been watering small wildlife for a month now. All moisture has dried up and they would have to make long treks for daily water if I didn’t make the rounds. All kinds of animals appear when they hear the pickup stop and the tailgate bang down. They know the water tank will soon be filling up.

It’s a great opportunity to bird watch along with squirrels, raccoons by day, deer, and rabbits. Sometimes the turkey hens and their poults wait in the brush for me to leave and then rush over for their share. Several times a feral hog family has intermixed (somewhat) with the turkey families, a very odd sight.

They don’t exactly get together, but they

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stand nearby in their group waiting for the other group to drink and move on.

The chicken pen restoration is just about completed. It has taken two months from start to near finish and may take another month for the small details.

My chickens have been brave troopers to have withstood heat and dust day after day waiting for the pen to become safe again.

The first pen was built in 1981 and was designed by Papa and built by Mr. Gloria. Papa told us how it should be and directed the construction, I got all materials and Mr. Gloria put it up. Originally the chickens pen was the first of two attached pens and the second pen was my garden. About ten years later the garden lost out to the chickens when they needed more room. That change required putting a top on the garden pen because hawks and others are happy to sit on a corner of the pen and dive for their lunch.

Mr. Engelke was the builder second time around. Werner Allerkamp, expert fence builder, was on hand at that time, building fence somewhere on the ranch.

He quickly dug holes for new posts. We cut the posts and cemented them in. Mr. Engelke made his own changes (i.e. did it his own way) and we added a roof over one side of the first pen. The second pen was to have a roof, too, but it never got completed. Mr. Engelke had come to the end of his days of construction at the Ranch. He was not well and died about a year later.

The Engelke pen lasted 20 years until the chicken wire covering the top rusted, resulting in big coon highway holes.

Now the top is replaced along with the skirting all around the base of the pen.

Saul Ramirez is the builder this time, and he put up more posts and a mas-

sive framework to hold the top. The pen looks like a forest. The missing roof is to be added when Saul has more time.

The chicken pen is the one structure on the ranch that is not historic, so we do not have to follow old guidelines. It’s a good thing, because each of the three builds have been unique, reflecting the designer/builder in each case.

-Bebe Fenstermaker The first part of June was sweltering, with most of the days reaching 100° and several exceeding it. Before the month was out we were lucky and had a few scattered showers in the area.

We have fared even better in July.

There have been cooler temperatures, continued showers, and days that are completely overcast and many that are partly cloudy. As result of these better times, I’m seeing some spring wildflowers reappearing along my evening walking route. In particular, blue gilia I do not remember seeing bloom after the first of June. It is a beautiful blue. What grasses survived last summer’s scorching are green and thriving so far this year.

The bucks are fat and sleek and their antlers are impressive for our area. Sixty years ago the deer here were the size of a large dog. We always heard they had a mineral deficiency. Most people who have moved out here from a city would swear the deer size increase is due to the lush planting they’ve done around their houses.

Bebe and I attended a Texas Watershed Steward workshop recently in Bexar County. The Texas AgriLife Extension Service put it on. We had gone to one in Kendall County two

years ago due to the concern about the Upper Cibolo Creek pollution.

The recent workshop was for Bexar County and covered the San Antonio River watershed. Again, we were impressed by the presenters whose information was up to date. We discussed the many water pollution problems in Bexar County.

I am at my wits end with a raccoon who has trapped itself between two layers of chicken wire lining the chicken coop. It’s happened before but those animals always found the way out. This one doesn’t seem to want to get out. I wish it would hurry up and decide to get out because hauling the hens to safer overnight places is getting old.

We pick up loose feathers all the time when we are out and about.

Trying to identify what bird species the feather came from and what type of feather, wing, tail or body, is a guessing game. We recently went to a workshop on bird feather identification to help solve the game.

David Scott, co-author of Bird Feathers, a Guide to North American Species; Stackpole Books, 2010, was the instructor. He discussed structure, types and shapes of wing feathers, also the function each feather plays in getting the bird into flight.

Wing shape has a direct correlation to birds’ habitat and types of flight, such as for speed or maneuverability. Tail feathers can be curved or straight, which indicates whether the bird is more ground-dweller or flier. We had a feather ID quiz at the end of the workshop, and many of us were amazed to be able to match a feather to its bird.

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TAMIU

TAMIU alum first Hispanic woman in history to earn Public Administration doctorate from Rutgers-Newark

By MIKA AKIKUNI LareDOS Contributor “Education is a label of self love.”

Armed with this quote once heard from an undergraduate class professor at Texas A&M International University (TAMIU), Karina Moreno Saldívar earned a master of public administration degree from TAMIU in 2008 while working a full-time job.

Little did she know then that four years later, the road to success would lead to a much higher life platform.

This year, Moreno Saldívar, an immigrant from Monterrey, México, became the first Hispanic woman to earn a doctoral degree in public administration from Rutgers University-Newark, a program ranked 7th in the nation by the U.S. News and

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World Report.

In September, she will begin work as a full-time faculty member at Kean University’s Department of Public Administration in Union, N.J. Moreno Saldívar, whose doctoral dissertation studied the effect of the Arizona immigration law (Senate Bill 1070) on Latino political attitudes and behaviors, said she is proud of her most recent accomplishment.

“I was able to keep focused due to a combination of factors,” she said, “Knowing I was representing Latinas in higher education and knowing my dissertation research was giving a voice to a group that is often excluded or underrepresented were extremely powerful motivators.”

She thanked her husband, Chris-

topher Saldívar; TAMIU MPA professor Dr. Peter Haruna; the faculty at Rutgers and family and friends for supporting her throughout her program completion.

“This endeavor was possible because I had the unconditional support of my husband, family and friends,” she said.

Moreno Saldívar, daughter of Israel and Idalia Moreno, is the first in her family to earn a college degree.

“My parents are two extremely brave people,” she said, “We are immigrants from Monterrey, Nuevo León, México. I dedicated my dissertation to them because they were brave enough to venture into something completely new and unknown so that my younger siblings and I could have an opportunity at both a better education and a better life.”

TAMIU’s MPA program propelled her to pursue a doctoral degree, Moreno Saldívar said.

“TAMIU’s MPA program is a quality program,” she said, “It is what motivated me to continue with my studies. I decided to apply to Ph.D. programs after discussing this possibility with my mentor, Dr. Haruna, who is an excellent professor in TAMIU’s MPA program. This relationship was always accessible over email and phone and was incredibly helpful throughout my

first year at Rutgers.”

She said TAMIU can take students as far as they are willing to go.

“I was one of six students accepted to Rutgers’ doctoral program (in public administration) in 2009, and I finished my Ph.D. with a 4.0 GPA in three years with two publications in scholarly journals,” she said.

She said she feels powered by her alma mater in many ways.

“TAMIU’s purpose and mission is a very noble and admirable one,” she said, “It fuels students like myself who are the first in their families to attend college and it does so in an individualized way that makes it possible not only to achieve that baccalaureate degree but to do the unimaginable.”

She said she never imagined she would some day earn a doctoral degree.

“I had never imagined prior to sitting in that classroom as an undergraduate student that I’d continue with my education until achieving a Ph.D., so, TAMIU, to me, is empowerment and for that, I am very grateful to the University.”

In the meantime, Saldívar said she and her husband, who also graduated this spring with an MPA degree from Metropolitan College of New York, will give back to their community by running the ING New York City Marathon on Nov. 4 as part of a fundraiser for an international organization, Save a Child’s Heart.

“We saw this as our opportunity to plant goodwill and peace in the world, and what better race to do than one that goes through all five boroughs of New York?” she said. ◆ LareDOS I AU G US T 2012 I

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By salo Otero Salo Otero is the director of marketing for the South Texas Food Bank. He can be reached at sotero@ southexasfoodbank.org or by calling 956-726-3120.

By SALO OTERO South Texas Food Bank Marketing Director

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STFB lauds H-E-B for helping fill Empty Bowls now Calton Road store to launch the most daunting and crucial mission of feeding the hungry.

The Laredo- Webb County Food Bank was born at a humble warehouse on the grounds of the former Laredo Air Force Base from which supplemental food was distributed to the unemployed, under-employed, and those living on fixed incomes like the elderly and military veterans. H-E-B supplied the food bank’s first coordinator before a fulltime executive director was hired.

From that December of 1989 forward H-E-B and the Laredo-Webb County Food Bank grew side-by-side with the mission’s demand, moving to the current west Laredo location in 1996 at 1907 Freight at Riverside. The facility was bought via a donation from the Lamar Bruni Vergara Trust.

The Laredo-Webb County Food Bank

became the South Texas Food Bank in February 2009 with an affiliation with Feeding America and the Texas Food Bank Network. It added seven other counties from Starr (Rio Grande City) to Val Verde (Del Rio).

When the Laredo-Webb County Food Bank started, it was distributing one million pounds of product per year. It has now increased to 10 million pounds per year. H-E-B was the No. 1 food donor in 2011, giving the STFB more than one million pounds.

STFB executive director Alfonso Casso Jr. applauds H-E-B for its commitment. “H-E-B has been a partner with the STFB since Day One. We are grateful on behalf of the thousands of families we serve monthly. H-E-B has taken the need to help our neighbors with the most precious commodity – food – to the utmost level.”

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ormally, Laredoans don’t say, “I’m going to the grocery store.” Instead, the phrase used is, “I’m going to H-E-B.” Or more often than not, it’s, “Voy al H-E-B.” Further explanation: they’re going to buy groceries. H-E-B has been a destination for Laredo grocery shoppers for decades. Eight decades to be exact.

The H-E-B grocery chain is celebrating 80 years in Laredo. It now has eight Gateway City stores. However, perhaps the most significant Laredo grocery store the Howard E. Butt family has ever opened was in 1989. It’s when H-E-B personnel and a group of Laredo leaders met at the

South Texas Food Bank

H-E-B presented a $7,000 check from its annual customer tear pad fundraiser to the South Texas Food Bank mission of feeding the hungry. Pictured from left to right are HEB’s Eddie García, Gaby DeLeon, Linda Tovar, Greg Wood and the STFB’s Alfonso Casso, Salo Otero, board member Odie Arambula, Mike Kazen, and Alma Blanco.

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This year alone, H-E-B helped the STFB raise funds with a Diamond level sponsorship at Empty Bowls, donations from its customer tear pad program, an H-E-B employees volleyball tournament and a grant for the SNAP (formerly food stamps) outreach program. Also, H-E-B employees were among the volunteers at the Empty Bowls VI dinner.

H-E-B store director Gabriela “Gaby” De Leon is a valued member of the South Texas Food Bank board of directors.

H-E-B, which opened its first store in Kerrville, was recognized by the STFB at the Empty Bowls VI fundraiser at the Laredo Energy Arena on Aug. 2. The event featured a concert by 1970s and 80s music sensation Creedence Clearwater Revisited, formerly Creedence Clearwater Revival (CCR) and several artwork bowls and canvas paintings sold at a silent auction. More than 4,000 attended.

H-E-B executives Danny Flores and Eddie García, based in San Antonio, were on hand, representing HE-B for the pre-concert presentation on stage. The native Laredoan Garcia, with H-E-B for 59 years, has been the organization’s main cog in its involvement with Texas food banking.

Garcia and Flores were all smiles when STFB resident artist Pancho Farias and STFB Empty Bowls VI board co-chairs Anna Benavides Galo and Kevin Romo unveiled a bowl painted by Farias depicting the first H-E-B in Kerrville. Garcia and Flores took the art piece to San Antonio, noting they would show it to the Butt family.

The STFB is not the only Laredo non-profit H-E-B’s Butt family supports. H-E-B is deeply involved with other organizations and causes. ◆ W W W.L A RED OS N E WS.CO M

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 Continued FROM page 33 between the viga-and-carrizo ceiling of my rooms and the floor of the rooms above. The din I heard through an entire night sounded like five or six human-sized raccoons taking turns throwing down their combat boots and walking as hard and furious as possible on their wooden floors, speaking in raised voices over the blare of their TV well into the early morning.

Management addressed the noise the next day with a phone call that quieted things in the suite above mine, so much so that I was able to write for hours.

Pack lightly if you plan a stay at the Lodge. Getting to your room may entail walking with your luggage in a maze of banks of steps.

You will be able to park near your room only if you are staying in the newer motel part of the facility. Run by the really good and competent folks of the Texas Parks and Wildlife Department, the Lodge offers no porters.

So much for an infelicitous stay in a very beautiful old lodge.

The lodge, a splendid white sight on the side of a mountain, and its enduring hand-made furnishings

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are not only beautiful creations – they are testimony to American ingenuity and a commitment to move through dire economic times.

Members of the CCC, who were paid $30 a month – $25 of which went home to their families – also carved a road up the mountain in Fort Davis State Park and built some of the park’s other memorable landmarks from native stone. The narrow single lane road lined with dry stacked mountain rocks serves all these years later as a bike trail.

The newer road up the mountain, though narrow, ends at a beautiful stone building built by the CCC that looks out onto Fort Davis below and a vast expanse of the Chihuahuan Desert. It is the trailhead for a 4.5mile hike that ends at the Ft. Davis National Monument below, once a frontier military outpost for the Indian Wars.

THE BUFFALO SOLDIERS While I am no fan of the genocides and annihilations of the military taming of the west, the museum at the old outpost provides a good narrative for the U.S. Cavalry’s effort to make it easier for emigrants to establish towns and hold onto lands where buffalo roamed and Native Americans once lived.

My personal point of view aside, the museum exhibits offered a vivid picture of military regalia, weapons, philosophy, and what filled the lives of the men and their families who lived on the Ft. Davis compound.

Two exhibits that most called my attention – that of the found toys of children who had lived there; and the other of the regiments of the federal Buffalo Soldiers who served exclusively at Ft. Davis from 1867 to 1881.

Comprised largely of men who were emancipated slaves, the regiments took possession of the fort abandoned by Union forces during the Civil War, and there in Ft. Davis against the backdrop of rugged mountains and the Staked Plains they wrote a significant chapter of the history of African Americans in the U.S. military. In addition to continuing to build the fort and keep it in repair, providing safety for travelers and mail carriers on the Trans Pecos stretch from San Antonio to El Paso, fending off the incursions of the Apache Victorio, the Buffalo soldiers stretched 91 miles of telegraph line, a vital communications tool.

The Buffalo Soldiers served alongside white officers and enlist-

ed men from 1881 to 1885.

Another chapter of African American history at Ft. Davis, one fueled by prejudice, played out in the court martial of Lt. Henry Ossian Flipper, a former slave from Georgia and the first African American to graduate from the U.S. Military Academy at West Point. Lt. Flipper, an assistant quartermaster at Ft. Davis and the only black officer in the regular army, was wrongfully accused of embezzlement and “conduct unbecoming of an officer and a gentleman.” He was tried at the post chapel and found guilty of misconduct, though not of theft.

He was dismissed from service in December 1881, but went on to have a rewarding career in engineering and mining. Until his death in 1940 at the age of 84, Flipper made eight rigorous attempts through Congressional committees to restore his military rank.

The U.S. Army reviewed his case in 1976 and posthumously awarded the officer an honorable discharge dated June 30, 1882. In 1999, President Bill Clinton granted Lt. Flipper a full pardon.

The fort museum, which is Continued on next page

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housed in what had been the enlisted men’s barracks, dedicates considerable space – more than a footnote – to the story of Lt. Henry Flipper’s service as an officer and his eventual exoneration.

The condition of the fort today, and ongoing restoration projects, do much to evoke the military order that had once been there, and while many of the post’s adobe buildings remain in excellent condition, time and weather have claimed other buildings. Fort Davis was abandoned in 1891.

On the day I visited the fort – as I waited for George, Emily, Forrest, and Forrest’s grandson Asher to make their walking descent from the state park – I came across three masons who were expertly using a mixture of mud to mortar adobe brick into the foundation of what had once been the quartermaster storehouse building. The fort’s corrals and other buildings relative to keeping 475 horses at the ready are long gone, but their adobe footprints remain.

Touring the grounds at the Fort Davis compound was not unlike my childhood explorations of the Fort McIntosh stables, the brig, and the chapel. The two forts bear other similarities – they were established within years of each other, both were abandoned at the beginning of the Civil War, and both were reoccupied by the U.S. Cavalry at about the same time.

GREAT CUSTOMER SERVICE OVERALL The town of Fort Davis is home to many friendly, courteous folks who understand the relationship between customer service, tourism, and return business. The federal employees who staffed the museum and the grounds of the fort were no different, and the same goes for the state park rangers and staffers charged with the safety of visitors and the cleanliness of the natural landscape. I don’t think I’ve ever had a better sense for the good W W W.L A R ED OS N E WS.CO M

things that tax dollars can fund.

OK, stepping off the soap box now.

There’s a great store and sandwich shop in Fort Davis called the Stone Mountain Market. It was well stocked with healthy foods and healthy cold drinks, and it served a homemade soup daily. Locals and tourists alike poured into the place.

The service was good there, but the thanks were sparse and stand-offish. I was grateful, however, to get a good wi-fi signal.

I had one episode of bad service (and a bad breakfast) at the Drug Store Restaurant in Fort Davis, but that was quickly cancelled by a great cup of coffee and friendly service at the Limpia Hotel across the highway. I found good service, too, at the Limpia Hotel gift shop, though I was disappointed in the new boutique inventory that replaced lovely things you’d buy for your kitchen at the ranch. The Bistro that has replaced the homemade food of the former restaurant at the Limpia offered fantastic service but very expensive evening meals.

The hotel’s beautifully landscaped patio was a wonderful place to share a cup of coffee with Laredo artist Martha Fenstermaker, who grew up in Fort Davis and who travels there frequently. We enjoyed an outing with Martha and hotelier Kathie Woods to Marfa where we toured the Presidio County museum, had lunch at Marfa Squeeze, and cooled off in the lobby of the Paisano Hotel (where Giant was filmed).

The afternoon was topped off with the sighting of a herd of prong horned antelope.

Like Fort Davis, Marfa’s downtown is very much a vital hub, its old buildings occupied as galleries, restaurants, and shops that are welcoming to visitors. What a concept, capitalizing on your history and historic buildings to invite and sustain tourism.

Martha drove us from Ft. Davis

to the Friday night Star Party at the McDonald Observatory on Mt. Livermore, expertly handling the dark, cool night drive on hairpin turns. The Star Party was a hit, a perfect evening as a full moon rose to cast us all and the mountains beyond in a beautiful blue light.

There is no shortage of activities for children and adults in the Fort Davis area – swimming in the artesian springs pool at Balmorhea, hiking trails, field experiences for K-12 students at the McDonald Observatory, a tour of the old fort and museum, star parties at the observatory, bird and wildlife watching,

and side trips.

Emily had a great time staying with her father in the Airstream, swimming, riding her scooter with Asher on the loop where they camped, and helping to prepare meals.

Daybreak and sundown were the hours I savored most on this trip – the utter quiet of them so envigorating. And then there was the evening meal, something delicious and healthy that George grilled – and the long hour afterward of conversation at the dinner table as night fell and the moon came up over the mountain. ◆

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meg@laredosnews.com

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Monica Romo and Angelica Martinez were the featured artists at an exhibit opening at Caffe Dolce on Friday, August 10. Narfox filled the summer night with great music on an evening that

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LAPS

LAPS welcomes volunteers

By Jennie L. Reed & Catherine L. Kazen LareDOS Contributors

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ummertime has been filled with activity for LAPS. The Jet Bowling Alley was filled with laughter as animal lovers spent an energetic evening having fun while raising money to help the LAPS Laredo Animal Shelter provide for the homeless animals in its care. Board member Susie Druker chaired the event.

More animal lovers continue to join us with ideas, including Sid Holden, Molly Hall Alegria and her son Pedro, John Cox, Silvia and Alberto Gutierrez and their cute son. Dr. Jud Sommerville con-

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tacted us at a recent Lemurs baseball game and pledged his support.

LAPS continues to try to adopt or foster out the adorable animals in its care while working to make necessary repairs and readjustments following its separation from the City of Laredo Animal Control. The shelter will be housing fewer animals as it focuses on spay/neuter clinics to reduce the overpopulation rampant in the city.

Upcoming events include another low-cost clinic in the Larga Vista Community Center, which will be available to residents enrolled in government assistance programs, thanks to a $5,000 grant from the Laredo Gateway Rotary Club. Dr. Mary Kate Lawler of the Spay-Neuter As-

sistance Program (SNAP) will again bring her fully-equipped van to operate on pets of qualified owners.

In September, a Zeutering clinic is planned with Dr. Amber Walinski and her team from McAllen. This is a non-surgical method of sterilizing male dogs. More information will be forthcoming on these events.

During their summer vacations, many youngsters have shown their love for animals by volunteering to bathe and exercise puppies and by raising money for the shelter.

A very happy event came from a sad one when an elderly woman died and her family was unable to care for her long-time pup. When LAPS Board Member Cathy Kazen realized that the cute pup was not being adopted,

she began playing with with it and realized the problem was bad breath and a teeth problem. Dr. Phyllis VoltzCreamer fixed it and “Radio,” with his Ipana smile has found a loving home.

Young Kike Paredes visited the shelter with his mom, wanting to adopt a yellow kitty. As they made their way through the Cat Castle, a certain very yellow kitty reached its little paw out of the cage and Kike took that as a sign that the kitty he wanted had found him!

Volunteers Bernie Piñeda and Ashley Barboza regularly bathe and play with puppies waiting for adoption. Bernie’s father is a shelter employee, and Ashley is the granddaughter of the late Irineo Barboza, long-time shelter employee. ◆

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Opinion

The poster child(ren) for the ethics ordinance – City Council or Commissioners Court?

By MARIA EUGENIA GUERRA LareDOS Publisher

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f I was having to come up with a poster for the Ethics Ordinance, would I choose as my poster child (or children) members of the City Council or the Webb County Commissioners Court?

Would it read: Pass the Ordinance, Keep Them from Sin? Or would I use a picture of the empressario who throws money around like Monopoly dollars so that his will be done?

Transparency in government takes on new meaning with how transparently visible are the lines you can see from campaign contributions to the enactment of city business.

The November 6 general election presents you with a genuine opportunity to change how your tax dollars are spent and to have a say in the direction local government will move.

You have choices for who will

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make sound decisions for you on the Laredo City Council. Three seats are up for a vote – District IV, District V, District VII, and District VIII. In District IV, incumbent Juan

Narvaez faces retired teacher Armando Cisneros.

District V will see a race between Pat Campos and Roque Vela Jr. for the seat now held

by Johnny Rendon, who is termed-out.

District VII incumbent Jorge Vera is being challenged by Sid Holden, Hector Lee Patiño, and Yolanda Salinas.

District VIII incumbent will face Hector Manuel Patiño Sr. and José Luis “Madonna” Maldonado.

UISD has four seats open for election – Districts 1, 2, 4, and 7 – and a lot of recycled candidates.

District 1 incumbent Ricardo Molina will face challengers Juan Bautista and Gilbert Aguilar Jr.

There are four candidates for District 2– Ricardo Rodriguez, Arturo García, Ruben Reyes, Ernesto Noe, and Feliciano García.

The race for District 4 has incumbent Juan Antonio Molina in a heat with Alfredo Agredano, Ramiro Veliz III, Jesus Lugo, and Ramon Rendon Jr. District 7 incumbent Judd Gilpin will face Ruben Dario Arce and former trustee John Bruce.

At LISD, District 1 trustee Jose A. Valdez faces no opposition. In District 2, incumbent Jesus Martinez faces challenger Juan A. Sanchez. In the race for District 4, Margie Coronado and Ricardo Garza will square off. District 7 trustee Jose R. Perez does not have an opponent.

In the Laredo Community College races for trustees, Place 4 incumbent Ed Sherwood will face challenger Allen Tijerina. Incumbent Rene De La Viña is unopposed in Place 5. In Place 6 Albert Torres Jr. faces Gilberto Martinez Jr. ◆

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