Save Jerry McHale: Rrun Rrun

EL RRUN RRUN
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HAS IT REALLY BEEN 17 YEARS SINCE HENRY DIED, AND KIKE WAS BORN?
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By Juan Montoya In Charro Days 1995, 17 short years ago, the birth of a new weekly alternative newspaper was in full gear. It was called Crossroads and featured as its publisher the late Texas State Rep. Henry Sanchez, originally from San Benito, but married to Maria Luisa Tijerina, originally from the Premont Tijerinas. Henry, who could have rested on his laurels of 12 years in the Legislature when he left it, instead dove into local politics. He helped local candidates like Mario Villarreal and Dan Reyna get elected to the board of directors of the Brownsville Navigation District, helped Gilberto Hinojosa in his fledgling campaign for county judge after Tony Garza left office to become Gov. George W. Bush's Secretaty of State, and charged the windmills in his quest to prevent Texas Southmost College from entering a "partnership" agreement with the University of Texas System. <a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEji1fKSKCMjlrwQeq7e8UiOfRF9IEr40bICcW3skTh09_la1zpwSPvrS9bsM-bnSMPYVe9tkBtH20st6tzglvwzJzPthUe-kY_1Q1DcIfhA0ZodN9mpkt8jEMMitrJdupr3ZuOtPmCqyTA/s1600/kike1.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" height="300" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEji1fKSKCMjlrwQeq7e8UiOfRF9IEr40bICcW3skTh09_la1zpwSPvrS9bsM-bnSMPYVe9tkBtH20st6tzglvwzJzPthUe-kY_1Q1DcIfhA0ZodN9mpkt8jEMMitrJdupr3ZuOtPmCqyTA/s400/kike1.jpg" width="400" /></a>"There's no money coming from the state with this bill," he would say as he paced the small room that served as the Crossroads office. "The UT System is depending on the college district to fund the partnership and they aren't including it to share any of the money they get from oil and gas leases." At that time Henry led a lonely crusade against the behemoth political and financial interests arrayed behind Mary Rose Cardenas, Juliet Garcia, Michael Putegant and Rep. Rene Oliveira and Senator Eddie Lucio Jr. Having these forces arrayed against us and his newspaper made selling advertisements very difficult. He discovered that when he got to a potential client, they had already been discouraged by supporters of the Cardenas-Garcia clan. That didn't faze him. He and Maria Luisa delivered the rolled up Crossroads from his baby-blue Cadillac, often drawing shrill protests from some of Juliet's neighbors. He fumed when the Legislature passed special legislation to allow Juliet and her husband to purchase the president's home in the Rio Viejo section (25 Jacaranda). They borrowed the $175,000 to purchase the  home for that price despite the fact that taxpayers had paid for hundreds of thousands of dollars in improvements before Garcia bought the house. The lender was none else than Fred Rusteberg, president of IBC, the mover and shaker behind the scenes locally. "Was this a reward for excluding the UT-Brownsville campus from participating for funding in the Permanent University Fund that funnels billions to the other UT and A&M campuses around Texas?," asked Henry. And he railed and told everyone within earshot that Garcia, Putegnat, Lucio, Oliveira, Cardenas and others there at the "partnership" origins were content to go along and continue to use TSC as a cash cow by keeping that taxing entity accumulating debt to build the facilities that now bear the prestigious UT logo. Non one listened to him. Now, 20 years later after the "partnership" was formed, conservative estimates place the community college's contribution to UTB as close to $1 billion (you read right Billion, with a B), and all the dire warnings that Henry was issuing back then have come true. I remember all this because at that time by better half was pregnant with our first born. That Charro Days, Henry, his Houston developer friend Floyd Dellinger, and myself, drove to South Padre Island from the Sombrero Fest to wind down a bit from the day's festivities and chores. Henry was ebullient. His information campaign against the "partnership" was bearing fruit. People were asking questions. That night was to be his last among us. A ruptured aorta took him as he sat on an easy chair in the kitchen of his family's condominium and we lost him. That Fall, in September 27 (17 years ago today), Jose Enrique was born. His name was Jose, for a brother of mine who died young in Houston, and Enrique for Henry, my friend and publisher of the Crossroads. To his credit, Kike, as we call him, is an outstanding student and an upright young man. Henry would have been proud of his namesake. It is said that only a fool gets paid in full in his lifetime. In Henry's case, his views on the partnership have been vindicated 100 times over. I don't know where Kike will decide to go to college after he is done with high school. But it would be poetic justice if he could start his college career at TSC once its a free-standing community college again and perhaps transfer to UT-B when it is also a free-standing four-year degree granting institution. It took us 20 years to realize your vision, Henry, but it is said that the wheels of the gods grind slowly. And a Happy Birthday to you, too, Kike.<div class="blogger-post-footer"><img width='1' height='1' src='https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/tracker/6016803033174468094-6950865944200201496?l=rrunrrun.blogspot.com' alt='' /></div>
LINK: http://rrunrrun.blogspot.com/2012/09/has-it-really-been-17-years-since-henry.html

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FORMER US AMBASSADOR TO MEXICO WEDS BROWNSVILLE MD
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 By Juan Montoya Close friends of former U.S. Ambassador to Mexico have contacted El Rrun-Rrun and confirmed that Tony Garza, also a former Cameron County Judge, has married for a second time to a Brownsville native. But although initial reports indicated that his bride was â€" like him a a St. Joseph Academy grad â€" we have been corrected and learn that she was a Pace High School alum. Close friends have, on condition of anonymity, have informed us that the private ceremony took place in June, after which they spent three weeks traveling. <a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjlDjsKFGPMxaB3ZmRqnKxPU8JfkUwdWYYOPJULYA2VOABjApFP-TC4sp1gfsjCqd9fgyhpelTCB0q9CUSRqA7H6OwDz5NR3YsPaCmbUCd9kugOE-nX02zt2OkEtdKbP-Y9CQRXgZP5kPA/s1600/tony.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; display: inline !important; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="211" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjlDjsKFGPMxaB3ZmRqnKxPU8JfkUwdWYYOPJULYA2VOABjApFP-TC4sp1gfsjCqd9fgyhpelTCB0q9CUSRqA7H6OwDz5NR3YsPaCmbUCd9kugOE-nX02zt2OkEtdKbP-Y9CQRXgZP5kPA/s320/tony.jpg" width="320" /></a>The bride's name is Liz Beightler, formerly Atkinson. But as Garza likes to say, while he barely scraped through high school at St. Joe. ('77), she graduated a year later ('78) from Pace as that year's Valedictorian. She was also a state semi-finalist in tennis and voted most beautiful. They met that summer and dated while in college at UT-Austin. She studied Engineering. Tony studied Business. He likes to say that "she graduated 'summa cum laude', and he 'con summa dificultad'". They went their separate ways in 1980; she to be amongst the top students at her medical school. Tony to law school. According to their close friends, while, they hadn't spoken in nearly 3 decades, their reconnect later in their careers made them both very happy. She has three children and is widowed. Tony is divorced. They both have had full lives. Garza, formerly ambassador of the U.S. to that country, is practicing law in Mexico City as counsel with a New York based Law Firm. She has built a very successful medical practice here in Texas. They both plan doing what they're doing. Garza keeps an eye on the binational relationship between the US and Mexico. Here's a sampling from his website: "It's only every twelve years that the US and Mexico hold presidential elections in the same year. For me, living through and experiencing these two pivotal elections has been tremendously interesting, and with trade between the U.S. and Mexico surging up 17 percent in 2011 to a record $461 billion, our economic relationship has never been more integrated. In Mexico, expectations are high and the transition to the new administration is well underway. Incoming PRI President-Elect, Enrique PeÃ±a Nieto, who this month (took) a goodwill tour of Latin America, will be sworn into office December 1. "The good good are that Mexico has become the preferred centre of manufacturing for multinational companies looking to supply Americas and, increasingly, beyond. Today, Mexico exports more manufactured products than the rest of Latin America put together."  Felicidades Mr. and Mrs. Ambassador from all your friends in South Texas! To keep up with Tony, go to: <a avglschecked="1" href="http://www.tonygarza.com/" target="_blank">www.tonygarza.com</a><div class="blogger-post-footer"><img width='1' height='1' src='https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/tracker/6016803033174468094-981554644372273604?l=rrunrrun.blogspot.com' alt='' /></div>
LINK: http://rrunrrun.blogspot.com/2012/09/former-us-ambassador-to-mexico-weds.html

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Thursday, September 27, 2012

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