HAS IT REALLY BEEN 17 YEARS SINCE HENRY DIED, AND KIKE WAS BORN?

By Juan Montoya
In Charro Days 1995, 17 short years ago, the operation 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 and married to Maria Luisa Tijerina, originally from the Premont Tijerinas. They lived with their kids on Levee Street in Brownsville.
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.
"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 it's 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.