NAME (SIDE) WALK OF FAME AFTER TSC TRUSTEES

By Juan Montoya
The growing brouhaha brewing over Texas Southmost College trustee Art Rendon's resolution to name the $18 million college REC center after former trustee Rene Torres has led to some of El Rrun-Rrun 's seven readers to come up with alternatives.
They say that the danger of naming a building after living people is fraught with hazards. Take, for example, what happened to former Texas State Representative Jim Solis.
When Solis retired fropm the House after 14 years in office, his good friend, then-state representative, and now Sen. Carlos Uresti, D-San Antonio, introduced House Resolution No. 806 honoring Solis for having been the “voice of the constituents of District 38.”
Uresti's resolution spoke of Solis’ illustrious legislative career, during which time he served on numerous committees, including the House Committees on Criminal Jurisprudence and Judicial Affairs.
In 2001, the Texas Economic Development Council named him as the 2001 Legislator of the Year for his efforts for economic development in the state. He also received the Distinguished Leadership Award from the Workforce Leadership of Texas, and the Healthcare Champion Award from the Association of Community Health Centers.
His successor, state Rep. Eddie Lucio III, D-Brownsville, forwarded a bill naming the Rio Grande State Center after Solis and long-time Harlingen Mayor Colonel H. William “Bill” Card Jr.
Solis pleaded guilty on April 29, 2011, to aiding and abetting extortion from March 2008 through December 2009.
The same day that Solis pleaded guilty, Lucio III’s father, state Sen. Eddie Lucio Jr., forwarded a bill to remove Solis’ name from the public building.
Now, those of us who know Rene Torres know that he isn't going to walk into a bank had hold it up or that he might commit some rash act of moral turpitude, but the lesson of naming a building after living folks is clear enough. People say that some students wince when they enter the Mary Rose Cardenas Building at the college. The TSC website says the Cardenas Hall is named for Mary Rose Cardenas, a longtime former Texas Southmost College trustee who was instrumental in the establishment of the UTB "partnership."

Well, the good folks of the college district came to the conclusion after 21 years of subsidizing the UT System with annual "transfers" of $50 million that perhaps the "partnership" wasn't such a hot idea after all and canned the relationship. The building, however, still remains with the Cardenas name even after the "partnership" idea has been permanently, and thoroughly, discredited and abandoned.
Among those trustees who made this possible was Torres, Adela Garza, Trey Mendez, and Kiko Rendon.
Why not, some argue, honor them with a star placed on the campus and call it the Walk of Fame or the Walkway of the Stars?
Actually, such a walkway already exists, in a sense.
If you go to the old Oliveira Library east entrance, there is a plaque with a ball representing the Sun. If you follow the sidewalk, you will come to Mercury, then Venus, Earth, Mars, etc., until you get to Nepture way out toward the Engineering Building. Pluto has been downsized to a planetoid and God only knows where on the far eastern reaches of the campus it is located. We have tried, to no avail, to find it.
At one time, brochures available at the library showed where all the planets were located in "A walk though Space and Time." Why not have the honored people be included in a brochure so that future students can learn about their worthy deeds. If someone commits some dastardly deed after the honor, why, simply remove the star and pour some cement over the spot and presto! the problem is over.
So why not honor those folks who have done good things for the college with a simple star a la Mr. Amigo in the Linear Park?
Another wag suggested that the sidewalk leading to the old president's house could be called the "Walk of Shame" in honor of former UTB-TSC partnership Julieta Garcia. If she had had her way, she was going to make the college district disappear (though not its bond debt) and transfer all the assets and real estate to the UT System before the Fab Four trustees named above put an end to that pipe dream.