BISD BOARD'S NOT-S0-MINNE PENA PROVIDES BUFFOONISH RELIEF IN THE NAMING OF SAMS FIELD AFTER JOE RODRIGUEZ

Special to El Rrun-Rrun

If you attend or watch the meetings of the Brownsville Independent School District or have seen the performance of the board, you will quickly notice that one of them delights in engaging in the antics of a ham actor ready to hog the spotlight, upstage the administrators, legal counsel, and her fellow board members.

If you guessed that we are talking about Minerva Peña, you get the small stuffed animal.

In meeting after meeting, Peña delights in telling and retelling (ad nauseam) about her stint as a Porter H.S. Belle, her Texas Department of Safety background, her father's military service and moral training, and, of course, her sanctimoniousness derived from her Christian devoutness.

It doesn't matter if the subject matter before the board has nothing to do with any of those categories, but apparently chanting that mantra has earned her a local following which has put her on the board for a few terms. In fact, she ran against the late Joe Rodriguez for her position a few years back. That's her, appropriately at the far right, in the picture on top.

Take, for example, an item brought before the board this past meeting of October 3 by board member Daniella Lopez-Valdez to name the Sams Stadium football field after the same Joe A. Rodriguez, a coach, teacher and former board member. With Rodriguez family members present in the audience, Lopez-Valdez eulogized him for his love for education, sports and for believing in his players.

"He has left an indelible mark in countless lives...leveling the playing field for Valley players, (and) was a mentor, a father figure to numerous BISD students," Lopez-Valdrez read from a prepared statement. "It would be a fitting tribute to a man who believed in leading by example...and believed in the potential of every student..."

Pipes in Peña: "I have a little concern about putting the name on the field," she said. "I wouldn't want my dad's name there cause they are going to spit on it, throw up on it, and step all over it."

Instead, she said, perhaps member Lopez-Valdez would consider an amendment placing the name on the new concession stand where everyone who goes to get snacks can see the name up high.

"It's really nice and big, and I would really like to see his name on it, in Memory of Joe A. Rodriguez...," Peña emphasized by holding up her arm and picturing Coach Joe's name besides the Diet Coke sign and buttered popcorn. "Maybe we could put it up there instead of putting it out on the field, where the chance of it being seen on the field is going to be very slim with the players stepping on it."

Lopez-Valdez would have none of those inanities and declined to amend her motion. 

At that, Peña, speaking out of turn, goaded BISD Superintendent Dr.

Rene Gutierrez to give his opinion and recommendation, which Gutierrez properly declined, but assured her that the name itself would not be placed on the playing field, but rather that a monument with a plaque would suffice.

"It won't be on the actual field," Gutierrez told Peña. "There won't be anything like a name on the field per se," he said. We were thinking that perhaps a plaque by the entrance, like  a monument with a plaque so everybody coming in to the stadium can see it." 

On the other hand, perhaps Peña's proposed amendment was aimed at enlightening the board and the public about Coach Joe's ability to promote and sell himself (to the BISD purchasing department), and his goods and services for decades, for a slight fee, of course.

There was no mention of the fact that Rodriguez was adamant on increasing the $650,000 approved by the board sitting then to purchase a new electronic scoreboard at Sams and pouring in almost another $1 million to up the cost to $1.4 million. Neither were the $100,000s in sports equipment sales to the district from a company which he headed, even while on the board from which he annually pocketed hefty commissions.

In the end, after Peña's buffoonish detour, a unanimous board authorized Gutierrez and administrators to get together and plan a nice ceremony and iron out the details of the memorial to Rodriguez.