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EL UVALDE TIMES
MAY 11, 1991
This I Have To Say
By Olga Munoz Rodriguez
A rare opportunity...
It’s not often that I have the opportunity to reach out and make new friends as I did last Saturday, April 13 at the H.E.B. Food Store. I was there with Richard Flores to introduce our newspaper. As one person after another afforded us a few minutes to talk about the problems we are concerned with, I realized how many people there are in Uvalde who share our concern and who want things to change for the better. The local grocery store, I realized, is a unique place because it is here that so many people from all over the community meet. It is unfortunate that social and ethnic barriers so often keep us from becoming friends. I discovered once again, that ultimately what matters is the individual person, and not the group a person represents. Too often we tend to lump people by their ethnicity and assume that everyone has the same qualities and faults. There were a few who politely put my newspaper down without giving it a second look, and I smiled at those people. I offered my friendship and it was turned down. But for the few that didn’t care to know me or the cause I represent, I was overjoyed by the many more who offered us encouragement. I wish I could remember everyone’s name and somehow have the opportunity to talk with you all again.
Horns?
Misconceptions are easy to develop when we lock ourselves into our little circle of friends and territory. I remember when I began my first El Uvalde Times and I introduced myself to then Uvalde County Judge Leo Barley. As I handed him a copy of my newspaper and began talking with him, he interrrupted me to say, “Olga, I am so glad to meet you. From what people have told me about you, I was sure that you had horns!” I wasn’t as candid with him, but I should have told him that until then I thought he was a very stubborn and biased judge. After that day, however, he and I became the best of friends and he would often call me to discuss my editorials or to offer ideas for other matters I should address.
Remembering other unexpected friendships...
Some competitive news media have policies of not mentioning each other’s names in their news coverages. I don’t follow that policy because we are all in this business together and the purpose of my newspaper is to create unity.
The friendship extended to me by my greatest competitors during the original newspaper makes competition seem unimportant. When I used to write letters to the editor in the Uvalde Leader News, the late Mr. Harry Hornby, Jr. would sometimes call me with complimentary comments, such as “You write a fine line.” One time he called me at work at the telephone company to ask me how I liked the headline he had given one of the letters. When the telephones at his newspaper were out of order one day, he called me at the telephone company to make sure his service was quickly repaired. He asked, “If you don’t fix these phones right away, how are you going to be able to call and argue with me?” All this small talk never did get us anywhere because he always politely refused to allow me to write anything in Spanish. He did print many a lengthy article of mine when I was the spokesperson for the Mexican American Parents Association.
To my surprise, even though I was his greatest critic for failing to break tradition, I still came to respect him a great deal.
Mr. Jay Harpole, Sr.
Some of you may not know that before my newspaper I had a radio program on KVOU around the summer of 1977. It had become the custom for the radio station owner, the late Jay Harpole, Sr., to call several people in the Mexican-American community to find out what the station could do to serve us better. This was in preparation for the renewal of his F.C.C. license each year. After several years of making one suggestion or another, I asked for thirty minutes of community service time to run an editorial commentary program. Mr. Harpole went all out to help Ramon Velasquez and me. He offered us the use of his recording equipment and total support. The only stipulation was that we provide written scripts in English of our program. For convenience, Ramon and I later chose to record the program from my dining room table at my home on Leona St. As a result, my neighbor’s roosters could be heard on the tape before Ramon and I began to speak and in the background throughout our program. All went well for a while until Ramon started ad-libing so many crazy lines it was very difficult to run back the tape and transcribe it all into Spanish and then into English for Mr. Harpole’s files.
When later I decided to close my newspaper after two and a half years in the business, due to the every increasing printing costs, Mr. Harpole was one of the first to call to encourage me to stay in business. He said, “Olga, every new business needs at least five years to make it. You have not given yourself enough time.” All the time I had the newspaper I considered him my competitor and here he was encouraging me to stay in business. I know I may have stirred some advertising business for him in the process of competition, but I trusted his. sincerity nevertheless.
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EDITORIALS
POOR DISTRICTS vs. RICH DISTRICTS
What’s The Answer?
By Alejandro Perez
Lately, we have heard many arguments about school funding, the main one being the availability of funds for the rich vs. poor. Well, wherever that argument ends, school districts in our area have little to sav, but wait and watch since most of us are considered poor. With our crippling high tax rates, expenditures per student continue to be low in our school districts. Especially in counties like Zavala, Dimmit, La Salle, and even Uvalde. The tax bases cannot be expanded, because industry already refuses to come into our area because of our high taxes.
Our community leaders must fight back. One way to do that is to develop a regional economic development plan that encompasses all of our region. Our region should unite and not stand alone. It is not enough for one political faction or another to win an election, rather we need to redirect our efforts economically. Our region must develop a strong economic base for the education of the future working society. What is a poor school today will be the same poor school district in the years to come if changes are not made. If the state really wants to help poor school districts, then the state should make an investment of millions of new dollars to poor communities with high tax rates. This in turn could develop better affordable housing and industry, which in turn would increase our tax base. Only then can we talk about equitable funding. Equity can only come when we have equitable communities that can attract new industry. With industries in a lower tax base we can then generate funds for appropriate expenditures.
The Need for an Alternative School
by Alejandro Perez
As the At-Risk Coordinator for La Pryor I.S.D., I have had the privilege of working with at-risk youth and staff in our area that deal with these special children. I strongly feel all of us are in concensus (students & employees) that all students cannot function in a regular setting, so some of them dropout of school.
As we evaluate dropout rates among our region service deHvery area (Middle Rio Grande Development Council), it is correct to say that our School districts have 1,000 plus dropouts on a yearly basis and that our school districts are not doing what should be done to keep this special population in our schools. Masses of students are still dropping out. They become our unemployment statistics, teenage pregnancies, etc., and through time become a gigantic burden to us taxpayers.
It is now time to look at our students as customers of our schools, because they will later become viable customers for growth of the economy. Economic growth in our region cannot materialize if giant masses continue to dropout.
If dropout rates continue as they are, our customers become a burden in our society and not the customer of our economy’s growth. We need to look at school as a business with dollar values placed on that customer. As long as that customer is in school, the school turn profits. If the schools profit from every student, why should we not make that customer happy to go to that provider (school). It is obvious because of the great numbers of dropouts in our area that school districts are not providing to the needs of many students. To answer such needs, I strongly urge that our area invest in an area alternative education school. Since not all students are functioning in a traditional school, let's provide alternative education in an effort to recover students that have already dropped out of school.
It is time for our region to develop an alternative center that addresses recovering dropouts. It is time for taxpayers and school administrators to conceptualize the fact that they will pay now or pay later.
As an educator, I feel education is the only tool that can take children out of the vicious cycle of poverty. Schools must respond now. Presently, there is no ‘‘second chance" provider in this area that could offer any type of alternative high school education. Furthermore, there is no in-school program to recover out of school youth in the area. Clearly we are in need of an alternative structure to begin to deal with the issue of our dropouts and at-risk youth of our community.
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