And now:Ish <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> writes: From: "CATHERINE DAVIDS" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> Organization: The University of Michigan - Flint Seguin chosen as the name for new high school By Jaime Jordan Star-Telegram Staff Writer ARLINGTON -- Maria Barreda-Alvarado bowed her head, covered her face with her hands and sobbed last night as her 13- year struggle to have a school in Arlington named after a Texas hero of Mexican descent came to a joyous end. School trustees voted unanimously to name Arlington's sixth high school after Juan N. Seguin, who fought for Texas' independence from Mexico. One trustee was absent. "It's a long time overdue," Barreda-Alvarado said. "I just know the children also need someone that they can look up to and he's definitely one we can look up to." Barreda-Alvarado, 49, remembers hating history class when she was in junior high school. Whenever the class would get to the section on the Alamo, she would squirm in her seat or make an excuse to go to the bathroom. Then, at age 26, she read `Ten Tall Texans' by Dan Kubiak, which featured a chapter on Seguin. "When I read this book it was like, wow," said Barreda- Alvarado. "I wish I would have known this in seventh grade, I wish I would have known this in eighth grade, I wish I would have known this in sixth grade. I would have had a little bit of pride in who I was." Naming a school after Seguin will foster pride in Hispanic children, Barreda-Alvarado said. It will end the attitudes of people like the insensitive teacher who Anglicized her name in the first grade -- from Maria to Mary, she said. She added that her niece was told at age 9 that a school in Arlington would never be named after a Mexican-American. Barreda-Alvarado's tears at the meeting weren't her first of the day. Earlier, she talked about the first effort she led in 1986 to have what is now Bowie High School named after Seguin. She also read an impassioned speech to the board when that school was named, but that time one of her own children stood alongside her. "And he's no longer with us," she said. The man was her son, Richard de Barreda. He was a D/FW Airport police officer who was killed in 1997 in the line of duty. "This is just a crusade that he was involved in along with my daughter and now I have a son at Arlington High School," she said. "It's just very special to me and it would close another chapter. This would be a good ending for this chapter." Diane Patrick, a school board member in 1986 when Bowie was named, said the board did not have the luxury of choosing Seguin as the name that time. The school district had already had a Bowie High School, but it had been converted to Workman Junior High. Patrick said it was just assumed the new school would be named Bowie to replace the one that was lost. "What I remember is when Bowie was converted to Workman that was extremely controversial," she said. "There was talk then that the next high school would be Bowie. We were trying to heal that division in the community that had been created when that action was taken." Although disheartened by the decision in 1986, Barreda- Alvarado didn't abandon the idea of naming a school after Seguin, and when she read Wednesday that Seguin was again a nomination she jumped into action. "When I saw it, it brought everything back," she said. "I thought, let's go forward on this and maybe this one will be a winner, and sure enough it was." The school board sorted through 1,500 nominating essays for names before choosing Seguin, many of them better known than him, said school trustee Ann Morris, who also sat on the board when Barreda- Alvarado spoke in 1986. "I think the decision we made [last night] was a good one," Morris said. "It's consistent with the historical era of all the other [schools] ... I just think it was a good decision." School Trustee Erich Ramsey made the motion to name the school Seguin, then gave a five-minute history lesson about Seguin. Reprinted under the Fair Use http://www4.law.cornell.edu/uscode/17/107.html doctrine of international copyright law. &&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&& Tsonkwadiyonrat (We are ONE Spirit) Unenh onhwa' Awayaton http://www.tdi.net/ishgooda/ UPDATES: CAMP JUSTICE http://shell.webbernet.net/~ishgooda/oglala/ &&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&
