Video footage from the KXAS-TV/NBC station in Fort Worth, Texas, to accompany a news story.

Hector Mendez was raised in Big Lake, Texas and attended Angelo State University, where he was part of the Mexican American Student organization that called for ethnic studies in the university. He later attended the university of Texas Permian Basin for his master’s degree in education. He became the superintendent of Ector County Independent School District in the 2000s as conservative trustees led the district.

Carol Uranga was born in 1949 in Marathon, Texas, but she was raised in Alpine, Texas. Growing up in Alpine and later in Pecos, she saw LULAC and the Brown Berets and Raza Unida Party protest and demand civil rights for Mexican Americans. Uranga graduated from central High School in Alpine in 1968. She moved to Pecos, Texas in 1974 when she married. In Pecos she became involved with women’s rights and LULAC, going to various civil rights conferences in other parts of the state. Indeed, Uranga helped organize what was perhaps the first women’s empowerment conference in West Texas, in Pecos in 1976 or 1977. Uranga moved to Odessa in the mid-1980s, where she helped re-start a LULAC chapter. She has since hosted radio shows centered on the Mexican American culture, she has helped start scholarship programs, local cultural events, including the nonprofit Hispanic Heritage of Odessa.

Video footage from the WBAP-TV station in Fort Worth, Texas to accompany a news story about a beauty pageant in Odessa, Texas.