Frizella C. Whitiker was born in Greenwood, Lousiana and grew up in Austin, Texas. Whitiker graduated from Anderson High School and Samuel Huston University (1950), now Huston-Tillotson University, in Austin. Upon graduation, Whitiker moved to Odessa to teach in the Ector County Independent School District, specifically Blackshear High School. She retired from teaching in 1986. In Odessa, Whitiker has been a sponsor and board member of Head Start as well as a board member of the Black Cultural Council of Odessa. She has also been a leader of Mackey Chapel of the United Methodist Church.

Richard C. Abalos grew up in Rankin, Texas. After graduating early from high school, Abalos moved to Odessa, Texas where he attended Odessa College and worked for a law form as an investigator and aide. Before obtaining an undergraduate degree, Abalos entered law school at St. Mary’s University in San Antono, Texas. After law school, he was drafted into the military. Upon returning to Odessa, he became the city’s first Mexican American attorney and handled several civil rights cases, including the nationally recognized Larry Lozano police beating that galvanized the region’s Chicano Movement.