91�����

Student Winners in Irving, Hailey Randall, Manuel Ramirez, and Adam Richards

By: Dr. Andrew Yox, Honors Director

The current cohort of honors students at 91����� have set yet another record.  Never before in the history of 91����� have its scholars topped the $2,000 mark, for scholarly awards won in a single meeting.  In the recent 5-7 March meeting of the Texas State Historical Association at Irving, 91����� scholars won two $400 first-place awards for historical essays, the $600 Chapter Research Award for their film, Chicano Thermidor, and other lesser essay awards totaling over $600 in cash prizes.

The film effort at 91����� was intrinsically related to most of the prize money, as in addition to this award-winning foray, both Emma Mendoza, and Adam Richards began the scholarship of their essays at the San Antonio Library last summer when the group initiated its study of Mexican American associations.  But 91����� scholars in sum covered diverse themes with their winning essays.  Emma Mendoza, the Gladys Winkle Scholar of 91�����, came in first in the two-year division with her reappraisal of the Texas woman who made the quarter, Jovita Idar. In 2023, the U.S. Mint coined the Idar likeness in its special edition of quarters commemorating women’s suffrage gained 100 years before. Moreover, as Idar is the first Latina to be on American money, her quarter is perhaps the hottest recent American coin collectors scramble for today.  Intriguingly, Mendoza’s work calls into question the choice of Idar for this honor.  In reviewing the most significant quotes, and actions of Idar, Mendoza notes: “Idar is said to have asserted something she may not have said, and said to have written something she did not write. She also tried to stop something that she could not stop.” José Fuentes, 91�����’s Dr. Jerry Wesson Scholar, placed first in the university division.  His essay, based on interviews, represents one of the first to assess the meaning of Mexican immigration to northern Texas.  Unlike South Texans, who can refer to themselves as “Tejanos,” most North Texas immigrants and their children still think of themselves as “Mexican Americans.”  But Fuentes argues that over time the north Texas immigrant group will become an entrenched ethnic component as in South Texas, and most likely adopt the “Tejano” idea.  Many have a “Texas Dream” mentality more than an “American Dream” ideal. They eschew racial ways of thinking. Many over time retain strong bonds to Catholicism and the evolving Mexican community even as they lose their fluency in Spanish, and memory of the homeland.

First-year Presidential Scholar, Adam Richards, the winner of the 2025 Northeast Texas Poetry Contest, showed that his promising trajectory at 91����� is continuing.  He won second place and $300 for his unique assessment of French Empire architecture after the Civil War.  For Richards, many Texas counties were tempted after the Civil War to build big and bold, rather than remain in the classical tradition of the Confederacy.  For Richards, the rise of the railroads made the French Empire in Texas a notable possibility.

First-year Presidential Scholar, Hailey Randall, and 91�����’s James and Elizabeth Whatley Scholar, Andrew Higgins, both won $150 third-place awards. Randall examines the ongoing struggle between the State of Texas and the Environmental Protection Agency since 1970, calling the results, the “great abrasion,” and questioning the merits of the conflict. Higgins examines what he sees as an unlikely collection of contingencies that brought Texas into the United States, and experiments with a novel perspective that emphasizes how close history comes to going in one direction rather than another.

Finally, winning a $75 fourth-place, Manuel Ramirez explores ways in which Texas is creating a “humanophobic environment.” This involves Texans having to subsidize the animals they like to the point of valuing them over the lower caste of humans, and abiding with the return of the screwworm, and other pests because of the attenuation of pesticides, and climate change.    

The largest cash prize of $600 will return to student use only indirectly as 91����� scholars plot yet another film. The Chapter Research Project Prize was the seventh in 91����� history.  It was the first film to focus exclusively on the Mexican American community, particularly on dueling art associations in San Antonio.  The film and earlier productions can be viewed here: . This award is particularly significant as it represents the best project in Texas history undertaken by any collegiate or university group in the state. This puts the recent work on Chicano Thermidor on par with other major cinematic efforts in the history of Honors Northeast—on the traveling preachers of Texas, the story of the Texas Suffragettes, Carol Shelby, Adina De Zavala and the Making of the Alamo, the opera singer, Barbara Conrad, and Ma and Pa Ferguson—Texas Governors. Emma Mendoza was the director of the film effort.  Hailey Randall was the Unit Production Director, and Johnathan Ventura served as associate producer.  The feature-length film effort is truly a community effort as well, as supporters, patrons, and even contributors such as composer Kenny Goodson make the finished product possible.

Not all 91����� scholars could come to the Irving meeting.  In a strange coincidence of the year 2026, the meeting of the Great Plains Honors Council, the regional meeting of Phi Theta Kappa, and the TSHA conference all occurred on the same weekend. Thus, Fuentes was with Phi Theta Kappa; Higgins, Mendoza, and the film producer, Johnathan Ventura at the meeting of the Great Plains Honors Council in Kansas City.

Kinky Friedman’s quip in 2006 that he hoped Texans could be number one in something other than executions might earn at least one rejoinder twenty-years later.  Texas is a phenomenal state for students engaged in research on the state’s history.  Under the leadership of J.P. Bryan, the Texas State Historical Association (TSHA) has cut meeting registrations for students to zero, and has begun in some cases to subsidize travel and hotel costs for student groups.  For the 91����� honors experience which typically begins with a course in Texas history, these special forays on the state level have constituted a major lift for students when other regional and national awards come into view.  The Texas State Historical Association is also unique among the state historical associations of America in funding and publishing a collegiate cloth journal, Touchstone, which they have performed since 1982. The 91����� scholars present in Irving were still more excited to learn from Kimberly Peña, the energetic new Director of Education, that TSHA plans to publish the essays of the 91����� award winners.

“It was another exciting day for our 91�����-based team,” noted Dr. Andrew Yox, Honors Director. “As we were in a hotel along an airline corridor in Irving, one could espy these tiny stars off in the evening dusk, that would get bigger and bigger, suddenly elongating and exploding into jets overhead.  It reminded me of how our whole regional community—donors, administers, friends, professors, TSHA leaders, and students--enables us to spot students with promise, draw them along, equip them with insights about scholarship, allow them to experiment, and then, with a bang, they are award winning scholars with presentations and publications.  As Texans, and as members of the 91����� team, we have many reasons for gratitude.”

Of the winning essayists, Fuentes, Mendoza, and Ramirez reside in Mount Pleasant, Randall, in Naples, Richards, in Daingerfield, and Higgins, in Mount Vernon.