Pictured are the First Velazquez winners (from left): Araceli Landaverde, Stephanie Hernandez, Yahir Garcia, Sarah Dierflinger, Vanessajane Bayna, and Andrew Higgins.
By: Dr. Andrew Yox, Honors Director
She was the only student to receive an ‘A’, in fact, a perfect 100 score. Back in the day when honors students at NTCC had to take “crossover quizzes,” relating Biology and Texas History specifics, Jessica Velazquez, proved she was a creative thinker, from the start. It was September of 2014. She was the only student from Mount Vernon in a class that had five from Mount Pleasant, two from both Pittsburg and Winnsboro, and a smattering from other towns.
Ten years later, Velazquez is a health researcher in Houston, with a Master’s degree from UTHealth, and an author of many articles, relating to cancer and hematology. She was the seventh student from NTCC to win a mega-Jack-Kent-Cooke Scholarship (today worth $165,000), and one of several of the NTCC winners to obtain a second Jack Kent Cooke for graduate work. After completing a perfect GPA at UTHealth, Velazquez decided she could give back to the institution that helped boost her career in research. As a result of her recent generous gift, the honors program at NTCC has been able to initiate Velazquez Awards for article-length essays and major projects that made noteworthy discoveries during the fall of 2024.
Velazquez, herself made an important scholarly discovery at NTCC. She was the first to demonstrate the relation between the advance of tractors and declines in the rural populations of Texas from 1930 to 1960. Her essay embodying her NTCC research, appeared in the journal, Touchstone,published by the Texas State Historical Association, in 2016. The recent winners of the Velazquez awards, likewise, have all made notable discoveries:
Araceli Landaverde’s focus on Hispanic Catholicism in Mount Pleasant offers an important corrective to a book by the dean of Texas historians, dealing with Hispanic Catholicism, Mario Garcia. He has seen Hispanic Catholics trending left; she has demonstrated clearly how they can trend right, politically.
Stephanie Hernandez, also from Mount Pleasant, offers the first history of Hispanic murals in Texas. From pre-Columbian times, murals have helped shape Mexican culture. Hernandez tells how the murals convey a trend in Tejano culture from protest to pride.
Yahir Garcia, the third 2024 graduate from Mount Pleasant made an important discovery from the standpoint of Honors filming at NTCC. “He basically turned what the Academy of Motion Pictures calls a ‘short film’, into a ‘feature-length film’,” notes Dr. Andrew Yox, honors director. He did this by adding narration, copyright-free film segments, and illustrations to the honors film. Garcia is this year’s film editor of Crude Conquest: The Triumph of Big Oil in Texas Politics, 1935-1980.
Sarah Dierflinger, from Winnsboro, is the first to write a professionally styled article about the relationship between outlaws Bonnie and Clyde, and the city of Winnsboro, Texas. Her essay explores both the folktales about the duo that have persevered in local storytelling, and how this folklore influences the self-conception of Winnsboro as a special place.
Vanessa Bayna, NTCC’s Texas Heritage National Bank Scholar, was also the student who did the original research of the film, Crude Conquest, mentioned above. This past semester she took her interest in contamination into the area of food. Her essay provides an up-to-date analysis of how the Food and Drug Administration has fared in protecting Americans from substances that can imperil their health.
Finally, Andrew Higgins, from Mount Vernon, performed a pioneering study this last semester on the relation between the American thrust into space and religion. Why has the United States maintained such a unique commitment to this “new frontier?” In a brilliantly written article, Higgins traces how religious ideas such as Manifest Destiny have persevered into the modern period, promoting space exploration.
For the success of their twelve-seventeen-page essays, each student will be receiving $75, courtesy of Velazquez’s gift.
Jessica is also the brother of Laurencio Velazquez who currently serves as a College Navigator at NTCC.
