Tano Tijerina

Tano Eduardo Tijerina (born June 23, 1974) is a rancher and businessman from his native Laredo, Texas, who is the County Judge of Webb County in South Texas, United States. On January 1, 2015, he became the 23rd person to hold the elected office since Webb County was established in 1848. For five years beginning in 1993, Tijerina was a baseball player for minor-league teams of the Milwaukee Brewers.

Background

A Laredo native, Tijerina is one of two sons of Cayetano Tijerina, III, and Rosalinda Flores, educators in Webb County. His brother is Carlos Tijerina.^[1]Tijerina's grandfather, Cayetano "Tito" Tijerina, Jr. (1919-2014), was a United States Marine sharpshooter in the Pacific Theater of Operations in World War II and for forty-six years an employee of the United States Postal Service in Laredo. He and his late wife, Dora, had fifteen children.^[2]His aunt by marriage, Rosaura Palacios "Wawi" Tijerina, the wife of Tijerina's uncle, Omar, is a Laredo lawyer and former educator who has served since 2007 as the Precinct 2 Webb County Commissioner, one of four positions, along with the county judge, that governs the county by handling most government business outside the Laredo city limits.^[3][4]

While in high school, Tijerina worked in the early 1990s for H-E-B grocery and a fence company in Laredo.^[5]

Baseball

In 1992, Tijerina graduated from J. W. Nixon High School, where he played baseball for the Nixon Mustangs under coach Butch Flores. Tijerina was named to the Class 5A All-State team and played in the Texas High School North-South All-Star game in the Astrodome.^[6] He thereafter enrolled at the two-year Navarro College in Corsicana, Texas.

In 1993, Tijerina was drafted at the age of eighteen in the eighth round by the Milwaukee Brewers and pitched right-handed for that organization’s minor league clubs for five years.^[1]He played for the Arizona League Brewers team in Phoenix, Arizona, the Beloit Snappers in Beloit, Wisconsin, the Helena Brewers in Helena, Montana, and the Rio Grande Valley WhiteWings of the Texas-Louisiana League in Harlingen, Texas. Tijerina spent five years in the Brewers organization. He peaked at Low-A ball for the Beloit Snappers, posting in six seasons a 16-19 record and a 6.48 Earned run average.^[7]In his third spring training Tijerina was sidelined by an injury which required surgery on his elbow and limited his potential to enter the major leagues.^[6]

In 2002, having left the Brewers he played a sixth season in the Central Baseball League for the Edinburg Roadrunners in Edinburg, Texas. In 2009, at the age of thirty-five, Tijerina played a single season for the since defunct Laredo Broncos in United League Baseball.^[8]

After retiring from baseball, Tijerina in 2002 earned his college degree from Texas A&M International University.^[1]

In 2004, Tijerina was inducted into the Laredo Latin American International Sports Hall of Fame. ^[6]

In 2013, the Laredo Lemurs named Tijerina the starting pitcher in the inaugural "Family Chevrolet Sister Cities Baseball Classic", presented by Tecate beer on September 26 at Uni-Trade Stadium in Laredo.^[7][9]

Political career

In 2010, Tijerina, in his first bid for public office, narrowly lost the Democratic nomination in the primary runoff election to the incumbent County Judge Danny Valdez, who assumed the position on January 1, 2007 and vacates the office on December 31, 2014. In a low-turnout contest, Valdez received 14,227 votes (51.2 percent) to Tijerina's 13,575 ballots (48.8 percent).^[10] In the primary election held on March 2, 2010, Valdez had also led Tijerina by a narrow margin. Two other candidates were eliminated in the primary: former 406th District Court Judge Andres Ramos (born c. 1959) and former County Judge Louis H. Bruni, Valdez's predecessor in the office.^[11] Valdez faced no Republican opponent in his heavily Democratic county in either of his two terms as county judge.

In September 2013, Tijerina announced before a large turnout of supporters that he would again challenge Valdez for county judge in the Democratic primary held on March 4, 2014. Tijerina vowed to focus in his second campaign for the office on matters of public health, safety, and government service. "We almost pulled off the greatest upset in Webb County's history four years ago. This year I am a lot older and wiser, and I've listened to the people. I feel the same frustration that the people have now with the Webb County government."^[4]

On October 3, 2013, in statement of candidacy, Valdez said that water quality would have been his top concern had he been retained by voters.^[12]

Tijerina won the endorsement of the Laredo Morning Times, which said that "the picture of crisis after crisis ... abuse, fraud, and waste ... the mess we find outselves in ... results in the absence of effective leadership at the top", which the publication said could be remedied by "new leadership" from a "successful businessman-rancher".^[13]Tijerina also won the backing of LareDOS, a monthly news journal. Editor and publisher Maria Eugenia Guerra said that the support for Tijerina is the first for any candidate for office in the twenty years the magazine has been in publication.^[14]

This time in a two-candidate field, Tijerina unseated Valdez by a wide margin, 17,514 (65 percent) to 9,446 (35 percent).^[15] With the absence of a Republican opponent and barring a successful write-in candidate in the November 4 general election, Tijerina will assume the office on January 1, 2015.

In July 2015, Judge Tijerina, following up from a commissisoners court request, called for a grand jury investigation of County Auditor Leo Flores. The request came in a letter to Webb County District Attorney Isidro R. "Chilo" Alaniz. Tijeria alleges the misappropriation of funds from restricted accounts. Flores predicted that any investigation will reveal nothing irregular: "Nothing inappropriate or illegal has been done by my office. The truth will surface, and I look forward to that time. ..."^[16]

On July 23, 2015, the occasion of Donald Trump's Republican presidential campaign visit to Laredo, Tijerina said that he welcomed the opportunity to show the New York City business tycoon "our legacy of hard-working, generous, and honorable citizens. I hope that an accurate image of our Hispanic community is highlighted ... our community is the perfect example of Hispanic heritage, progress, and potential."^[17] Trump was greeted on his arrival in the city by Mayor Pete Saenz, a Democrat, and Randy Blair, the Webb County Republican chairman. In his three-hour visit, Trump, who wore a white sports cap for protection from the South Texas sun, had been scheduled to meet with representatives of the United States Border Patrol, but the BP union nixed those plans at the last minute.^[18]

Personal life

Tijerina is married to the former Kimberly Jean Walker (born c. 1974), the daughter of James Dixon Walker and Sherra Castle Walker. Mrs. Tijerina was the treasurer of her husband's campaign. Tijerina's business interests include oil and natural gas, ranching, rodeo stock management, trucking, and investments.^[1] He recently worked for El Bosal LLC as a rancher.^[4]In 2006, he sponsored the first of two "Giving God the Glory" team roping events.^[5][19]

He is a former member of the board of South Texas Food Bank and chairman of Ranchers for the Hungry, a program launched in 2008 with a deer harvest coordinated by the Zapata County ranchers Robert and Oscar Laurel. Ranchers for the Hungry was recognized at a Feeding America National Conference as "the food resourcing program of the year."^[20] Also active in the food bank is Tijerina's father-in-law, Jim Walker (born 1945), the Webb County 2014 "Rancher of the Year".^[21]

References