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Each month, Texas State University President Dr. Kelly Damphousse sits down with faculty members, staff, students, alumni, and community members for a conversation about all things TXST — the past, the present, and the bright future of the university.
Part of the TXST Podcast Network: https://www.txst.edu/podcast-network.html
Kelly Damphousse (00:04):
Hey Bobcats. Kelly Damphousse here, President Texas State University. Welcome back to The Current podcast. It's a great way for us to reach out to our faculty, staff, and students who are working here and serving here at Texas State University. Learn more about what's going on on campus and also informing our listeners and our viewers on what's happening here. But sometimes we get lucky and get to talk to someone who's neither an alumnus or an employee here, someone who's really closely tied to the university. And we're lucky today because we've got someone really special. My friend Mark Updegrove is here. So Mark serves as the CEO and president of the LBJ Foundation. So Mark, thank you for joining us on the podcast.
Mark Updegrove (00:42):
Good to be with you, Mr. President.
Kelly Damphousse (00:44):
Yeah, it's good to see you. Thank you for saying that. I like that. Why don't we talk a little bit about you first and then we'll transition into LBJ because I think people will be interested in how do you become known and you're well known as a presidential historian, so how does that come about? Is this something you like as a young child said, I can't wait to do this thing? Or did it just happen to you?
Mark Updegrove (01:01):
Well, let me tell you, I'm vastly less interesting than LBJ, but I'll try to—
Kelly Damphousse (01:05):
I don't think that's true.
Mark Updegrove (01:06):
Try to make it as exciting as possible. It's a lesson for your students, Kelly, and you and I have had enough conversations that we are authorities on this. You never know what your career trajectory is going to look like. And mine took twists and turns that I never could have anticipated, and I was in a career that was kind of high flying for a while and publishing. After a slow start, I became active in the business side of publishing and the news magazine.
Kelly Damphousse (01:35):
In Canada. Right. You had the Canadian Time Magazine.
Mark Updegrove (01:37):
I headed up the West Coast for Time Magazine. And then to your point, Kelly, I went to your native land, Canada, and was the president of Time Canada, Time's independent operation and edition north of the border, and then went back to New York where I had begun my career to be publisher of Newsweek. And I took a very different turn in my career. I went to MTV of all places, so that I —
Kelly Damphousse (02:02):
Doesn't sound odd to me at all, knowing you. Natural. Yeah. Being a VJ, what did they call 'em back in the day?
Mark Updegrove (02:07):
VJ. Right. I was a VJ. I was a regular on Jersey Shore, but I don't want people to know it was not a particularly happy chapter in my career and my career took a couple of wrong turns and while I was in a job I really did not like, on the side, I wrote a book called "Second Acts" about presidents after they leave office in the modern presidency from Harry Truman through Bill Clinton. And it ultimately ended up in a second act of my career as a presidential historian. So that's the abbreviated view of things, but you never know, as you and I both know, you never know what twists and turns your career is going to take.
Kelly Damphousse (02:45):
Now you've written like five books, right? Is that right? Five books on—
Mark Updegrove (02:49):
I'm just turning in my sixth. Yeah.
Kelly Damphousse (02:50):
Just turning in your sixth one. I can't wait for that. When is that coming out?
Mark Updegrove (02:53):
In March of next year.
Kelly Damphousse (02:54):
March of 2025. Can't wait for that. My birthday. So don't forget that.
Mark Updegrove (02:57):
Well there you go.
Kelly Damphousse (02:58):
I look forward to a signed copy of that. And so I'm always looking for the freebies. And so what is it about, by the way?
Mark Updegrove (03:05):
It's called "Make Your Mark: Lessons in Character from Seven Presidents." So the seven presidents that I've known, and it's the character trait that underlies their legacy or a main pillar of their legacy. And how important, as you and I both know, character is in leadership.
Kelly Damphousse (03:21):
Do these presidents that you've met and talked with, do they have a moment when they walk out, they get in the helicopter and go off to their next thing where they sit down and say, what am I doing now? Because some of them are relatively old when they leave, but some of them like Bill Clinton, Barack Obama, very young when they left and still had a lot of life left in him.
Mark Updegrove (03:40):
In some ways this is an existential crisis. What do you do after you leave the most important job in the world? How do you find purpose and meaning in your life? On the one hand, you're slowing down and it's a great relief. George W. Bush told me that he went back to his ranch and he gets the newspapers delivered to him as he did every morning. And he looks at the front pages and he realizes, oh, wait a minute, I don't have to deal with those problems anymore. That's on somebody else's desk.
Kelly Damphousse (04:07):
Someone else's problem now.
Mark Updegrove (04:08):
Right, exactly. Maybe the same desk, but somebody else is behind it now. And so it was to some degree a relief. But for him it was easier because he had won a second term in office. He had an eight years to enact his agenda. He might not have gone out the way he wanted to, but at least he had the opportunity based on the will of the people to serve two terms. For somebody like his father or Jimmy Carter, very different because they essentially got fired by the American public right after one term, after one term. So it's a different thing. Again, it depends on the person, but these are just fascinating chapters in their lives where you're figuring out what you do next.
Kelly Damphousse (04:50):
So you've written this book and now people are paying attention to you and people are probably interviewing you, you're doing book tours and so on. What gets you to Austin? To the LBJ Library?
Mark Updegrove (05:00):
My first book and then the second, I had a second called "Baptism by Fire," which is about unprecedented presidential crises. And they came to the attention of the National Archives and Records Administration and they reached out to see if I was interested in maybe running the Kennedy Library in Boston. And I said, no, but if the LBJ ever becomes available, I'm your guy.
Kelly Damphousse (05:22):
Why LBJ?
Mark Updegrove (05:24):
Well, I think it's something you and I have talked about before. It's because I think this is 16 years ago and LBJ's legacy was looked upon very differently. And I thought LBJ without question was our most underappreciated president of our lifetimes. You and I are about the same age, and if you look back at the presidents who have served during our lifetimes, no question that LBJ was the least understood and appreciated. And it's partly because of the stain of Vietnam, which is a very real part of his legacy, but not the full part of his legacy. So that was one reason. The other reason was the reputation of the LBJ Library, which was absolutely superlative. And having been a researcher who had occasion to do research at all the different presidential libraries, I knew firsthand how good the LBJ Library was. There's not a better archival department, not a better group of archivists curating that material and processing it and presenting it to the American people. And finally, there's Austin, Texas. You and I both know that Texans are very welcoming and there's something just so big about Texas that's intriguing. Was that your?
Kelly Damphousse (06:36):
Well, it is interesting coming from Canada down to Texas, it took me a while to figure out that people were authentically nice. I thought they were faking it.
(06:45):
But they would offer to do things for you. And I say, yeah, you're going to show up on Saturday, help me move. And sure enough, they showed up with their pickup truck and a friend I'd never met before and helped me move. And so Texans are different. One of my favorite LBJ stories is actually my bosses tell the story a few times where he said LBJ said, never ask a man if he's from Texas. Because if he's from Texas, he'll surely tell you, and if he's not, there's no need to embarrass him. I love that story because there's a pride in being Texan that other states, and I've lived all over the South, I've lived almost in every Southern state, that's just probably different about being Texan than being from somewhere like Arkansas or Oklahoma.
Mark Updegrove (07:25):
There's a pride. I'm from Pennsylvania, from outside Philadelphia. You don't have Philly pride. I mean, yes, to some degree, but Pennsylvania pride, no. Connecticut pride, no. But you're right. There's this outsized Texas pride. And I found when I got here, and I think you and I have talked about this too, Kelly, people wanted me to succeed whether they were Democrat or Republican or independent, they looked at the LBJ Library as being a part of the fabric of this state, and they wanted to do whatever they could to make me succeed. And they were willing to make good on any promises they made.
Kelly Damphousse (08:00):
I hadn't thought about this, but I bet there are a lot of people who may not have appreciated what LBJ had done, but doggone it, he was a Texan born and raised and represented Texas. And so at the end, the library becomes an homage to him and to Texas and books that are written about him oftentimes talk about growing up in the Hill Country and about how that made him who he is. And people talk about, and he talked about his time here at Southwest Texas and how that formed him as well. Maybe we transition to him now and think about his time here at Southwest Texas State before it was called Texas State University. You just wrote a little bit of a history of LBJ at Southwest Texas for our Hillviews magazine. Can you summarize a little bit of your summary of his time here and what he experienced while he was here? He talks about education being the open door, and I think he meant that it provides something for you that you can't get anywhere else. And sometimes you hear people say you don't need a college degree, and college is a bad ROI and so on. But I don't think he felt like that. He felt something special that happened here that he wouldn't have gotten if he hadn't come here.
Mark Updegrove (09:09):
You're absolutely right. And he probably wouldn't have come here, Kelly, had it not been for his mother who had been educated herself. One of the very few women, not only in Texas but in America who had a college education, she believed fervently in education. LBJ did not. He was a bit of a Philistine.
Kelly Damphousse (09:26):
He didn't go right out of high school. He kind of took a little sidetrack.
Mark Updegrove (09:30):
Yeah, he took a sidetrack. He first went to California for fame and riches that never came, and he came back to Texas Hill Country with his tail between his legs. His father got him a job on a road construction crew, and he saw what was maybe a dead end future really, and menial labor. And he wanted something bigger. So finally he capitulated and he borrowed $75 and hitchhiked here to San Marcos, matriculated it here at what was then Southwest State. Southwest State Teachers College. You are so wise to change the name, Texas State is so much easier.
Kelly Damphousse (10:09):
But it wasn't like, I have started sharing more of his story with our students because it wasn't just he came to school and four years later had a degree. Right. There was challenges along the way.
Mark Updegrove (10:17):
Totally. And they were principally economically related. And it informs his policy, which I know we'll talk about as well. But this is a guy, and I didn't realize it, Kelly, until I had delved into this article for Hillviews that he had this concern, this anxiety every day that he wasn't going to be able to get to the next day because he had these great economic troubles. And as you know, he left between his junior and senior years at college.
Kelly Damphousse (10:45):
He just ran out of money and had to go get a job somewhere.
Mark Updegrove (10:47):
And he got a job in Cotulla, Texas near the border where he taught largely Mexican American school kids. And he saw through their eyes and experienced what poverty looks like and what racial prejudice looked like. And he was determined to do whatever he could for them as their teacher. And then when he became an elected official as somebody who had the power to do something, of course when he became the president, he had real power and he never lost sight of those school kids, nor did he lose sight of his financial struggles when he was here at Texas State.
Kelly Damphousse (11:22):
There's a lesson there, two lessons probably. One is that very few people just have a linear path for that. Everyone faces challenges, but think about if he hadn't faced that, maybe he got a scholarship or maybe his parents had enough money and hadn't had to stop up for a while and go down there and teach how that would've not given him the experience he had upon which he based so many of his future policies and practices.
Mark Updegrove (11:47):
And again, you go back to careers and anyone who has had an eventful career, there are these times in your career when you think, well, this doesn't mean much. And ultimately later you realize how much you garnered from that experience that informs your path forward. And for young people in particular, actually, you and I had a session with leaders from Texas State and that conversation veered in a direction we didn't quite expect and we talked about this, right?
Kelly Damphousse (12:14):
And by the way, they said that was the best one ever because you were so open about your own personal experience.
Mark Updegrove (12:20):
As were you about yours. And we talked about the fact that we really didn't have a clear vision when we graduated from college as to what our careers would look like. And you and I were kind of wringing our hands about that in different places in North America. We were wondering where the path would lead. And I think ultimately you have to trust yourself. What you have to do is I think gain experiences that give you perspective and trust yourself to make the right decision for your career. But going back to LBJ's experience, who could know that this one year, to your point, that filled the financial gap that needed to get over to round out his college experience as a senior would lead to this experience that was so searing in his conscience.
Kelly Damphousse (13:03):
Yeah. So what experiences did he have on this campus do you think that really defining for him in his future career in politics?
Mark Updegrove (13:12):
I think part of it, there are two answers. One is his role in the debate team. He was seen by his teacher to be an expert debater and as a freshman, he was kind of the heavyweight on the debate team.
Kelly Damphousse (13:27):
But where did that come from?
Mark Updegrove (13:30):
I think he was naturally intrinsically intelligent. He was really interested in politics and saw his father on the stump. His father was a legislator in the Texas legislature, and he was really intrigued by his father and campaigning and I'm sure attended sessions at the legislature where he saw lawmakers debating different things. And LBJ had a natural proclivity for that. So I think that was one thing. He was actually, as I understand it, Sam Houston had a run on the debate championship here in Texas.
Kelly Damphousse (14:09):
It's a fine institution, by the way,
Mark Updegrove (14:11):
Fine institution.
Kelly Damphousse (14:12):
Since I graduated from there.
Mark Updegrove (14:13):
Yes you did, but you'll appreciate now being the president of this institution that they scored a major upset in the debates that year because of LBJ being the cleanup batter among their debaters. That was one thing. And the other thing, another thing you'll appreciate is he worked for the president of the university and he was in the nucleus of power. He saw how power worked on this university and how the president handled certain situations, and I think that was very formative as well.
Kelly Damphousse (14:45):
And then running for student body president and those kind of experiences there.
Mark Updegrove (14:48):
Exactly.
Kelly Damphousse (14:49):
So last year I had you and several authors of an edited volume come together that you put together, the title of that book's called "LBJ's America." And when I first saw the title of it, I remember thinking this must be like a historic feature about what America was like in the 1960s when LBJ was president. And turns out it wasn't that at all. In fact, probably you should have worked on a better title or something like that. But I think that it actually was about the fact that we're currently living in LBJ's America. And so talk a little bit about the legacy. We as proud as we are about being Texans, we're super proud of the fact that LBJ went to school here and got a start here, but I don't think we really understand or appreciate as much as we should, the impact that he had in our lives. There's a room in the library that has a framed thing with all these pens in it, and these pens are all the pens that were used in all the acts that he had signed and the bills that he had signed. His legacy is unbelievable, but we've missed that somehow and that probably because of what he went through when he was president, but we have a better appreciation for that. Now, what is LBJ's America?
Mark Updegrove (16:01):
Well, you're right. This volume I edited, co-edited with Mark Lawrence, who's the director of the LBJ Library. And essentially that refers to the legislation that LBJ put through on his very ambitious domestic agenda called the Great Society. And you're referring to that shadow box Kelly in the LBJ Presidential Library, which just contains the pens that LBJ used to sign landmark laws in 1965 alone. Bear in mind, that's when he's standing tallest in the presidency.
Kelly Damphousse (16:35):
And that shadow box is huge, huge. How many pens? Like 50 pens in there. Something like that.
Mark Updegrove (16:38):
Yeah, and you have the pens that created Medicare, Medicaid, Head Start, the Department of Housing and Urban Development, the National Endowment for the Humanities, the National Endowment for the Arts, the Highway Beautification Act, the Clean Air Act, the Clean Water Act, the Immigration Act, the most sweeping immigration reform in the history of our nation, and the Voting Rights Act, that is one year of the LBJ presidency.
Kelly Damphousse (17:06):
And things we think just always existed. They didn't exist before him and only existed after him.
Mark Updegrove (17:11):
Yeah, that's exactly right. Add to that, the civil rights, the legislation he signed in other years, the Civil Rights Act, the Freedom of Information Act, the Historical Preservation Act, the Fair Housing Act. I mean it is a remarkable domestic agenda and there is no president again in our lifetimes who even comes close to what LBJ achieved.
Kelly Damphousse (17:31):
And including a very important one that was signed on this campus when he came back to his alma mater to sign the Education Act.
Mark Updegrove (17:38):
And you're right, let me just add the two things I forgot from that long list of 1965, landmark laws are the Elementary and Secondary Education Act and the Higher Education Act, and it goes back to what we were talking about, about LBJ's experience here. He had financial hardship he was dealing with that could have been a barrier to his matriculation and graduation from this institution. So you don't have Pell Grants without the Higher Education Act. You don't have the infusion of federal aid education without those two education bills, which are fundamentally transformational.
Kelly Damphousse (18:12):
Half of our students that come here are Pell eligible, another half are first generation. Many of those students wouldn't have the opportunity that he had to struggle to get through, but many of his contemporaries didn't have that opportunity because there was no Pell Grant, because there was no safety net because universities were seen not as public goods, but as something for the elites to get involved with.
Mark Updegrove (18:31):
Yeah, exactly.
Kelly Damphousse (18:32):
But he understood that this was a life-changing experience because of his own experience. What do you think was his secret of getting so many things passed? I'm sure some of it was the legacy of having had an assassinated president that he followed, and there was probably a halo around that, but it wasn't just that. Right?
Mark Updegrove (18:49):
Well, that explains the Civil Rights Act, which John F. Kennedy was unable to put through law. LBJ used his martyrdom, the halo, you put it very well, to get that through, and we've got to do this for our slain president. It's what he would've wanted, otherwise it probably wouldn't have been passed. But the other, the 1965 legislation that I enumerated has everything to do with LBJ's innate understanding of power and his indomitable will to get things done. I mean, he was a can-do man, as he would've said. And I think he learned to do things, he learned on this campus, how things get done and how power works. He took those lessons throughout the course of his life, but there were very few who have ever entered the capitol or entered Washington with the kind of understanding that he had around power.
Kelly Damphousse (19:40):
We could sit here all day and talk about him, but I would love to hear maybe a story about LBJ that very few people know about that is maybe a favorite story of yours about maybe some insight into his character or maybe it's just a funny story.
Mark Updegrove (19:51):
Well, it shows how LBJ had an understanding of how to get things done. At the end of his administration when people were all worried about the next job in their careers, DeVere Pearson, one of his staff members, has an opportunity to open a Washington branch of an LA-based law firm. And so in those days, you signed out of the White House, and LBJ being the micromanager he was would know you'd signed out, he would've looked at the log. So he signs out of the White House, he flies to Los Angeles, he meets in this august teak-lined conference room with the partners of this august law firm. And five minutes into the meeting in bursts a very flustered secretary and she says, Mr. Pearson, the president's on the line for you. And the lead partner says, DeVere, you take as much time as you need and when you're ready to resume the meeting, we'll come back in and we'll start again.
(20:41):
So they file out doors close, he picks up the phone, he says, Mr. President, LBJ says yes. He says, "Mr. President, I dunno if you know this, I'm not in the White House today. I signed out and I'm interviewing for a big job." And LBJ says, yeah, I know I saw the log. He said, "Well then Mr. President, what can I do for you?" And LBJ said, "Oh, I don't have anything. I just thought the call might help."
Kelly Damphousse (21:03):
That's great. And I bet it did too. Right?
Mark Updegrove (21:05):
It did. That's the president of the United States, that's how important this guy is.
Kelly Damphousse (21:08):
Yeah, I love that. Sometimes if I'm in a meeting and my assistant comes in and says, someone's on the phone, and if it's like the boss or something like that, I'll say, I'll do that later. This is way more important. I tell him, I'll call the boss back. And so thanks so much for sharing your insight about LBJ and about presidential history. I love hearing about the second act. Every time you talk about that book, I keep thinking about my own second act. It'll be like the 15th act for me. And so what's next for me? And sometimes I worry about what is next. I'm sure anyone in our position starts thinking about what is the next part. I hope it's not just sitting on a golf cart somewhere. I've got something else to do. Thanks so much for reminding us about LBJ's America and the impact that Texas State, Southwest Texas Teachers College had on him and the impact he's having on us today. Without him, we wouldn't have a lot of things that we take for granted. So thanks so much.
Mark Updegrove (22:02):
Thank you, Kelly, and thank you for your leadership.
Kelly Damphousse (22:04):
Thanks so much, Mark. Really appreciate that. All right, we'll be back right after this.
(22:10):
Alright, we're back now. And now we've got a special guest. She is the star of one of my favorite documentaries. We're talking about Abby Garcia. Abby is a junior mariachi music education major and she is actually the star of "Going Varsity in Mariachi." Yeah, so welcome to the podcast.
Abby Garcia (22:31):
Thank you. I'm so happy to be here.
Kelly Damphousse (22:33):
Yeah, I'm glad to have you here. This is an opportunity for us to talk to students and faculty and staff about what's going on at Texas State. And this is actually something that's really cool because there are few things more quintessential Texas State than the Strutters, Boko, and mariachi. And so we've got a great mariachi program, and this show is about high school kids that are involved in mariachi who are going to go off to college.
Abby Garcia (22:57):
Yes.
Kelly Damphousse (22:58):
Yeah. So when did you start playing mariachi?
Abby Garcia (23:01):
I started in eighth grade when I was 13.
Kelly Damphousse (23:05):
13.
Abby Garcia (23:05):
But I started playing violin when I was 11, in sixth grade.
Kelly Damphousse (23:07):
You're really good at it, right? Yeah, pretty good. Was the thought when you started playing violin that you were going to just be in the band or something like that? Or did you think about, oh, maybe if I get good I can do mariachi?
Abby Garcia (23:19):
I was learning violin. I wanted to learn violin. My mom had me do it so that I can be in mariachi in eighth grade.
Kelly Damphousse (23:25):
Was she in mariachi?
Abby Garcia (23:26):
She wasn't, but she loves mariachi.
Kelly Damphousse (23:28):
Yeah.
Abby Garcia (23:29):
I used to not like it when I was in sixth grade.
Kelly Damphousse (23:31):
Why is that?
Abby Garcia (23:33):
It was just, it's the kind of music your parents put on.
Kelly Damphousse (23:35):
It's old fashioned. Yeah. Yeah.
Abby Garcia (23:37):
And I'd be listening to Miley Cyrus on the radio. My mom would put on mariachi and I was like, and then I ended up falling in love with it.
Kelly Damphousse (23:44):
Yeah. I've started listening more and more to it because first off, I don't know Spanish, but I love the sound of Spanish singers and so I love mariachi that has a vocal performance in addition to the music. Yeah, something I like. Do you sing?
Abby Garcia (24:00):
A little bit.
Kelly Damphousse (24:01):
A little bit. So tell me about the process of getting in this show. Did they come to your school and say, hey, we've got an idea for you guys, or how did it all work?
Abby Garcia (24:12):
So when I was a sophomore in high school, the two directors were looking to do a mini documentary on UIL wrestling, and then they found out that—
Kelly Damphousse (24:21):
Really.
Abby Garcia (24:22):
They found out that mariachi had just been sanctioned by UIL for competitions and things like that.
Kelly Damphousse (24:27):
And wrestling's old news, right? Yeah. But mariachi is something no one knows anything about.
Abby Garcia (24:31):
Yeah.
Kelly Damphousse (24:31):
Yeah.
Abby Garcia (24:31):
And it just so happened they picked our school by luck, by chance, and once that mini documentary on Popup Magazine came out, they really liked it and wanted a full version. And that full version started beginning of my senior year.
Kelly Damphousse (24:47):
So how was it while they were doing it? We'll talk about the after effect of the show, but while you were doing it because you're just a student, right? You're a high school senior and you're thinking about where you're going to go to college and so on, but what was it like to be having cameras and a crew following you around?
Abby Garcia (25:04):
It was scary at first. Especially I think I'm a shy person, so having a whole camera crew following me around in class was so scary, but.
Kelly Damphousse (25:12):
Was it really disruptive, sometimes?
Abby Garcia (25:14):
They did a really good job of not disrupting classes, kind of just staying in the back or sometimes they were even just at the door recording from outside the door.
Kelly Damphousse (25:22):
You forget when you're watching a documentary that there's someone on the other side of the camera. Yes, there's multiple people and with a microphone crew and people with headsets on.
Abby Garcia (25:29):
Whole giant microphone.
Kelly Damphousse (25:30):
People with light things shining and so on.
Abby Garcia (25:33):
They spent a lot of time with us off cameras to make sure that we were comfortable. They became a family friend.
Kelly Damphousse (25:38):
Did you ever feel like you had to fake what you were doing or you just like, could you be really natural?
Abby Garcia (25:43):
I think I could be. I was really natural. Most of the time it was just watching what you say as high school students. Of course.
Kelly Damphousse (25:50):
Yeah, that's right. Because high school students do dumb things. Sometimes you didn't, but some people did. Yeah. So it's cool. So walk us through now, not the show itself, but the process of thinking about going to college because you're in this mariachi program and you've got a coach who's like a killer coach, right? Yes. You guys have won championships for years and years. There's all the trophies on the wall and stuff like that. What was it like being in that group where the expectations were really high for performing?
Abby Garcia (26:17):
Well, it was scary, but by the time I was a senior it was exciting. I was so excited just to be able to be one of the leaders and help the group win and be successful.
Kelly Damphousse (26:29):
People are looking up to you now. All the freshmen and sophomores are looking up to you and you, you're a stabilizing force.
Abby Garcia (26:34):
Yes, exactly. It was really special being able to teach the other students and the cameras being there and so many important things. Senior year is really important.
Kelly Damphousse (26:46):
Yeah, it's like a great memory, a great journal or a diary of your life you can go back and look at.
Abby Garcia (26:51):
Exactly a really important year.
Kelly Damphousse (26:53):
And they probably have miles and miles of tape that never made the show.
Abby Garcia (26:56):
They have hundreds and hundreds of hours of footage. When I met the producers and the editors after for the first time ever at one of the film festivals, they're like, like we know you so well. We're friends because they've seen so much about me on all the footage.
Kelly Damphousse (27:09):
Well, I feel the same way though, watching the documentary. I got to know you on a different level. So tell us about what it was like to now audition to come to Texas State. You had other opportunities. You could have gone to lots of different schools, but.
Abby Garcia (27:24):
It was scary more because I knew it was going to be recorded.
Kelly Damphousse (27:27):
Yeah.
Abby Garcia (27:27):
It was going to be on video. So if I messed up, it was there forever. But I was so excited. I knew that this was the only place I actually auditioned for.
Kelly Damphousse (27:36):
What was it about Texas State?
Abby Garcia (27:38):
I had come to a Bobcat Day and the campus is so beautiful.
Kelly Damphousse (27:42):
It is.
Abby Garcia (27:43):
And I saw the Texas State Mariachi perform when I was a freshman in high school and I saw them and I was like, that's where I want to be.
Kelly Damphousse (27:50):
I love the uniforms.
Abby Garcia (27:51):
Yes, they're gorgeous.
Kelly Damphousse (27:53):
We're getting new ones. You know that.
Abby Garcia (27:54):
Yes. I just found out actually.
Kelly Damphousse (27:55):
Yeah, I just approved that just a couple of days ago. So.
Abby Garcia (27:57):
So excited for that.
Kelly Damphousse (27:58):
I'm so excited too. I hope that I get a uniform too. So that's my goal. That's my goal. No, but they look so sharp and we have a lot of students auditioning and applying to get here, which means the quality of our mariachi is really, really good.
Abby Garcia (28:12):
It's really growing up.
Kelly Damphousse (28:13):
You addition to come to Texas State and then you get accepted. Tell us about the moment you found out you got accepted.
Abby Garcia (28:19):
So I had gotten an email that said more or less the subject line said I was accepted, but I told the directors, they told me to let them know, so I wasn't able to open it for a few days.
Kelly Damphousse (28:30):
That's so funny.
Abby Garcia (28:31):
Until they were there to record and—
Kelly Damphousse (28:35):
Oh, you had to delay it, so then you had to kind of pretend like—
Abby Garcia (28:38):
Oh yeah, I knew I was in, but it was reading the scholarship info and stuff, but it was such a special moment when everything I think got real.
Kelly Damphousse (28:48):
When my oldest daughter got accepted to the university she went to, I knew that she had been accepted before she knew it was the same university I worked at. And so when her acceptance letter came in, I said, "Hey Kayleigh, go get the mail." So she went and got it and I was recording with my phone without her seeing and so I could get the whole thing, and she got it and she started crying because she didn't think she was going to get in. She was so excited. And then later I went back to watch the video. I had taken a picture, so I completely lost the whole thing. So I wish I would've had the brains to go, let's recreate this. You did that. So I could have recreated a whole thing, but I'm glad they captured that though.
Abby Garcia (29:23):
They caught call my parents' actual reaction because they
Kelly Damphousse (29:25):
Oh, really.
Abby Garcia (29:25):
Didn't know. I kind of knew. I didn't tell my parents, they didn't know, and they were both crying.
Kelly Damphousse (29:29):
So scholarships.
Abby Garcia (29:30):
Yes. Got a scholarship for music and then an academic scholarship.
Kelly Damphousse (29:35):
So your goal is to be a teacher?
Abby Garcia (29:37):
Yes.
Kelly Damphousse (29:37):
Yeah. So how's that going?
Abby Garcia (29:39):
It's going good.
Kelly Damphousse (29:41):
You're a junior right now?
Abby Garcia (29:42):
I'm a junior, yes.
Kelly Damphousse (29:42):
Yeah. OK.
Abby Garcia (29:43):
We are having Noche de Mariachi, which is a concert that's coming up and we're having some high schools come over and I'm going to be able to teach some of them, which I'm really excited about.
Kelly Damphousse (29:51):
How exciting is that? So where do you want to go teach if you had your one choice, pick a school or a town?
Abby Garcia (29:57):
Probably back in the Valley.
Kelly Damphousse (29:58):
Back in the Valley. We have a lot of Valley kids come to Texas State. What I love about that is that many of them come here and we want them to feel like going back home is a good thing. We love them to stay in San Marcos or in the Austin area, but it's really important for young people that have, who grow up in a certain place to have the freedom to go home and to make it better by returning to it. So you don't have this thing called brain drain where people are leaving and all the good people are leaving. To have them come back that's really cool.
Abby Garcia (30:28):
And bring everything they learn.
Kelly Damphousse (30:29):
How cool would it be to back in maybe your junior high?
Abby Garcia (30:32):
That'd be amazing.
Kelly Damphousse (30:33):
And then you could be training these young people going up to the program that you went to and eventually maybe taking over that program.
Abby Garcia (30:38):
Yeah.
Kelly Damphousse (30:38):
I'm planning up your whole life right here. What's your best memory, not mariachi, since you came to Texas State?
Abby Garcia (30:46):
When I was a freshman and it was the day I was going to leave after my first semester, my roommate and I, we got sparkling Welch's grape juice and went up to the top floor of the parking garage and just saw the sunrise. We were both going to leave that day and just watch the sunrise and talked about the semester.
Kelly Damphousse (31:02):
What year was that?
Abby Garcia (31:03):
That was 2022.
Kelly Damphousse (31:05):
That was my first year.
Abby Garcia (31:06):
Oh yes.
Kelly Damphousse (31:06):
Yes. Yeah. So fall of '22?
Abby Garcia (31:07):
Yes.
Kelly Damphousse (31:08):
So December.
Abby Garcia (31:09):
December of 2022.
Kelly Damphousse (31:10):
Wow. I'm glad you shared that story because sometimes I get kind of locked in the day-to-day, like I got to get through this meeting and do it, the next thing, and I forget how important this experience is for students, and I need moments, the one you just shared to remind me how important this is for you and the friendship. Did you know this friend before or?
Abby Garcia (31:30):
We, no, we had met as roommates and we're best friends now.
Kelly Damphousse (31:33):
I tell people that all the time. They'll say, I don't want to leave my high school. I'm going to leave all my best friends. And so I said, no, you're going to make your best friend when you go to college.
Abby Garcia (31:41):
Yeah, I was scared of that too. And I've made all my best friends here.
Kelly Damphousse (31:43):
Where'd you live your freshman year?
Abby Garcia (31:45):
Smith Hall.
Kelly Damphousse (31:46):
OK. Yes. Did you ever go by there and go that used to be my place?
Abby Garcia (31:48):
Yes. But I think they're not being used anymore.
Kelly Damphousse (31:50):
They're tearing it down now. Yes. We're going to build a new residence hall there. Yeah, so we're going to tear Smith and Arnold down, so yeah. So what's your favorite mariachi experience since you got here?
Abby Garcia (32:01):
I think it's been the concerts. Every single concert has been so fun.
Kelly Damphousse (32:05):
People are blown away by it. I mean people who grew up in mariachi and the experience of it, I think they appreciate it, but people who don't, I've had people, "Hey, hey, you got to go watch this." And people don't know what to expect when they see it. They're like, holy cow. I think people have, maybe they've been to a restaurant where three guys have walked around with guitars and they think that that's it, and then they see the band come out with the trumpets and the violins and what other instruments are there?
Abby Garcia (32:32):
There's guitar, guitarron, viola, and trumpets.
Kelly Damphousse (32:35):
A lot of stuff going on there. And then to see someone sing, I think people are surprised by the musicality and how pretty it is and how much fun it is to watch.
Abby Garcia (32:44):
Yeah.
Kelly Damphousse (32:45):
What inspired you to want to be a teacher?
Abby Garcia (32:47):
My high school mariachi director. It was more than just being in mariachi when I was in high school. It was like he had this safe haven for everyone. Whenever something was going on in one of our lives, he was there to listen and help us through it, and I kind of want to provide that for students.
Kelly Damphousse (33:02):
Well, thank you so much for coming in and chatting with me. I'm so proud of you.
Abby Garcia (33:05):
Thank you so much.
Kelly Damphousse (33:06):
Now we've got one more thing to do. So we ask people to send in questions, and I've not seen the question in here, so you get to ask me a question.
Abby Garcia (33:15):
OK, cool.
Kelly Damphousse (33:16):
So open it up and I have not seen it, so it's going to be kind of a surprise. Hopefully it's one I can answer.
Abby Garcia (33:22):
So it says, what advice do you have for students to make the most of their time at university?
Kelly Damphousse (33:26):
Oh, that's great. We talked a little bit about this, about the fact that you're going to make good friends here.
(33:31):
I think sometimes people kind of get locked in a little bit too much in their classwork and they don't take advantage of the other stuff that's going on. And I was kind of that way. I went to a community college, and so when I first started and it was just all about going to class and I didn't know about, there really wasn't much other stuff going on. Then I went and worked in prison for a while. Then I went back to college and I went back to college, I was a little bit older, so I'm like 22, 23 years old and I'm a junior and I'm not a normal student, so I'm not in a fraternity or a student organization. And I did find a group eventually and I started saying, oh, college isn't just about taking classes, it's about the other stuff as well. Like you, well, I met a girl and I ended up marrying her best decision I ever made through that organization, but I made other friends and had other experiences that really kind of changed my life. I became an RA.
(34:25):
So I worked in a residence hall and one of my buddies who was a fellow RA was the best man in my wedding. And so it's just the experiences that I had in college and making friends and working in group projects and things like that. Those are things you rely on, that you learn outside of the classroom, but you use the rest of your life. My advice to someone is to join a student organization, get a job somewhere, work in a residence hall, get to know people.
Abby Garcia (34:53):
Find your people.
Kelly Damphousse (34:54):
Find your people. Absolutely. Well, thanks so much, Abby for joining us, and thank you all for joining us as well in this edition of The Current podcast where we learn more about what's happening here at Texas State from faculty, staff, students, and friends of the university. Thanks so much. States Up, everyone.