Alex Tiu, junior at St. Cyprian’s Episcopal School, has earned academic honors from the College Board National Recognition Programs.

These National Recognition Programs grant underrepresented students with academic honors that can be included on college and scholarship applications, connect students with universities across the country, and help them to stand out during the college admissions process. Colleges and scholarship programs identify students awarded National African American, Hispanic, Indigenous and/or Rural/Small Town Recognition through College Board’s Student Search Service.

Alex received these academic honors through the National Rural and Small Town Recognition Program. 

“We are proud of Alex Tiu for his achievement in the classroom and on College Board assessments,” said Sherry Durham, Head of School. “This recognition is well deserved for his hard work and dedication to achieving academic excellence.”

Students who may be eligible have a GPA of 3.5 or higher and have excelled on the PSAT/NMSQT or PSAT 10, or earned a score of 3 or higher on two or more AP Exams; and are African American or Black, Hispanic American or Latinx, Indigenous, and/or attend school in a rural area or small town.  

“We want to honor the hard work of these students through the College Board National Recognition Programs. This program creates a way for colleges and scholarship programs to connect directly with underrepresented students who they are hoping to reach,” said Tarlin Ray, College Board senior vice president of BigFuture. “We hope the award winners and their families celebrate this prestigious honor and it helps them plan for their big future.” 

College Board National Recognition Programs 

In August 2022, the College Board is awarding 62,000 students from across the country with academic honors from the College Board National Recognition Programs for excelling in their classrooms and on College Board assessments. More than 180,000 students from all 50 states were eligible to apply for the College Board National Recognition Programs, which grant students with academic honors that can be included on college and scholarship applications. Colleges and scholarship programs identify students awarded National African American, Hispanic, Indigenous and/or Rural/Small Town Recognition through College Board’s Student Search Service.

Governor Greg Abbott today announced the adoption of the Texas Department of Transportation’s (TxDOT) 2023 Unified Transportation Program (UTP), advancing a record $85 billion, 10-year statewide roadway construction plan. The 2023 UTP reflects an unprecedented level of projected transportation funding dedicated to improving transportation safety, addressing congestion and rural connectivity, and preserving roadways for Texas drivers.

“The State of Texas is working to ensure the transportation needs of our fast-growing state are met and that the safety of Texans on the roadways is protected,” said Governor Abbott. “TxDOT’s 2023 Unified Transportation Program is a critical step toward addressing the diverse needs of Texans in rural, urban, and metropolitan communities. This 10-year plan to address transportation needs statewide and dedicate $85 billion to improve roadways will be a huge boon to our state’s infrastructure and booming economy. As more people move to Texas and businesses grow across the state, we are working together to make sure Texans’ transportation safety and mobility are secured and businesses can flourish for generations to come.”

“The UTP reflects a continued focus on improving transportation safety as the top priority, maintaining our current system, addressing traffic congestion, and improving statewide connectivity over the next decade,” said TxDOT Commission Chairman J. Bruce Bugg, Jr. “Additionally, we are making significant progress in addressing congestion in our busiest parts of the state through our Texas Clear Lanes initiative, which improves top chokepoints in our largest metro areas.”

“Texas’ rapid growth reinforces the importance of investing in transportation to efficiently move both people and freight across our diverse state,” said TxDOT Executive Director Marc Williams. “TxDOT is working hard to not only build the new roads and transportation capacity Texas needs, but to maintain the more than 80,000 miles of roads and other transportation infrastructure under our care.“

The UTP funds will coincide with an additional $32 billion over the life of the program for routine maintenance contracts and project development, such as planning, professional engineering, and right-of-way acquisition for more than 7,000 transportation projects and a total investment of $117 billion statewide.

Many projects in the UTP plan are roadway segments identified on Texas’ 100 Most Congested Roadways list and critical connectivity corridors. The projects will be funded through legislative and voter-approved initiatives that allocate portions of oil and gas taxes, sales taxes, and other money to the state highway fund. These initiatives have increased the UTP over $50 billion over the 10-year period, with $34.3 billion in projects approved in the 2014 UTP in August 2013. With rural regions of the state supporting the critical energy and agricultural industries, the approved plan includes a historic increase in funding to $14 billion for projects in rural areas. The nine-county Lufkin District was approved for more than $885.5 million in the 10-year plan.

The $8.5 billion of average annual investment programmed in the UTP over the next 10 years is expected to yield an estimated $15.5 billion per year in economic benefits, according to the Texas A&M Transportation Institute. These benefits are a result of increased labor income and business output, as well as the addition of 58,500 direct and indirect jobs.

The UTP is a planning document that authorizes highway projects for development and construction. Additionally, the UTP identifies public transportation, maritime, aviation, and rail investments. Projects are selected by TxDOT and local transportation leaders based on effectiveness in addressing criteria such as safety, pavement condition, capacity, and rural connectivity, with opportunities for public input at both the state and local levels.

More information on the UTP projects is available here. 

As an artist, Michael Villarreal finds beauty in what some might consider the mundane. He takes his inspiration and influence from personal photos, or even from the house his parents built themselves. His works have traveled the entire country and have landed in several major publications.

Villarreal will share his talents and introspect in an exhibition titled “Upkeep: New Works by Michael Villarreal” taking place at the Angelina Center for the Arts Gallery on the Angelina College campus beginning Sept. 19 and running through Oct. 28. An artist’s reception will take place from 6-7:30 p.m. on Monday, Sept. 19 in the AC foyer.

Villarreal said in an issued statement that “using a combination of painting, sculpture, and installation, my work makes connections between materiality and the recollection and re-interpretation of past and present experiences.

“I capture ephemeral moments that are often overlooked.”

For example, the artist often uses everyday materials used in the construction of houses, “such as 2 by 4s and drywall.” Villarreal also states, “My paintings act as framed windows, revealing mundane scenes of outdoor remnants like a large stack of chopped wood or patches of grass filling in an area of residual growth.”

Michael Villarreal is a visual artist based in Lytton Springs, TX. In 2013, Villarreal received a Bachelor of Fine Arts at Texas State University in San Marcos, TX and a Master of Fine Arts in 2017 at the University of Nebraska. He has exhibited in solo exhibitions at Art Palace Contemporary Art Gallery in Houston, TX; Project Project in Omaha, NE; Doane University in Crete, NE; and Spellerberg Projects, Lockhart, TX. He’s been in numerous group exhibitions which include The International Quilt Museum in Lincoln, NE; Real Shapes at DATELINE in Denver, CO; Going My Way at Barbara Davis Gallery, Houston, TX; Nebraska Rising at Bemis Center for Contemporary Art, Omaha, NE, and Excessivist Initiative at LA Artcore: Brewery Annex Gallery, Los Angeles, CA.

In addition, His work has been featured in several publications such as Huffington Post, New American Paintings, and Art Maze Magazine. In 2019, he was a recipient of the Nebraska Arts Council Individual Artist Fellowship.

Villarreal currently teaches at Texas State University.

Admission to the reception and gallery is free and open to the public.

Below is the full artist’s statement:

“Influenced from personal photos, old and new, my current work is a repository of memory, time, place, and self. I grew up on a property that has been a constant project my whole life. Through decades of constant additions and renovations, from the house built by the hands of my parents to a yard in need of continual care, I capture ephemeral moments that are often overlooked. Using a combination of painting, sculpture, and installation, my work makes connections between materiality and the recollection and re-interpretation of past and present experiences.

“I use materials that are common for the construction of houses, such as 2 by 4s and dry wall. These materials are configured as structures bearing a resemblance to the in-progress walls of a home. Each structure builds along the walls of the gallery with no intended end point. In addition, my paintings act as framed windows, revealing mundane scenes of outdoor remnants like a large stack of chopped wood or patches of grass filling in an area of residual growth. All my paintings are created within a week, allowing for alla prima and impasto techniques to produce abstract moments that, at times, never really feel finished.

“The construction of walls and excessive layering of paint both interpret an environment that transcends its original purpose, fostering a new narrative while maintaining a basic visual familiarity.”

For further information, contact curator Le’Anne Alexander at lalexander@angelina.edu.

Faculty Exhibition Runs through Sept. 15 in the Angelina Center for the Arts Gallery

Angelina College Visual and Performing Arts instructors don’t just teach their crafts. They show students exactly how to do it.

AC’s Art instructors currently are displaying some of their works in a gallery scheduled to run through Sept. 15 in the Angelina Center for the Arts gallery. Instructors exhibiting their skills include Denise Stringer Davis, Reginald Reynolds, Jan Anderson-Paxson, Stina Herrera and Le’Anne Alexander.

Ranging in various media from oil and acrylic paintings to video to photography, the collection is testament to both the artists’ specific talents and experience.

Admission to the gallery is free and open to the public.

Following are the artists’ statements:

Denise Stringer Davis: These works are from my exhibition loss, healing & wonder which is a distillation of my brush with my mortality, the way I processed the pandemic, and the sense of wonder I hope to always keep. I strive to make objects and images that evoke memories that we do not think about often or at all but nevertheless shape our perceptions. I once heard a poet describe a poem as a prayer of gratitude. My work is the physical embodiment of gratitude for my experiences.

My art seeks to find the profound and the beautiful in the everyday. Physicality and tactility, which relate to the body of the viewer and to past experiences, serve to create a dialog between the viewer and the piece. Common materials, sounds, and actions contain significant beauty and meaning when isolated and considered in their own right.

I am interested in the places where science, philosophy, and spirituality intersect. Poetry, humor, and magic live there. Hope lives there. Space, time, memory and all things physical fluctuate, but that impermanence, when greeted with openness, invites us to take in every moment and revel in the connectedness of things as small as a virus to those as monumental as the universe.

Reginald Reynolds: LUCA, the Last Universal Common Ancestor (not human life and not even the most recent life) is the most recent form of life that is ancestral to current existing life on earth. Some evidence exists in the discovery of photosynthetic micro-organisms, cyanobacteria, and algae (primitive one-celled organisms), found in what are called stromatolites (sedimentary formations).

Two leading assumptions suggest that life on Earth is a result of:

1. Abiogenesis – where a chemical system grows in complexity and replicates itself, a widely accepted definition of life.

2. Panspermia – where organic molecules may have been delivered from space, via meteorites that fell to Earth.

I like the second case. It is intriguing and makes good science fiction. I want to know: Do we need to be looking for LUCA on Earth and LUCA in our Universe?

Jan Anderson-Paxson (Light Interrupted): The photographs that I am presenting are part of a series where I am observing how the effects of sunlight on a subject, changes as it is filtered through, water, fog, haze or clouds. The angle of the sun can also dramatically alter the scene, as well. The five images were taken early in the morning on an almost deserted beach in

South Padre Island. I choose to work in black and white photography where the seemingly infinite tones of black, gray, and white, help me to express in my photographs and what I was feeling at that moment.

We are living in a world of uncertainty, whether it’s the subject of Covid, inflation, climate change, political fighting, immigration or the many, types of social issues facing our country. All these competing voices demand our attention, all the time! In these images, those voices are silent. I can be still, and marvel in the quiet beauty and serenity seen in nature that is all around us. If we only take the time to observe!

As you look at the photographs, my wish for you is to stop for a few minutes, see the light reflecting off the water, imagine hearing the sound of waves softly lapping onto the shore, and feel the warm breezes on your face.

Stina Herrera (Sunbonnet Sue): Sue celebrates two traditions that seem to be becoming less and less prevalent: quilting and stained glass. All of her color comes from pressed flower petals, sourced locally in Nacogdoches. The beautiful, delicate details in the petals are on full display, especially when the light shines behind her. I hand-stitched some decorative elements to add more dimension and another tie back to fabrics and quilting. Every grandmother I know had a sunbonnet sue quilt, usually hanging on a decorative ladder somewhere. This pattern is iconic nostalgia for me, and incorporating the pressed petals ties it directly to home.

Ex-lax: This piece is from my “Issues” series, which consists of sculptural jewelry and prints each addressing various mental health issues prevalent in our nation, but specifically among young people. Body issues have only become increasingly widespread since the rise of social media, and anorexia is one of the most common eating disorders. The beautifully shiny, deep red medical alert symbol in the middle of the necklace slowly fades and becomes smaller, duller, and grainier. The healthy shapes become more and more decayed and the back becomes more skeletal, to demonstrate the wasting away of the body and mental health of the individual.

Le’Anne Alexander: I’ve always been a fan of geometric shapes and their ability to suggest meaning outside the mathematical. These forms also contain a level of simplicity which I find fun and challenging to approach creatively. This simplicity of form leads to a desire for a restricted color palette resulting in my use of black and white, primary, and secondary colors.

In my practice, images are created digitally with very basic design software and/or a cellphone camera. I design images that, despite how good they look on the screen, continue to give me what I call the “digital ick,” meaning there is something still not right about them in their purely digital form. They may feel cliché, seem to require a larger format, or need a change of medium. I consider the digital images merely sketches which create a problem that I get to solve. Some images should just not be digital, but many of mine start out that way.

I initially started the geometric series which I’m now calling “The Primaries” and “The Secondaries” with the intent of creating non-objective art focused solely on the formal concerns, however I found that by attempting to clear my mind during the creative process, I could not escape certain world issues which began to appear in the work. This series of shaped wood panels and also the charcoal drawing are impacted by the stress and emotion tied to the state of the political climate in our country. The lack of balance, the unrest and uncertainty led to ideas of confused patriotism, hidden agendas and dangerous outcomes bubbling just under the surface. The titles are a play on words related to the Primary Elections and the resulting fallout.

Dreamin’ ‘Bout Cars and Talkin’ ‘Bout Women is a more traditional oil painting on panel that came about during a long wait at the car dealership. I’ve found that if you sit quietly in a public space and listen to those around you that you get an idea of what really matters in the

community. Despite a shocking new political news story blaring on the tv, the packed waiting area hummed with talk of the new Corvette engine and gossip about someone’s cheating wife while a single mom rocked a car seat containing a wailing baby. I looked out the window seeking sanctuary and zoned out to the beautiful blues of the sky reflected in the window, mirroring the blue metal roof of the building. I contemplated the illusion this created of a reversal of earth and sky while an old Alan Jackson tune played across the intercom and the conversation continued.

For further information, contact curator Le’Anne Alexander at lalexander@angelina.edu.