By Juan Montoya
When I graduated from the University of Michigan-Ann Arbor in 1978, the commencement speaker was Walter F. Mondale, Vice-President, United States.
To tell you the truth, I really can't remember what Mondale's speech was about.
Later, in 1985, when I graduated from the University of Wisconsin-Madison, I don't even remember who spoke to the graduates.But I can guarantee you that I will remember – as will the 2017 TSC grads – today's commencement speech by retired federal judge magistrate Felix Recio to the graduates of Texas Southmost College.
Recio, who started out addressing the TSC board and faculty and the graduates, their parents, and relatives in attendance until he realized he had lost his prepared speech, launched into an impromptu address that recounted the obstacles some people will face in graduating from the community college and then on beyond.
![]()
"Continue you education," he exhorted the graduates. "And there will be obstacles."
Then he told his story. Using a metaphor from Joseph Campbell's "The Hero With a 1,000 Faces," he told the story of his overcoming obstacles in his life.
(At right, Jose Enrique Montoya Sandoval, one of only two graduates inducted into Phi Theta Kapa and receiving Magna Cum Laude recognition gets his degree. He earned a 3.8 GPA.)
At five, Recio's mother and father separated, and divorced two years later. Unable to care for herself and her son, his mother moved in to public housing until the divorce became final and they had to leave. They then moved in with another aunt who was also living in a housing project. Recio started public schools in Brownsville but soon got in trouble with the law and ended up going on a hardship scholarship at St. Joseph Academy. He cleaned classrooms and did yard work to pay for his keep at the school.
He and his mother moved around with relatives and ended up living with his grandfather on Fronton Street (La Muralla). The house was unfinished and he remembered that there was no ceiling in his bedroom, just the rafters. The sink and wash basin was a hole in the middle of the living room.
At 17, between his junior and senior year, his mother suffered a nervous breakdown and was sent to the sanatorium in San Antonio and his relatives told him he had no place to live. He joined the Marine Corps at 17 and after serving four years, he got an honorable discharge, but not before serving a stint in the Vietnam War. Before he left, he had earned a GED.
When he got out, he started school in a California community College, and flunked every course.
"You see, compared to me, you're way ahead of the game," he told the students.
He ended up returning to Texas where he enrolled at St. Thomas University when by chance he was walking the campus and ran into the founder of the college who allowed him to enroll and he graduated. He graduated with a degree in political science. He was interested in politics at the time and was an administrative assistant to the late state Rep. Tom Bass from Houston.(At right Recio with TSC board president Adela Garza.)
Later, he told his long-lost father that he wanted to go to law school and he was accepted at the South Texas College of Law in Houston and passed his bar exam before he had graduated. He set up his law practice for 10 years before he was hired as a federal defender in Brownsville, later to be appointed as a federal judge/magistrate
"When I was in the Marine Corps, they teach you that when you face an obstacle, you must adapt and improvise to complete your mission," Recio said. "You come out a better person at the other end. You be your own hero."
If I have heard better commencement speeches, I really can't remember when.