About Me

Profile

About: The window through which I see my world has been tinted and colored irreversibly by the people I love and the cultures whose heritages I belong to. I was the first and only member of my family to be born in the great nation of Texas, and after seventeen years of living here it’s become as much a part of me as my own heart. My mother’s family comes from a sleepy farm in Newnan, Georgia, where my grandparents preached to me the gospel of Southern Hospitality with religious fervor and convinced me there’s no better cure to my sorrows than my Grandpat’s banana pudding and brisket pot roast. My father and his brothers are Honduran immigrants, raised by parents whose devotion to their country and family resonates even today in everything they’ve had a part in, and whose love and encouragement inspired their sons to chase and attain the American Dream. I stand at the cusp of these wildly different worlds, and every day I feel blessed for the many ways they color my own.


My passion is my family, for without them I would truly have nothing. I am a product of the mother who taught me to cherish the people I love and learn from the stories they tell; of the father who showed me that the most fulfilling road to success is the one you pave yourself; of the brother and sisters who remind me every day that I’m not yet as old as I like to think. Together we have known great joy and equally great sorrow, but every experience we’ve shared has nudged us along in our growth and nourished our love for one another. My family has taught me what it means to be patient and modest; to give thanks for the many blessings God has seen fit to give me and serve selflessly those less fortunate. So much of who I am and what I’ve accomplished can be traced back to the sacrifices they made to raise me, and these few sentences are hardly enough to express how immensely I treasure them and all they have done for me.

Why I Ride

I ride for Julie, mother of my half-sister and grandmother of the niece I treasure more than anything in the world--A woman who against all odds has fended off the ravages of the disease she’s fought for ten years to raise the most beautiful and selflessly loving older sister I could ever ask for. Julie’s story is a narrative of heartache and triumph, but it is also one of hope. I ride so that others may be inspired and comforted by her strength and perseverance just as I have.

I ride for Doug, late father of my girlfriend who succumbed to brain cancer in August 2013. I never knew Doug while he was healthy, and it breaks my heart to know I will never again have the chance to see the man who gave so much for someone I care so much about. But in his own way, he left behind a legacy most men couldn’t dream of living up to, one that transcends his grim prognosis and the pain of his passing. He was a man who built a house into a home through the sweat of his own brow, who shared a lifetime’s worth of adventures and memories with a daughter who thought the world of him. He is survived by everyone whose life he touched and the relics he left behind—the light of his life is not yet gone from the world, and I look ever forward to getting to know him just a little better as his story reveals itself to me. I ride for Doug and everyone who has ever known a Doug, and for all those who are gone too soon but never forgotten.