COPRUS CHRISTI, Texas — Since 1999, the Tejano ROOTS Hall of Fame in Alice has made it their mission to keep Tejano alive.
The museum holds artifacts, musical instruments, photographs, and other pieces that pays tribute to Tejano music. Some big names featured here at the museum include Selena y Los Dinos, Freddy Fenders and the duo Carmen and Laura.
Board member Joe Lozano told KRIS 6 News it all started with the help of Armando Marroquin, a Tejano music recording businessman.
"Mr. Maroquin had the first music recorder. During that time, you couldn't find that in a small town. You could only find it in big cities like San Antonio and musicians couldn't always make that happen,” Lozano said.
Marroquin grew up in South Texas and studied for two years at Texas A&M University-Kingsville. Afterwards, he worked for a time as a teacher in South Texas before opening the Tejano ROOTS Hall of Fame in 1999.
Musicians soon flooded Alice leaving their mark and it didn't go unnoticed.
In 2001, the Texas legislature recognized the City of Alice for its contribution to the music industry and named the museum as the official state site for Tejano music.
Ruben Lopez is a part of that effort. He's been with the Alice Tejano ROOTS Hall of Fame for 14 years. His love for Tejano music started at a young age.
"There's conjunto and there's Tejano. The conjunto part of it will usually be an accordion, a 12-string guitar, the base and the drum and a backup singer,” Lopez said.
For Noe Lerma he thinks of his family when he listens to Tejano.
"The first thing they would do is wake up and put it on the radio. We would hear the conjuncts and all the music that was on the airwaves back then,” Lerma said.
But still, more needed to be done.
"There's a lot of musicians that were not being recognized at all and only few awards were being given out in other cities but only for the main singer,” Lerma said.
The Tejano ROOTS Board of Directors wanted to change that. So, they decided to host an award ceremony once a year to acknowledge Tejano musicians from across the country.
"This our way to show the musicians and show everyone that we appreciate their time and without them our culture would die,” Lopez said.
The Tejano ROOTS Hall of Fame is always welcoming more musicians. In fact, more names are expected to be added in January.
