[Congressional Record Volume 147, Number 124 (Friday, September 21, 2001)]
[Extensions of Remarks]
[Page E1700]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                       TRIBUTE TO AURELIO VALDEZ

                                 ______
                                 

                         HON. SOLOMON P. ORTIZ

                                of texas

                    in the house of representatives

                       Friday, September 21, 2001

  Mr. ORTIZ. Mr. Speaker, I rise today to pay tribute to Aurelio Valdez 
for over a decade's worth of hard work and community service. For 27 
years, Aurelio Valdez strove to improve the lives of an often 
overlooked segment of our American society, the mentally handicapped.
  As the Superintendent of the Corpus Christi State School, Mr. Valdez 
labored to reconnect the Texas citizenry with the lives of the mentally 
impaired residents of the school. For 12 years, Mr. Valdez worked as 
the Superintendent of the Corpus Christi State School, and during that 
time, he helped to provide normalized living conditions for the 
school's three hundred eighty-seven resident students.
  By helping to change people's perceptions of those suffering from 
mental illness, Aurelio became not only a respected educator and 
healer, but an architect of a unified Corpus Christi community.
  Aurelio joined the Texas Department of Mental Health and Mental 
Retardation in 1974, and has received constant praise for his 
contributions to the improvements in care for those suffering from 
mental retardation and mental disease. He is noted around the State 
School as an innovator and a leader. Ray is one of those special people 
who sees what he is doing less as a job, and more as a labor of love.
  A hero in the shadows, Aurelio urged his employees to step into the 
limelight and take credit for the work he encouraged from them. This 
life-long caregiver retires not only with the respect and admiration of 
his colleagues, but with a vow that he will continue to assist the 
mentally challenged in reaching their goals.
  I am proud to have had the opportunity to serve with such a dedicated 
servant of the people on a number of health and education issues. With 
his retirement, Corpus Christi and the rest of Texas lose a leader, an 
inspiring educator, and a shining example of American patriotism.
  I ask my colleagues to join me today in honoring a great and generous 
man, Aurelio Valdez, as he retires from a lifetime of dedicated service 
to the Coastal Bend, to Texas and to the United States.

                          ____________________