Corpus Christi hosts Texas State Historical Association annual meeting

Several of the 42 sessions at the Texas State Historical Association’s annual meeting will focus on the history of the host community of Corpus Christi. One of those sessions will highlight the work of civil rights activist Dr. Hector P. Garcia.
Set for March 5-7 at the Omni Hotel, this is the 119th annual meeting of the TSHA, the oldest learned association in the state. The four-day event is open to the public with same-day registration and individual fees for a variety of events.
Along with sponsored breakfasts and luncheons, guests can sign up to attend two special dinners, one aboard the USS Lexington and the other at the Art Museum of South Texas. Speaker of the Texas House of Representatives Joe Strauss will deliver the keynote address at the Presidential Banquet on Friday night at the art museum. 
About 30 vendors will set up shop at the Omni, most of them publishers displaying new titles. Author book signings will be announced on site. The core of the event, however, is definitely the history presentations given over the entire four days.
“Our annual meeting is an opportunity for professors of history and lay historians to get together and present their research,” said Brian Bolinger, the association’s incoming CEO. “Some of the different topics will be on women in Texas history, military history and borderland history.” 
Session 6 at 10:30 a.m. Thursday features Dr. Garcia’s work. Ignacio M. Garcia of Brigham Young University will preside over “Beyond the Icon: Dr. Hector P. Garcia and the Mexican American Civil Rights Movement.” 
Other local history sessions include:
• “Tejano Civil Rights, Labor Rights and Immigration Rights Leaders in the Twentieth Century,” Laura K. Munoz presiding, Texas A&M University-Corpus Christi, 9 a.m. Friday, March 6;
• “South Texas’ Role in the Development of the Tejano/Mexicano Culture in Texas,” Manuel Flores presiding, Texas A&M University-Kingsville, 9 a.m. Friday, March 6, in a joint session with Texas Tejano;
• “Revisiting Corpus Christi,” Cecilia Venable presiding, the University of Texas at El Paso, 9 a.m. Saturday, March 7;
• “Community Archival Advocacy in Corpus Christi, Texas,” Lauren Goodley presiding, Wittliff Collections, Texas State University.
For a full roster of events, visit the TSHA website at tshaonline.org.  Corpus Christi last hosted the TSHA annual meeting in 2008. The 2016 event is set for Dallas with 2017 planned for Houston. The site of the 2018 meeting will be chosen during the association’s board meeting, Bolinger said.