El Presidente Germán D. Carrillo y el Secretario Ejecutivo Mark P. Del Mastro dirigieron la Asamblea Trienal de la Sociedad Nacional Honoraria Hispánica a las 1615 en el Town and Country Resort and Convention Center en San Diego,California. A continuación salen algunos de los momentos especiales del evento.
Address of Dr. Douglas LaPrade
August 4, 2007 in San Diego
Dr. Douglas LaPrade addresses Triennial Convention attendees upon receiving the
Jorge Luis Borges Award on behalf of his father for lifetime achievement.
First of all, please allow me to thank Mark Del Mastro and the other officers of Sigma Delta Pi for inviting me to accept this award on my father’s behalf. I recall seeing you in Dallas when you gathered at our home for the Sigma Delta Pi executive committee meetings in years past. Those were the years when my parents referred to our dining room table as the national headquarters because all the records of the honor society were stacked there. I assure you that all of your names are mentioned as though you were family members in my parents’ home. Mark Del Mastro, German Carrillo, Dick Chandler, T. Earle Hamilton, Ignacio Galbis, and Lucy Lee–my parents mention your names in their home in Dallas more often than you can imagine.
Thirty-three years ago, I took my father’s class when I was a freshman at SMU. Four years later, he personally handed me my diploma during the graduation ceremony. I followed my father into the profession, and my parents and I made some beautiful trips to Spain together over the years. It was in Spain where the professional and the personal blended. For example, every Spanish teacher in this room has read Calderon’s play entitled The Mayor of Zalamea. But when my parents and I visited the town of Zalamea in 1991, I decided that my father deserved to be photographed with the actual mayor of Zalamea. After all, my father’s specialty was Golden Age Spanish Drama. Zalamea is a small town in Extremadura, and the town hall was easy to find. It was just as easy to talk our way into the office of the mayor, who was gracious enough to pose while I took a photograph of him with my father.
During the same trip, we visited the Cazorlas mountain range in Andalucia, where we visited the source of the Guadalquivir river. Also in the Cazorlas mountains is the town of Segura de la Sierra, which some consider to be the birthplace of Jorge Manrique in the fifteenth century. Every Spanish teacher in this room knows that Jorge Manrique wrote the most beautiful poem that a son ever wrote about his father. So when I visited Jorge Manrique’s birthplace with my parents, the poignancy of the moment was not lost on me.
Before we started going to Spain together to visit literary monuments, John LaPrade excelled at other endeavors back in Dallas, Texas. I remember him as a fine Scoutmaster and a courageous bullpen catcher during softball season. These days he still carves the turkey at the head of the table during Thanksgiving and Christmas dinners. I hope some of you will join us there soon. Just take your place at the table and say you are with Sigma Delta Pi. After all, we still call the table the national headquarters.
In closing, please allow me to thank you for honoring my father with this award.