Haynie Gause: George would have loved to have seen the opening of the ACE

In our early days of travels to Mexico, George Gause and I spent several 20 de Noviembres in Mexico City and other places commemorating the start of the Mexican Revolution in 1910.

On November 20, 2024, I was all smiles at the ribbon cutting ceremony for the Arts, Culture and Events (ACE) Center in Edinburg. For my longtime library and arts colleague Letty Leija it was the culmination of a long time dream. It was the public celebration of the hard work by her and her colleagues.

Letty credits that dream beginning about 2009. During that year Letty, Evana Vleck and I used to sit around and strategize about what we could do in the Arts if we only had money, because we certainly had the programming ideas! At that time Evana was working at Edinburg Chamber of Commerce focusing half her time on marketing and the other half on events. She had already put some fabulous events on at IMAS, including a monumental one-day Book Festival. 

I had been working since 2006 with my ArtsRGV centralized events calendar which attempted to list events in Hidalgo, Cameron, Starr, and Willacy counties. And Letty and I had worked since the mid-1990s on library events. And we all had been involved with Dr. Dahlia Guerra as she founded FESTIBA.

George Gause

At the ribbon cutting Letty credited Evana Vleck and myself and as being members of her original Dream Team. 

November 20, 2024 will always be a BIG RED LETTER DAY in my mind! George would have been grinning from ear to ear if he could have lived to see the ACE!

As Letty Leija and I exited the ribbon cutting together and headed to our respective cars, I asked her to take a photo of me standing near the letter G in Edinburg because G stands for Gause! We need to get a photo of Evana Vleck standing near the letter E in Edinburg because E stands for Evana! 

What a crowning touch for Letty’s original Dream Team! And we also need to get a photo with Dr. Dahlia Guerra as well because she was the fourth member of Letty’s Dream Team! Dahlia can stand next to me because G also stands for Guerra! 

Editor’s Note: The above commentary was penned by retired UT-Pan American librarian Virginia Haynie Gause to commemorate the opening of the Arts, Culture and Events (ACE) Center in Edinburg. It first appeared on Haynie Gause’s social media pages.

Letty Leija, director for the office of library and cultural arts for the City of Edinburg. (Photo credit: Edinburg EDC)

Editor’s Note: Here is an audio recording of the remarks of Letty Leija, the City of Edinburg’s director for the office of library and cultural arts, at the ribbon-cutting ceremony for the Arts, Culture and Events (ACE) Center:

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