Spring 2004 Edition

Front Cover

Learning Support Services Celebrates 25 Years

Hagi - Living the Dream

A Gift of Love

Ana Rosales

Campus News

Distinguised Alumni

Faculty News

Ferris

New Athletic Director

Baseball

Athletics

::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::

past issues:

Fall 2003 Scene

June 2003 Scene

What happened in between is a fascinating story that includes a revolution, a war, a dream, President Jimmy Carter, love and a leap of faith. His tale also has Schreiner at its hub.

Born into a large Iranian family, Hagi has 14 brothers and sisters. “My father says that Mother always had three children with her at all times: one by the hand, one on her hip and one in her belly,” he laughs. “And it was true!”

Even surrounded by family, Hagi always seemed to be looking to the west. “From the time I was a boy, I wanted to come to America,” Hagi says.
When he was 18, he did what many young Iranians were doing: he got an agency’s help to secure an immigration permit that would allow him to attend college in the U.S. The agency suggested he go to Beeville College in Beeville, Texas. Since he spoke no English, he was required to
spend three months at a language school in Houston, first. Hagi flew to New York and booked a connecting flight that was to take him to
Houston.

“This is a funny story!” Hagi chortles. “I bought my ticket and got on the flight for the next leg of my trip. But it landed 20 minutes after taking off! I’d been told that New York to Houston took something like four hours. What happened? “Well, I got off the plane but I couldn’t make anyone understand me. It was a weekend, I think, and it took three days to locate a translator! I spent a couple of nights in the airport, eating hot dogs and sleeping in chairs."

Wasn’t he upset? Uncomfortable, at least? Hagi laughs. “You know, when you’re 18, you don’t care about that. I was in the U.S.!” As it turns out, he was in Boston. “In my native language Houston rhymes with Boston. That’s where the ticket agent thought I wanted to go!” Now that he’d learned to say “Heeuuuuston,” Hagi was ready for the next challenge—three months of English lessons in the slow-talking, big-hair and big-oil capital of the country.

“In Houston, out of the class of 20, 18 were Iranians. With so many Iranian students, the teacher learned to speak our language, but we didn’t learn much English. I knew it was something I needed to do, though.” The next stop for Hagi and his four Iranian roommates was Beeville College. “I guess the agencies in Iran that were helping us get those letters of acceptance from American colleges found it easy to deal with Beeville College,” Hagi says. “When we arrived there, they had about 200 Iranians already enrolled. “I said, guys, we need to learn English and to do that we’re going to have to go to a college where we’re the only Iranians.”

One of the roommates said he had a cousin who had gone to Schreiner College in 1974 and he had been the only Iranian in the whole school.

“I said, heck, if that’s the case, that’s where we should go. So, we put everything we owned in the one car we had between us and drove to Schreiner. “We enrolled in the English-as-a-Second-Language program run by Mrs. Saucedo and she made sure that we finally began learning English.” After three months of it, Hagi took up the regular college curriculum.

Thinking back on his time at Schreiner, Hagi declares, “I met four of the most beautiful people in the world there. “Sam Junkin was the president, of course, and very understanding. We went to him because we didn’t like the cafeteria food—it seemed like they were always serving pork. We told him that we are Muslim and we don’t eat pork. He made sure there was always an alternative for us to eat. Another beautiful person was Mr. (Ed) Wilbourn, my history teacher. Also, Mr. (Boardman) Chambers, my English professor, and Mr. (T.O.) Hildebrand, my calculus teacher. “Without people like that, I don’t know if I’d have stayed here. They took me in and treated me like I was somebody—you know what I mean?"

Meanwhile, Hagi was making his own mark on the athletic department as one of the founding fathers of Schreiner soccer. He and his Iranian friends, an Arab and a Chilean missed soccer so much, they wanted to form a Schreiner soccer team and compete with other colleges in the area. “It was so funny,” he remembers. “I went to Mr. Chambers, who was also a basketball coach at the time. He told me there was no budget for a soccer team. He agreed to coach us, though, and since buying soccer uniforms was out of the question, he got us some old basketball uniforms to wear. The team didn’t last too long though—we weren’t very good,” he says with a grin.

Indeed, the grainy black and white images show a group of enthusiastic young men sporting ’70s-era haircuts, and in one of them, a youthful Hagi is literally flying horizontally through the air to block the ball. His expression of concentration is one familiar to those who know him today, as is his willingness to take a risk in order to achieve a goal. Hagi’s social life was going well, though. He had met Ruth Torres at Kerrville’s student hot spot, The Chalet, and they began dating. He was earning spending money and learning the food-service business from the ground up by working in entry-level positions at Kerrville restaurants Grandma’s House, Fara’s and Acapulco. While Hagi was in the U.S., the simmering political unrest back home in Iran had escalated. In 1979, a revolution deposed the Shah, and soon after, the Ayatollah Khomeini became that country’s leader. In November of 1979, when the American hostages were taken at the embassy in Tehran, everything changed for Hagi and the many other Iranian students in the U.S. whose student visas had expired. President Carter called for every one of them to leave the country by April 20, 1980. Hagi was devastated.

“The world just shattered on me, because now I had to go back. I’d learned English, started earning money, and I was dating Ruth. The only way I could stay in the country was if she married me—and she wouldn’t marry me. She said, ‘Look, I’m 20 and you’re 21. We’re young and you
come from another country and my parents won’t let me.’ ”

Hagi truly was caught between a rock and a hard place that year. Iraq invaded Iran in the fall of 1980 and began what turned out to be an eight-year war. Because Iran’s population was three times that of Iraq, its military engaged extensively in “human-wave” assaults against Iraqi
positions, frequently using teenagers to fight—an extremely costly strategy in terms of human casualties. Hagi knew that if he went back
home, he’d likely end up on the front lines.

Hagi remembers he even asked his history professor, Ed Wilbourn, if he would adopt him to allow him to stay in the country. Wilbourn was
sympathetic but gently explained to him that he couldn’t adopt a 21-year old man.

“I finally talked Ruth into marrying me,” Hagi says. “You talk about some begging! Her parents gave their permission because of the difficult
situation, but it was on the condition that we live apart for six months. She lived with her parents, and I lived at my home.

“I tell people we got married so I could have a green card, but we fell in love afterward. And we’re still married after 24 years.”

Persistence is a quality that Hagi demonstrates consistently. He finally earned his associate’s degree at Schreiner in 1983. The very next year, he opened his first restaurant, Burger Island, and the year after that, he opened the first Mamacita’s. Hagi says his first restaurant was a burger place because it took less capital investment. “In 1985, I wanted to open a Mexican restaurant because I had worked in them and I knew Mexican food. I thought I would lease a place, but then I met four investors who wanted to open one here. We got together and they made me a partner. That’s how the first Mamacita’s in Kerrville came about. I was 26 years old at the time.”

Eventually, Hagi bought out all of his partners, save one: Tom Meyer, who Hagi considers too valuable to part with because of his real estate expertise and the trust they have in each other. The next new Mamacita’s will replace the old one in Kerrville. “We’re building two new restaurants next door. One of them is Mamacita’s, with a ‘Riverwalk-type’ atmosphere including outdoor dining, and the second restaurant is going to be attached, an upscale evening-only place with a continental menu. After those are finished, around the first of next year, we’re going to tear down the old Mamacita’s to make room for the new ‘river’ and the parking lot.”

“My dream is to open a Mamacita’s in Austin in 2006, and eventually in Dallas, and Houston…but we’ll do it one at a time. I don’t open a restaurant until I have its general manager ready.

The restaurant business is the riskiest business I know,” Hagi says. “So many people expand too fast, and they go down.” Hagi and Ruth have two children now: a nine-year-old daughter, Roya—it is Iranian for “dream,” and a son, Nicolas, age 5. Both are adopted. Hagi says, “The miracle of
it is that both Roya and Nicolas have the very same dimple Ruth has!”

“I’m a Muslim, but Ruth and the children are Catholic. I want my children to grow up as Christians.” Isn’t it hard to reconcile the two religions? “It’s not hard for me,” Hagi says. “They’re the same. The roots of Islam and Christianity are in the same religion, the same God. Everything Islam talks about, Christianity talks about. I think of myself as a Muslim and a Christian.” Because of the changed political situation and the Iraq war, Hagi was not able to go back to Iran for 16 years. Now, he goes to visit his family there three times a year, but says he is always ready to come home to the U.S.A. “When I go to Iran, I’m always happy, but when it’s time to come home, I’m always happier. It reminds me to appreciate what I have here.

“It isn’t easy for my family to visit, but my father does. He was here six months ago, as a matter of fact. My mother was able to come see me in 1984, but she passed away when she returned to Iran.” Hagi has found a way to honor his mother that he thinks would please her. He founded Khavar Foundation in Iran and named it for her. Its mission is to help widows and orphans. Hagi explains, “In Iran, if you are a widow, nobody
wants to marry you anymore, especially if you are poor.”

Coming from such a different culture, one would think it would be hard to adapt, but Hagi dismisses the thought. “You know, when you stay somewhere more than four or five years, especially at a young age, you get ‘adopted.’ It becomes easy, especially when it’s a lifestyle you like. I have two religions. I have two languages. I have two cultures. And I live in both, the same.”

What’s the best thing about being an American? “Freedom of faith and freedom of speech, and of course, the free enterprise system. These are the best gifts that anyone could have. I don’t know if all Americans know how wonderful these gifts are because you’ve never been without
them. As my father says, ‘If you want to know how much an eye is worth, ask a blind man.’ ”