Bill Enriquez has lived in Abilene his whole life, and he has spent the better half of it involved in community service advocating for public education.
Born in 1951, Enriquez was raised in a little house right outside of Arthur Sears Park. He attended Fannin Elementary School, Mann Middle School and Abilene High School.
Upon graduation, Enriquez enrolled in Murray State University where he graduated with a degree in business administration in 1973. At only 22, Enriquez opened his own successful automotive repair business, which he operated until his retirement in 2007.
“Since I was in grade school, I wanted to work on cars,” said Bill Enriquez. “And I kept that dream alive even when I got to high school, even when I went to McMurray. I told myself, when I graduate from McMurray, I’m going to open up my own business. And I did.”
While maintaining a successful business in the area, Enriquez’s wife, Tina, was a teacher in Abilene ISD, and his two kids, Rick and Heather, attended schools in the district. With an interest in local education and a calling toward service, Enriquez became involved in public education in 1992, serving on district committees.
“One of my main focuses was that you don’t have to have a college education to be successful,” said Enriquez. “And at that time, Abilene High had some good programs, but we didn’t have enough. And I was always an advocate for getting us a building that would sustain all the vo-tech courses that we could offer.”
According to Enriquez, his belief that you don’t need to go to college to be successful was a core principle that pushed him to get involved in education, becoming an advocate for expanding technical career programs available to high schoolers.
“When I was at Abilene High, we had the automotive course, and I took that course,” said Enriquez. “It was a good course. Travis Smith was the instructor, and he did a great job with us. But I felt like there were other areas that we needed to get into besides that. “
In 2017, Enriquez was elected to serve on the Abilene ISD School Board, serving two full four-year terms before retiring at the end of May of this year.
While on the board, Enriquez continued to push to expand technical programs and change the conversation around college being a requirement for success.
“My intent was for students to be what they wanted to be and not be pressured,” said Enriquez. “If you tell a kid in third grade that he has to go to college or she has to go to college, they get confused, and I call it the third-grade dropout. They start dropping out at that point because they feel like they’re lesser than, which is not correct at all. So my journey has been to have the LIFT, and now we have it, and I’m happy.”
In 2021, Enriquez’s dreams became a reality, and the district opened the Leadership and Innovation in Future Technologies Center, a dedicated facility for career and technical education programs and classes.
“I dealt with three different superintendents during this, trying to get a vo-tech standalone building,” said Enriquez. “We’re going all the way back 20 plus years. It has been a struggle to get this.”
The LIFT offers a variety of technical classes for careers that don’t require college, including automotive, electrical, carpentry, welding, culinary arts and more.
“It’s just an awesome building with lots of different career paths that they can go through, and it’s 100% utilized,” said Enriquez.
As a member of the Abilene Latino community, Enriquez has also served on Abilene’s Hispanic Leadership Council and was one of the first Hispanic men to be elected to serve on the district’s board of trustees.
Even though Enriquez is retiring from his seat with the School Board, he still plans to be an active participant for change in his community.
“The only thing that’s going to change is that I won’t have three or four board meetings a month,” said Enriquez. “My involvement in education is not going to be any different. I’m still going to be an advocate for whatever needs to be advocated.”
This article originally appeared on Abilene Reporter-News: Bill Enriquez retires from AISD board after decades of advocating
Reporting by Lauren Dossey, Abilene Reporter-News / Abilene Reporter-News
USA TODAY Network via Reuters Connect
