By: Dr. Andrew Yox, NTCC Honors Director
You probably have heard the story of how Texas’ Alamo defenders died amidst the onrush of Santa Anna’s army in 1836. But have you heard the story of how the Alamo replaced the San Jacinto battlefield as the focus of Texas patriotism?
In this the 8th cinematic premiere of a story from the Texas past in as many years, Honors Northeast, and the NTCC Webb Society will feature the story of Adina De Zavala. She was the granddaughter of Texas’ First Vice President, Lorenzo De Zavala. She and her San Antonio Chapter of the Daughters of the Republic of Texas played the pivotal role in re-centering and Catholicizing the nature of Texas patriotism in the early twentieth-century. The movie, at 7PM on Friday, 21 February at the Whatley Center of NTCC is free, and the public is invited. The script is based on an original interpretation of the De Zavala story pursued by the scholars of Honors Northeast. Thanks to the patrons of Honors Northeast, there will also be free refreshments after the film, and a panel discussion led by student actors and directors of the feature-length production.
A 2019 graduate of Mount Pleasant High School, Maritza Quinones will star as Adina De Zavala. Known in high school for her many academic citations and, her finesse as a Tiger Doll Sargent, Quinones has made this particular film possible in two major respects. First, she was the Film Scholar in Austin last May who discovered and put together many facets of the Adina De Zavala story. Second, she acceded to her selection by film director, Jacob Lambie, to be the main character. This also meant that she was willing to memorize forty pages of a fifty-one scene script, and take off from work for a week, and a half last summer to be Adina De Zavala.
Honors Director, Dr. Andrew Yox, notes: “Both in real life, and in the film, Presidential Scholar Maritza Quinones has a wonderful energy and drive. It is remarkable how she makes the story of De Zavala come alive. Quinones was the one who found in the papers of De Zavala at the Dolph Briscoe Center the mindset that explained her commitments to virginity, altruistic self-sacrifice, and the Catholic past. Quinones also has developed a very competitive fifteen-page essay on this topic. As De Zavala, Quinones projects an innocence and a determination in the film that suggests a woman possessed by otherworldly considerations.”
Honors Scholar Rebecca Reed, also from Mount Pleasant, co-stars as Clara Driscoll, the wealthy South Texan heiress, who first comes to the aid of De Zavala. The film details the passions of these remarkable women, also chronicling the ramifications of their ultimate disagreement, and the clash of their rival factions of the Daughters of the Texas Republic.
Past films in this series have included the stories of Barbara Conrad, Mary Kay, Sam Houston, and the Texas Cherokee, Ma and Pa Ferguson, Harriet Potter Ames, Wright Patman, and Morris Sheppard. This series has received a great stimulus over the years from the contributions of Jerald and Mary Lou Mowery of Scroggins, and other Friends of Honors Northeast. Each year the scholars of Honors Northeast have researched the story, produced a script, delineated the film sites, sequenced the filming, served as cinematographers, memorized lines as actors, and have directed the final product. Peyton McClendon, as Unit Production Director, had a particularly intense role in August bringing actors, scenes, and locations together. Jacob Lambie, last year’s Unit Production Director, focused this year on scene dynamics.
For the first time this year, the NTCC film will also feature an original film score. Kenny Goodson, a local composer as well as a former tech and band director, coordinated with the students, particularly Jalyn English to provide accompanying music that evokes period styles. Presidential Scholar, Sam Griffin, also contributed musical ideas to the production. The music evokes the spiritual encounters of De Zavala with her advisor, Sister Flaviene, played by Peyton McClendon, period ragtime, the excitement that attends the “second siege of the Alamo”—the climactic effort of De Zavala to rescue and rejuvenate the site, and the propriety attached to Victorian women’s clubs at the turn of the twentieth-century.
This year’s movie was produced by Jalyn English, a Presidential Scholar of Honors Northeast, majoring in computer science, a recent graduate of Mount Vernon High School. English’s work with research, editing, and sequencing the film was an eight-month project.
The filming occurred over a seven-day period in August and included sites such as the Franklin County Alamo Mission Museum, the Franklin County Historical Association buildings, the Northeast Texas Rural Heritage Center in Pittsburg, the Whatley Center at NTCC, and several bed-and-breakfast establishments in Jefferson, Texas.
Those with acting parts in the film include: Jalyn English from Bogata, Mercedes Collins from Daingerfield; Andrea Reyes from Hughes Springs; Cade Armstrong, Verania Leyva Garcia, Daniel Landaverde, Peyton McClendon, Maritza Quinones, Rebekah, Reed, Sarah Reed, and Dr. Andrew Yox from Mount Pleasant; David Martinez from Omaha; Sam Griffin and Arielle Tuazon from Pittsburg; Jacob Lambie, from Scroggins; Karla Fuentes, Parker Smith, and Presley Smith from Winnsboro.
