By: Dr. Andrew Yox, Honors Director
Ruben Guerrero, an NTCC Honors Scholar, is the winner of a $50 Tribute Award for his achievements with acting and debating last fall.
Guerrero maintains two roles in the upcoming Webb/Honors film on Carroll Shelby to be premiered this 25 March at the Whatley Auditorium. In one of the most engaging scenes of the film, he plays Shelby patron, Roy Cherryhomes, with a southern accent. According to the book, Carroll Shelby byRinsey Mills, Cherryhomes helped make Shelby a great racer, but was also a very divisive figure in the early Dallas racing circles. In the scene, based on the book, Cherryhomes gets into a fight over his assumed right to sit on a dishwasher. Guerrero explores ethnic nuances as well with his second character, Dr. Alfredo Trento, the California surgeon who gave Shelby his second heart. Guerrero’s accent and hand motions again provide the verisimilitude which makes the scene stand out.
In the Fall of 2021 in the honors Texas history course, Guerrero played three roles in Texas history encounters, as the freebooter Navy Secretary, Robert Potter, the Northeast Texan populist, Cyclone Davis, and as former Texas Governor Rick Perry. All three were inherently controversial figures. In many previous Texas history encounters of earlier years, the flaws of these three characters tended to destabilize their arguments. Other participants, playing other Texan roles, made easy ad hominem attacks. But Guerrero, both studiously informed, and funny, dominated each of the three encounters, becoming the agent who controlled the terms of the debate.
Honors Director Dr. Andrew Yox notes: “I so appreciate both our donors in honors who enable special recognitions like this, and also students like Guererro, who carve out a special niche of excellence, and utilize their talents to the fullest. I believe that in the fifteen years of Texas History honors, that Guerrero was the best debater the program has ever seen. He was even more commanding than Matthew Chambers, who raised the bar of excellence in 2017 trying to keep up Professor Ward.” Chambers was a two-time McGraw-Hill poster winner who transferred to the University of Texas in Austin in chemical engineering.
Guerrero is the son of Ruben and Neila Guerrero, and a graduate of Pittsburg High School.
