Rolando Garza Jr. Harrel Elementary School Teacher Norma Garza is touched that her son Rolando Garza Jr. will be competing in a triathlon (to be held September 18 in San Diego, California) in memory of his late father Rolando Garza Sr.

“I am extremely proud that my son is racing in honor of his father while also helping to raise money which will go to the continuing search for a cure for Leukemia,” Norma Garza said. “It has been a challenge for my son who has been training for this event for a few months now and I am very proud he would take this challenge on.”

Rolando Sr., a 1964 graduate of H.M. King High School, died of Leukemia in 1996. His passing came two weeks before his fiftieth birthday and also prevented him from seeing either of his sons graduate from high school.

Rolando Jr. - a member of the Leukemia and Lymphoma Society’s Team in Training Program - will be competing in the San Diego Tri-Classic; an Olympic distance event that involves a one-mile swim, a 25-mile bike ride and a sixmile run.

Rolando Garza Sr. “I am competing in this event in honor of all individuals who are battling blood cancers and for my dad who we lost to Leukemia 14 years ago,” Rolando Jr. said. “These people are the real heroes on our team.”

Rolando Jr. currently lives in San Diego California where he works at a swimming facility. He is a former District 31- 4A swimming champion, a regional qualifier and graduated from H.M. King in 1999. His athletic accomplishments were no surprise, he said, but simply a matter of Like-Father- Like Son.

“One reason I play all of the sports I do is because of him,” Rolando Jr. said. “He was a very athletic person.”

But more importantly, Rolando Jr. continued, was the good old fashioned simple man Rolando Sr. was.

“My dad was an honest and hard working man,” Rolando Jr. said. “He was super friendly to everyone he met, was very humble. I miss him every day, I can’t do pretty much anything without thinking of him.”

Ditto, said the proud mother.

“My husband was a great man and a good friend to lots of people,” Mrs. Garza reminisced. “He was also a strong believer in education, patriotism and his family was very important to him as well.”