The More Things Change, The More (Sadly) They Stay The Same

He remains forever just a kid. Frozen in the amber of grief over a life lost too soon. After nearly four decades, eyes now framed with wrinkles have to squint when they look back to recall when he was alive, but even today, tears still come when they do.

But perhaps, his memory will help send another minority young man or woman off to college, rather than to war.

Writer and former Johnstown resident Gloria Velásquez is trying to establish a scholarship at Roosevelt High School in memory of her brother, John Robert Velásquez, who was killed in the spring of 1968 in Vietnam. He was the first, and it is believed only, casualty from the community in that war.

Velásquez, a noted Chicana writer and poet, and a professor of modern languages and literature at California Polytechnic State University in San Luis Obispo, Calif., started the scholarship a while back, but it hasn’t been awarded for several years.

“I had started it, and then it sort of died out,” she said. “I tried to revive it last year, but it didn’t work out, so now I’m trying to get it going again faithfully every year.

“It’s only $500, but it’s coming out of my pocket,” Velásquez said. “I just want to get someone excited about the idea of going to college. Like the encouragement I got from some people. I want to see someone who has the potential maybe get a door opened for them and know that they can also achieve an education.”

Velásquez wants the scholarship awarded to an African American or Latino/Chicano student at Roosevelt. Her brother dropped out of school in the seventh grade. He enlisted in the Marines when he was 17. His mother had to sign the papers to let him.