By Ben Wear – Statesman.com – Photo: Rodolfo Gonzalez|American-Statesman.
Photo: Gus Garcia and his wife, Marina, share a laugh with Kirk Watsonduring their walk to Palmer Auditorium, where they planned to check on election results on November 6, 2001.
Gus Garcia, an always straight-talking founding father of Mexican-American politics in Austin, Texas, and the city’s first elected Hispanic mayor, died early Monday morning at his Northeast Austin home, his family said. Garcia, whose 40 years of civic and political ground breaking included being the first Hispanic member of the Austin Independent School District board and its first Hispanic board president, was 84.
