TTAA San Antonio Chapter Board

Trini Valdez is currently the President of the Texas Tech Alumni Association – San Antonio Chapter. He was “an air force brat” for the early part of his life, living in Germany, Colorado Springs, and Oklahoma City before settling in Seminole, TX, which he considers his hometown. He graduated from Seminole High School in 1998 and graduated from New Mexico Junior College in Hobbs, NM. with an Associates of Science degree in 2000. He is a 2003 graduate of the Texas Tech University Health Sciences Center in Lubbock, TX with a Bachelor of Science in Clinical Laboratory Science.

Trini has lived in South Texas the past 19 years, and has lived in San Antonio for the past 15 years. He is currently employed by the Children’s Hospital of San Antonio as a ASCP certified Medical Technologist/Microbiologist. In his spare time, he enjoys sports (especially Texas Tech, the Dallas Cowboys, and the San Antonio Spurs), music, movies, and spending time with his nephew, Gus and two nieces, Maddie and Layla.

Melissa Carrasco is a 1996 graduate of Texas Tech with a Bachelor Science degree in Multidisciplinary Studies. She is proud to be a 4th generation Red Raider, following in the steps of her paternal great-grandmother, paternal grandparents, father, mother, great-aunt, and two uncles. After graduating from Texas Tech, she obtained her master’s degree in Special Education (Diagnostics emphasis) from UTPB in 2003. Born and raised in West Texas, she and her family made the move to South Texas in 2001, first living in Corpus Christi for 9 years before moving to San Antonio in 2010. Melissa loves connecting with Red Raiders wherever she goes and was active in the Coastal Bend Texas Tech Alumni Association before moving to San Antonio and becoming active in the San Antonio chapter. Since graduation, Melissa has worked as a contract educational diagnostician in multiple school districts in Corpus Christi and San Antonio. She is the owner of her own company MBC Educational Assessment, LLC. When not cheering for her beloved Red Raiders, she is active at Pickleball, and a strong supporter of the O’Connor HS Athletic Booster Club, serving on the board for many years. She has been married to Darin Carrasco, who attended graduate school at Texas Tech, since 1998 and they are the parents of one beautiful daughter, Carly.

Stephanie wasn’t born in Texas but she got here as fast as she could! Her family moved to Midland from Nebraska in 1978. She graduated from Midland High School in 1985. With Lubbock only 2 hours away, Texas Tech was an easy choice for college. She graduated from Texas Tech in December 1988 with a B.B.A. in Marketing. Some of her best memories from Tech include going to football and basketball games, late night study sessions with friends, attending Carol of Lights and all the friends she made at Tech. She met her husband, Tal, B.S. Chemical Engineering at Wells Hall. They have 3 grown boys, with their youngest currently studying Biomedical Engineering at UTSA.

Early in her career, she worked in Retail Management and obtained her real estate license. After her kids were born, she became a stay-at-home mom. In 2022, she went back to school and obtained her paralegal certification from UTSA and has most recently worked as a family law paralegal.

Stephanie has been an active parent volunteer over the years in public schools, churches, boy scouts, and band boosters. Stephanie loves running, weight training, movies, music, drinking wine, animals, hanging out with friends and writing. She has volunteered with our local alumni chapter for 4 years and loves attending football and basketball games when possible. Wreck’em!!

After Dale discovered the advantages of summer school, he could have graduated in three years but decided to take 3 ½ to enjoy the final football season of Donny Anderson. In those days there was a poll of the Bottom 10. The 9th game of the season Tech faced Colorado that was also winless. Tech won 21-12 and lost the spot for the worst record in the country. The next year Tech was 5-5 an went to bowl games the next two years. Bowl games were fewer in those days, and a simple winning record did not get a bid He celebrated his 21st birthday at the Sun Bowl losing to Georgia.

In 1967 Dale attended Navy’s OCS and became a line officer onboard the destroyer USS Richard B Anderson. During the days home ported in San Diego he met his wife Pat. On a Sunday in 1968 they decided to marry, she traveled from North Carolina on Monday, on Tuesday they made arrangements and married on Wednesday at the Naval Air Station, Coronado Island. The following Monday he deployed with the ship to the Western Pacific for 9 months.

Raised in Floydada, Dale’s professional career was as a CPA in Lamesa from 1971 to 2018 with the accounting firm of Newberry, Leonard, Horton & Barrington. The family participated in small town life, but Pat completed her Masters Degree from Tech and daughter Sarah completed her Bachelor of Education. Son Rob, is an Aggie graduate who lives in San Jose, CA.

During the Lamesa years the family had Tech season football tickets and attended out of town games at El Paso, Baylor, SMU, TCU, A & M, and Texas. With the same number of games attended, he never saw them lose in College Station nor win in Austin.

Dale and Pat moved to San Antonio in 2018 and began attending the Tech football and basketball watch parties. He has served as treasurer of the TTAA – SA since 2022. He continues to participate with the Lamesa Flyfishers, a camp and fishing group started 40 years ago.

Bio Coming Soon