Members of the Denton League of United Latin American Citizens presented its new board members Friday to city officials and invited community guests.

A crowd of 55 celebrated the group’s success in the past year, which include providing scholarships to 15 local high school students and gathering support to help name the new Popo and Lupe Gonzales School for Young Children.

“We did a lot of fundraising. We raised nearly $130,000 with our partnership with UNT, TWU and NCTC,” said Kevin McGinnis, outgoing president of the Denton chapter.

“I love seeing those kids walk up there and receive those awards,” McGinnis said. “I love the response of their families as the result of seeing their kids rise up and receiving such an honor.”

Members also served as volunteers for a McMath Middle School summer program that helps provide 14-year-old males with effective leadership skills.

“We are trying to help them realize they have a commitment to the community around them, that they need to be a part of that, which is what I have been learning from LULAC,” McGinnis said, adding that before working for the city of Denton, he was a police officer who worked with at-risk kids.

Rudy Rodriguez, a Denton school board member, shared a bit of chapter history.

“The first chapter meeting was held in 1981 and it took place at the old Ramada Inn off I-35,” he said.

For years, Rodriguez said, the focus of LULAC had been the scholarship awards, which have helped as many as 500 students continue their education.

“Some of the kids have now come back and have become a part of our organization,” he said.

Denton Mayor Mark Burroughs extended his support to the chapter and thanked the members for being the “engine of ideas ... being behind the scenes working, listening and thinking.”

City council member Charlye Heggins reminded the guests that since the beginning, there had been a strong partnership between LULAC and the local chapter of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People.

Catherine Bell, president of the Denton County NAACP, said that the partnership began in 1985.

The new board members were sworn in by Hector Flores, former national LULAC president and present district director for the Dallas-Fort Worth area.

Flores welcomed the new officers and took a moment to speak on the growth of the Texas Latino population.

Flores said Latinos need more education so they can compete nationally and internationally as well as provide more political representation.

“They did not cross the Rio Bravo or the Rio Grande,” Flores said. “Most of them are being born here,” he added, referring to children who need access to quality education.

“That means we have to educate these children, again, so we can compete economically,” he said.

The Denton chapter’s incoming president is Adriana Hinojosa, who at age 29 likely could be the youngest chapter president. Hinojosa is a personal service representative with DATCU Credit Union, a single mother to a 9-year-old boy and a Texas Woman’s University student working on her undergraduate degree in business marketing.

Hinojosa congratulated the previous board members on their efforts and said she wants to continue the good work LULAC had done in the past.

“I want to remind and cultivate our Latino students that through hardships and disadvantages, there is hope,” she later said, adding that she hopes she gets better at public speaking.

“I hear I will get better,” she said.

She said her goals for the chapter are to get more scholarship funds and help other students get to higher institutions of learning.

Using herself as an example, Hinojosa said, “I want to be able to teach my kid that so he can see that he can make it, too.”

KARINA RAMÍREZ can be reached at 940-566-6878. Her e-mail address is kramirez@dentonrc.com .