A Matador Evening

Barry Street '79 - Lauro F. Cavazos Award honoree
In honor of his generous service to and support of the Texas Tech Alumni Association, Texas Tech Athletics and Texas Tech University.

When Barry Street came to Texas Tech as a student, he didn’t anticipate he would spend his life in farming, but those plans changed when he was at a showmanship competition, and he met the woman who would become his wife.

Street majored in agricultural economics and planned to become a banker, according to a 2020 article in The Agriculturist. But once it became clear that he would marry SuDe ’79, those plans changed.

According to the article, SuDe wanted to live on a farm, and since Street had grown up on a farm, he knew they could make a life that way. The two moved back to his hometown of Kress and that decision has been a blessing for Texas Tech.

In addition to the family farm where he raises cotton, wheat and cattle, in 1988, the Streets purchased Community Gin in Kress, now Street Community Gin, which processes tens of thousands of bales a cotton each year.

For his service to the cotton industry and the Texas Cotton Ginner’s Association, Street was named Ginner of the Year in 2015. He has also received the Distinguished Service Award for the Texas Independent Ginners Association.

He continues to be an active member of a variety of cotton and agriculture organizations as well as the Texas Tech Alumni Association, the Red Raider Club and the Chancellor’s Council. He also is a past chair of the TTAA National Board of Directors.

Currently, he serves on the Texas Tech Foundation Board, the Texas Tech Equestrian Center, the Kress National Bank Board and the Swisher County Farm Service Agency.

Street and SuDe ‘79 have been married since 1978 and have three children who all graduated from Texas Tech. They also have four grandchildren.

Lou Ortiz, Col. USAF (Ret.) ’99 – Distinguished Service Award honoree
In recognition of his dedication to enhancing military and veterans programs and services for Texas Tech University students and alumni.

Lou Ortiz, Colonel, USAF Retired, grew up in Wilson, Texas, and enlisted in the Air Force after high school. He served a 30-year Air Force career as an enlisted airman, aircraft logistics and maintenance officer, Pentagon policy and legislative staff officer, and Strategic Policy Forum Director at National Defense University.

He retired from the Air Force in May 2011 and returned to Lubbock. At Texas Tech, he has held positions as Research Associate, Assistant Vice President for Research, Special Assistant to the President, and Military & Veterans Programs Director. He earned a bachelor’s degree from Black Hills State University, a master’s of public administration from Troy State, a juris doctorate from the Texas Tech School of Law, and a National Security Fellowship at the Harvard Kennedy School of Government.

Ortiz is a member of the State Bar of Texas. He serves on Senator Cornyn’s Service Academy Selection Board and the American Israel Public Affairs Committee. He has led many community veterans support activities including as President and Board Member of the Texas South Plains Honor Flight, City of Lubbock Veterans Advisory Committee Member, and Chair of the Annual West Texas Salute to Veterans. He was a founder, president, past president, and is a current board member of the Texas Tech Military & Veterans Alumni Network.

Ortiz met his wife, Cheryl, also an Air Force veteran, while stationed in Germany. They have been married for 41 years and have two children, Luciano III, who is a U.S. Marine Corps veteran and Texas Tech graduate, and Alexandria Ortiz who works for the Texas Attorney General’s office and also is a Texas Tech graduate. Lou & Cheryl have three grandchildren.

Kishor Mehta, Ph.D. – Distinguished Service Award honoree
In recognition of his years of service and research in wind engineering at Texas Tech University.

Kishor Mehta’s contribution to humanity is in the design of life-saving tornado shelters for schools, public buildings and homes. In addition, by investigating damage caused by strong tornados, he provided leadership in developing the EF-Scale, which is used to assess tornado intensity and provides a rating, which helps establish tornado hazards for critical buildings such as nuclear power plants and shelters in public buildings, hospitals and schools. The EF-Scale was adopted by the National Weather Service in 2007.

Mehta provided primary technical expertise to develop design criteria for above-ground tornado shelters. The Federal Emergency Management Agency published two documents using these design criteria and since publication, thousands of shelters were constructed in the Midwestern United States and saved lives during recent tornados.

He advanced basic understanding of the impact of windstorms on buildings and structures by on-site investigations of damage caused by hurricanes and tornados, and experiments conducted in natural wind at the Wind Engineering Research Field Laboratory at Texas Tech University. He has directed efforts to document and analyze damage since 1970, when a strong tornado damaged and destroyed a large portion of Lubbock and caused 26 deaths. These efforts contributed to his election to the National Academy of Engineering.

He also provided leadership to develop wind load standards for the design of buildings and structures. He chaired the committee that formulated wind load requirements for the American National Standards Institute and the American Society of Civil Engineers. His sustained efforts resulted in standard wind load criteria used for the design of all buildings and structures in the United States and several other countries.

Through his studies of windstorm damage, Mehta came to appreciate that detrimental and beneficial impacts of wind can be effectively realized through multidisciplinary research and education rather than pure engineering. Through his efforts, in 2007, Texas Tech University established a doctoral degree program in Wind Science and Engineering that educates students in engineering, atmospheric sciences and economics. It is the only degree in the country that educates students in pertinent disciplines and permits them to pursue research in the fields of wind energy and wind hazard mitigation. Graduates are employed nationwide in industry and academia and will have a sustained and profound impact on addressing wind environments.

Dr. Mehta provided guidance in natural hazards as Program Director of Hazard Mitigation and Structural Engineering in the Directorate of Engineering at the National Science Foundation. He helped to develop the program in multi-hazards (earthquake and wind) and provided focus on funding research to prevent natural hazards from resulting in community disasters.

Taylor Vaughn, from Burkburnett, is a mechanical engineering student with a concentration in forensic engineering and a minor in mathematics.

She is involved in the Society of Women in Engineering, the American Society of Mechanical Engineers, and serves as the Vice-President of Outreach Red Raiders--a program that teaches elementary students in an after-school engineering club.

During her time at Texas Tech, she has already completed two internships. After graduation, she plans to pursue her master’s degree in material science and mechanical engineering. She also plans to work as an engineer at a local manufacturing company where she has previously worked as an intern.

Her nominators wrote about her ability to be a problem-solver and to always approach every task with a smile on her face and a desire to learn and succeed. They also shared her zest for life, her tenacity and her love for Texas Tech.

“Taylor thrives when helping others. We see this in the dedication she has for our team but also in the excitement she shares with her experiences engaging with the students and activities she puts together,” they wrote. “She is very proud that she is not only a Red Raider but also one of a few females pursuing Mechanical Engineering. She stands strong in her value and worth in those spaces especially since they are mostly male dominated. If anything, I think it inspires her to know she is a part of a small group that will hopefully continue to grow.”