Plans underway to rename San Antonio elementary school for Emilio Navaira

Plans are underway to rename a southside San Antonio elementary school for Tejano music legend Emilio Navaira.

Harlandale Independent School District board trustee Tomas Uresti mentioned the school name change in a Facebook post on Tuesday.

“New construction to replace the old Vestal Elementary is coming quickly. The new school will be facing Cantrell so a new name would be fitting,” Uresti said in the Facebook post. “Even more fitting would be naming the school after somebody that attended Vestal and left an impact on that community, the city, and nationwide.”

Navaira and his family all attended Vestal. Uresti asked Navaira’s mother for permission to propose the name change at the next school board meeting on June 1.

“He would have been very happy,” Mary Navaira, Emilio’s mother, told KENS5.com. “Every time they honored him, he would say ‘Mom, look what I did, look what they did for me because of my singing.’ He was always excited.”

Emilio, who passed away on May 16 of an apparent heart attack, gave back to the community where he grew up.

“He would come out and speak to those that are involved in music, choir, he would speak to those and tell them that they could do whatever they wanted to,” Uresti told KENS5.com.

“Emilio sang his first solo here in the choir and, to me, I think it’s going to mean a lot not just to us but to the community,” Emilio’s brother Raulito Navaira told KENS5.com.

The proposed name change would be either Emilio Navaira Elementary or simply Navaira Elementary and could be approved by the Harlandale ISD school board as soon as June 1.

Source: Southside school could be named after Emilio Navaira