Beverly Powell took the lead on forming a nonprofit for Uvalde. “I knew from years of having been in the midst of construction projects with a school district that we could accomplish this. This was the thing I could do.”
May 24, 2022, began as most any other Tuesday for Texas Sen. Beverly Powell of Fort Worth.
In Austin, that means meetings.
“We were meeting that day,” she recalls vividly.
On the day’s itinerary was a meeting of the Texas Senate’s Committee on Education. Powell was a member. The meeting was called to order at 9:03 a.m.
Agenda items included discussions on COVID-19’s impact on the educator talent pipeline, staffing patterns and practices, and models to improve recruitment. There was the matter of declining student enrollment and attendance. There were items on the Teacher Incentive Allotment and increased compensation for non-administrators under House Bill 3.
At 11:33 a.m. that morning, as the committee was meeting, a gunman walked into Robb Elementary School in Uvalde through a closed but unlocked door. He continued to classrooms 111 and 112 and began opening fire on their doors from the hallway. He walked into the classrooms and began firing inside the two fourth-grade classrooms connected by an interior door.
By the time police finally neutralized the killer at close to 1 p.m., 21 had been killed, including 19 children, all ages between 9 and 10 years old, and two teachers — Eva Mireles and Irma Garcia.
Powell’s emotions mirrored those of all of Texas and across the country: grief for the loss of life of innocent victims, as well as the most vulnerable among us, and empathy for their families. Schools that are supposed to be safe havens have too often become sites of tragedy. Horror at the thought of this happening again. There is tremendous guilt and then pure fright at the thought that it could — no, would — happen again. Then, there is anger toward the circumstances that allowed this to happen — the systemic failures, inadequate safety measures, or broader societal factors.
And, of course, there were the stunned survivors, many of them children, who will wear a scar so significant as to cause permanent emotional disfigurement.
“I knew instantly that the children and their teachers could never cross the threshold of that campus again,” Powell says. “I just couldn’t imagine it. And then when I drove down and saw for myself the facilities and the community and the terrible grief that they were in the midst of, I knew that we needed to do something.”
Schools and school buildings are important to neighborhoods and towns.
They symbolize connectedness, the shared heritage and the stories and lore that bind residents together. The buildings are symbolic of permanence, often standing for generations. Schools embody the commitment of the community to its youngest members and the idea that education shapes tomorrow’s citizens and leaders.
Powell is a leader’s leader. She is always doing something.
As a single mother with three children, she found her real estate career in crisis during an economic downturn in the 1980s. She did something about it, going back to school at Texas Wesleyan to earn a degree and later an MBA.
Since then, she has always been doing something.
Something has generally always revolved around education. It was through education that she reinvented herself in the midst of personal turmoil. She eventually landed on the Burleson School Board, rising to president. She was appointed to the board at Wesleyan, eventually becoming the body’s president. After being gerrymandered out of the Texas Senate in 2022 — and declining to run in what she called an “unwinnable” race in a Senate district redrawn to ensure a Republican victory — Powell joined Wesleyan as assistant to the president for external affairs. In that role, she champions grant funding efforts to keep the teacher pipeline strong and the university’s “teachers’ college” heritage alive.
Powell decided she was going to do something for Uvalde, too. She would take a lead role in building a new elementary school in Uvalde.
“I was a school board trustee; we had built $250 million worth of new schools,” Powell says. “I knew from years of having been in the midst of construction projects with a school district that we could accomplish this.
“This was the thing I could do.”
As it turned out, Powell’s vision and action were the first of a number of things Fort Worth people did to help Uvalde heal.
Uvalde’s favorite son of yesteryear was John Nance Garner, the whiskey-drinking everyman who won a seat in the U.S. House of Representatives, ascending to Speaker of the House and finally to the vice presidency with Franklin D. Roosevelt.
Washington was said to have never changed “Cactus Jack.” He tucked scraps of cooked venison into his pockets, went to bed each night at 9, and kept a dollar watch in the vest of his off-the-rack suits. He was a Uvalde guy through and through. When the watch inevitably broke, Garner had a special friend who’d buy him another and another and another. Amon Carter, who did everything humanly possible to make Garner president, would always send the receipt to prove it had cost no more than $1.
In 2022 — 90 years later — Uvalde again had special friends from Fort Worth.
“A couple of weeks after the shooting, I made a phone call to Chris Huckabee, a friend of mine,” Powell says. “I asked him if I could raise the money, would he be willing to design the school pro bono? And without a second of hesitation, he said, ‘Absolutely.’ So, with that one conversation, we were off and running.”
At the time of the shooting, Chris Huckabee was the CEO of Huckabee, an award-winning education architecture firm based in Fort Worth. He was actually likely in the midst of forming a new company, MOREgroup.
MOREgroup was formed through the combination of Huckabee, Rachlin Partners, TSK, Innovative Engineering Group, and E4H Environments for Health Architecture. The family of brands touches all aspects of social infrastructure — from health care, education, and public architecture to the engineering systems that support them all.
Huckabee has since stepped aside as CEO of MOREgroup earlier this year. LaShae Baskin now holds that role while Huckabee has the titles of founder and executive officer.
“Our firm has a long-standing tradition of taking on pro bono projects — partnering with organizations that need our expertise and providing our services at no cost,” Huckabee says. “It’s woven into our history and values.
“While the Uvalde project was rooted in that same commitment, it became the largest and most ambitious pro bono effort we’ve ever undertaken. Given the profound loss this community experienced, we felt a deep responsibility to use our skills to help create a place of healing, hope, and renewed safety for Uvalde’s children.”
Huckabee, too, particularly given his profession, says he couldn’t stop thinking about the fear those children might feel walking back into the same building.
In that conversation with Powell, it became clear that Uvalde likely didn’t have the resources to build a new school. Huckabee told Powell that, while he didn’t yet know the exact path forward, he was certain they could find a way to design and build one.
That same day, he made two calls — one to the Charles Butt family and another to a trusted contractor — to see if they would join the effort. Both agreed without hesitation, and from that moment, the process moved quickly from vision to action.
With nearly 60 years of experience designing educational facilities across Texas, Huckabee and his team knew they had both the expertise and the responsibility to step in and deliver a safe, inspiring place for Uvalde’s students.
Huckabee, who graduated from Texas Tech University with a degree in architecture, was appointed to that school’s board of regents by Gov. Greg Abbott in 2015. He eventually became its chair. Gov. Rick Perry appointed Huckabee twice to the Texas Higher Education Coordinating Board.
Charles Butt immediately pledged $10 million through the Butt family and the Charles Butt Foundation. The Butt family founded grocery retailer H-E-B.
That contribution jump-started the Uvalde CISD Moving Forward Foundation, a 501(c)(3) charitable foundation serving the Uvalde Consolidated Independent School District community.
Charles Clines, CFO in the Office of Charles Butt and the CEO of the Charles Butt Foundation, serves as the chairman. Powell is the secretary. Tim Miller, onetime superintendent of the Cleburne school district in Johnson County, is the foundation’s executive director.
The foundation works in harmony with the Uvalde Consolidated Independent School District. Ashley Chohlis, the school district superintendent who took over her duties in the aftermath of the shooting, in 2023, is on the board. Two Uvalde school alums are also on the board.
“It’s been a very compatible relationship between our foundation, the [school] board, and the superintendent,” says Powell, who added that a community advisory committee was formed, too.
Fundraising efforts began in Fort Worth and Dallas, Powell says.
“We got a great reception here,” Powell says.
Fort Worth philanthropic community set a $5 million goal for the efforts in Uvalde. The Rainwater Charitable Foundation gave $2 million, plus a $500,000 challenge donation from an anonymous fund holder at the North Texas Community Foundation. A challenge gift is a pledge from a donor to contribute a certain amount if others step forward to give as well.
“I was having breakfast to talk about this project with Jeremy Smith at Rainwater, who’s a good friend of mine, and we were at the Fort Worth Club having breakfast. And Rose Bradshaw [president and CEO of North Texas Community Foundation] came over and said to me, ‘I have an anonymous contribution for you — a half a million dollars,” Powell says.
“It was one of those heartfelt great Texas philanthropy missions. I don’t know any other way to put it really. Texas rallied around Uvalde and made sure that the community could create a new facility for the elementary students of Uvalde.”
To date, the foundation has fully funded the project by raising more than $67 million, Powell says.
Said Miller, the executive director of the Uvalde CISD Moving Forward Foundation, at the time of the Rainwater gift: “We are humbled by … the tremendous generosity of the Fort Worth community.”
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Fort Worth artist Juan Velazquez has gained renown as a muralist over the past few years. Find a mural anywhere in Fort Worth and chances are good that it is the work of Velazquez, who always remembers a transformative moment in his life.
It was in school. And it was an encounter with an art teacher at Haltom High School.
“He watched over me,” Velazquez says of Haltom art teacher Michael Daniel. “He actually was the one who taught me how to paint.”
Velazquez communicates through his gift of art. Velazquez is the artist of roughly 300 public and private murals around Fort Worth and elsewhere. With them he conveys the emotions of joy and grief, among others, in an amazingly breathtaking uber-realistic style with spray paint.
“I like to paint. I’m just someone who likes to paint,” he says. “Painting just makes me feel like everything is OK.”
The mural that put Velazquez on the map was the portrait of Vanessa Guillen, the U.S. Army soldier murdered at Fort Hood in 2020.
Velazquez says he felt a bond with her because they were both Army soldiers. As it turned out, they both trained at the same time and the same battalion, though he did not know that at the time.
And so it was, Velazquez says, when he stepped back to evaluate his mural of 10-year-old Alithia Ramirez, one of the 19 children murdered in Uvalde.
“Her father said she always wanted to be an artist and that she wanted people to see her artwork,” Velazquez says of his portrait as part of a series of mural portraits in Uvalde of the 21 victims.
Alithia’s portrait is surrounded by a rainbow of color, and on her shirt are recreations of her own drawings.
“It’s a bittersweet moment because you’re doing something for somebody,” Velazquez says, “so it’s like you feel good about it, but it’s not the reason you wanted to go to do it.”
Velazquez says he jumped at the chance to go to Uvalde to participate in the project to honor the dead. The project’s founder is Monica Maldonado. Velazquez was the first of more than 50 artists who have come from all over Texas to paint tributes.
Velazquez, like presumably all the rest, did it free of charge.
“I think there was something about destiny that I was meant to go that day,” he says.
Velazquez was taken aback by what happened on May 24, 2022. Crushed is probably the better word. At the time, he was the father of one daughter. He began to shiver at the thought of what if it had been his daughter.
“I contacted [Maldonado]. I said, ‘Hey, if you’re getting muralists from all over Texas to do it, I want DFW to lead the way on this. We’ll go do the first mural. I’ll organize it, we’ll do it.’”
He gathered Guillermo Tapia, who served as a kind-of project manager. Velazquez did the portrait. Sarah Ayala, another well-known Fort Worth artist, did the background. Armando Aguirre and Dwayne Guerrero, both former students under Velazquez joined in, too.
“I picked different types of artists because I wanted to represent the entire DFW,” says Velazquez, who a year later met and fell in love with a Uvalde girl, whom he eventually married.
Aprill Velazquez had cousins lost in the classroom shooting. Her own children, though not in the fourth grade, could have been there. The children’s father is a migrant worker who left for Minnesota a week before. He took the children with him.
Velazquez and his new wife have a new daughter, born recently in Uvalde. Velazquez spends a lot of time in what has amounted to his adopted hometown.
Monica Maldonado painted a profound picture for ABC reporters who came to Uvalde to tell the story of the murals.
Alithia’s father was at the site of the mural, completely taken aback by what Velazquez and his crew produced. He stood there with Velazquez. “There’s this moment,” Maldonado says. “Two dads ... they just stood there, staring up at the mural and honoring her.”
Says Velazquez: “If you mess with one of us in Texas, you’re messing with everybody.”
From the outset, Chris Huckabee and his team knew the design for Uvalde’s new school could not follow the usual playbook. Instead, they embraced what he described to be as “Trauma-Informed Design” — an approach rooted in listening, empathy, and trust-building.
It meant engaging a broader spectrum of voices than ever before, from families of victims and survivors to community members whose lives had been irrevocably altered. Every step was shaped by a commitment to ensuring that every voice was heard, Huckabee says.
Though the process took twice as long as a typical school project, the result was a building reflective of the community’s needs. Layered security features, discreetly woven into the architecture, ensure the campus feels open and welcoming without sacrificing safety. The vision was never just about creating a functional learning space.
It was about contributing to Uvalde’s collective healing. A building of renewal and remembrance.
While nothing could bring back the children and teachers lost at Robb Elementary, Huckabee’s team sought to create a place that embodied the love, compassion, and solidarity of people across Texas, and where students could once again feel safe and inspired.
“There has never been a more emotional project in our firm’s history,” Huckabee says. “The weight of what happened in Uvalde touched every member of our team. Many of us are parents ourselves, and all of us are deeply passionate about creating safe, inspiring places for children to learn. That made this work not just professional, but deeply personal.”
Community input was central to the process. At each stage, the team hosted four standing meetings — one each with teachers and administrators, victims’ families, the school board, and a community steering committee. Key milestones were marked by open community forums where any resident could share their perspective. The feedback, though kept private out of respect for those who offered it, proved invaluable in guiding design decisions and ensuring the final school was a true reflection of Uvalde’s hopes.
Huckabee says there are subtle architectural details and memorial elements that may go unnoticed by visitors but will resonate with students, staff, and families.
The Uvalde project has left a mark on how Huckabee’s firm approaches school and public building design.
While they have always sought to reflect each community’s unique vision, this experience introduced innovations — particularly in safety and technology — that set a new benchmark for educational facilities.
For security reasons, the details remain confidential, but Huckabee says the campus represents a “next level” in both safety and design, and the lessons learned here will likely influence projects for years to come.
“When this project began, I sent a message to our entire firm: ‘If we can, we should.’ We were blessed to have the ability, resources, and expertise to step up — and we knew we had to make it happen.”
Joeris Construction, another Huckabee recruit, donated its pre-construction services, and Satterfield & Pontikes Construction Company discounted its services for the construction work.
“What moves me most, though, is how quickly and generously others joined the effort. I’ve spoken to hundreds of people about this project — from material suppliers and subcontractors to philanthropic partners — and every single one said ‘yes’ without hesitation.
“The Fort Worth community, in particular, stood shoulder to shoulder with us. In fact, more funds were raised from Fort Worth than from any other region. I’m especially grateful to Rose Bradshaw at the North Texas Community Foundation, who answered my call for help with an immediate and enthusiastic ‘yes,’ and to so many friends and colleagues in the Fort Worth community who gave simply because they believed in the cause — even if they had no direct connection to Uvalde.”
This school, Huckabee continues, will always stand as a testament not only to the resilience of the Uvalde community, but also to the extraordinary generosity of Fort Worth and countless others who chose to care.
Everyone associated with the project wishes it weren’t necessary. In an ideal world, classes at Robb Elementary would have begun in August just has they always did before May 2022.
The new Legacy Elementary School will open Oct. 10 as a monument to good.
Good doesn’t always shout, it isn’t as loud as fired cartridges, but it persists, works quietly, and refuses to yield.
To those who grieve, “Bestow on them a crown of beauty instead of ashes, the oil of joy instead of mourning, and a garment of praise instead of a spirit of despair. They will be called oaks of righteousness, a planting of the Lord for the display of his splendor.”
Says Huckabee: “This project reminds me that there are a lot of truly good people in the world. It also speaks to the need for someone to put things into action and Sen. Beverly Powell did just that. She was there on the first call, and she’s still there today making sure no detail has been missed.
“To Uvalde, I hope this building says: You are not alone. You are valued, supported, and loved. And to the country, I hope it serves as a reminder that when we choose action, we can create something lasting — something that changes lives for the better.”
