Victor Morales

Victor Morales visits Floresville Elementary School

On September 1, 2000, Victor Morales gave a motivational speech to the students at Floresville Elementary. His visit was sponsored by the P.E. Department. Below is a report on his speech, written by the Friday morning 6th grade G/T group. If you would like to learn more about Mr. Morales, click here. You may also send email to Vicmmor@aol.com if you are interested in having him come to your school to speak.

Victor Morales was the first Hispanic nominee for U.S. Senate from Texas. As a high school teacher in Mesquite, he earned $36,000 a year. Other candidates usually spent around $7 million for a senate campaign but he spent only $900,000. During his campaign in 1996, Mr. Morales drove 80,000 miles all over the state of Texas in his Nissan truck, which became the symbol of his campaign. Two and a half million people voted for him. He got to spend two days on Air Force One with the President and has been to the White House several times for parties. Mr. Morales grew up in Pleasanton, Texas and was the oldest of several children. He used $10,000 of his own savings for his campaign. He now lives in Crandall. Some of the interesting facts we learned during his presentation are: During his campaign, he made the history books; Four and a half million people didn't vote at all in that election; Mr. Morales is a forty-six year old Vietnam veteran; He came out of nowhere to run for the Senate; He's not rich. Mr. Morales said that he always tries to act as if his mother is watching him. One of mottos is
"y por que´ no? (and why not?)" and another one is: "If you have the desire, the heart, and the help of the people, you can do anything". Mr. Morales also says, "If you want to succeed, you have to concentrate and try". He believes that it's very important to be a reader. As a kid, he would go around in other people's houses looking for books to read. During his Senate campaign, he slept in people's houses and they fed him. Once, he spoke in front of 40,000 people in the arena in Chicago. He's spoken in public thousands of times and still gets nervous. Mr. Morales said that he wouldn't ever run for President and doesn't know if he'll ever run again for any other office. Now he is a motivational speaker in schools.

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