Conjunto Museum opens doors

By RAY QUIROGA
Publisher@sbnewspaper.com

The Texas Conjunto Music Hall of Fame & Museum now has a new home, and it’s the historic Aztec Building located in the downtown Robertson Street District of San Benito.

State and local dignitaries, as well as conjunto music royalty, the genre’s fans, well-wishers and the community, in general, joined organizers and flooded the Aztec Building’s parking area to hear tributes, anecdotes and the history behind the museum’s origins, founding, and the historic building itself.

It’s been some two decades since conjunto music aficionado and San Benito native Reynaldo “Rey” Avila envisioned a museum and hall of fame of this caliber. Throughout those years, the San Benito native, collected artifacts and histories of famed conjunto artists, much of which is rooted in San Benito, the Rio Grande Valley, the South Texas region and the northern Mexican states.

Avila, ultimately established the TCMHFM in 2001, which was later housed at the city’s community building, sharing space with the San Benito History Museum and the Freddy Fender Museum.

Along with his fellow board members, the TCMHFM inducted 86 conjunto pioneers to the hall at the time of Rey’s passing in 2019, and had awarded several music scholarships to seniors of the San Benito Conjunto Estrella Band. The museum’s continued mission remains to promote, preserve, archive, document, and display the history of regional conjunto music by honoring those who created it.

“The Texas Conjunto Music Hall of Fame and Museum no longer has to share a room with the San Benito History Museum and the Freddy Fender Museum. It has a home of its own. A dream come true for Rey Avila, thanks to his children and wife who never gave up on his dream. Congratulations, you deserve this,” said Sandra Tumberlinson, retired San Benito CISD educator and San Benito Historical Society co-founder during her presentation on the building’s history at the re-grand opening event.

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