Brownsville educators among dead; Semi & Tour bus collide in Mexico

The Brownsville Independent School District is in a state of shock following the deaths of current and former teachers and staff killed in Monday's bus accident outside Saltillo, Mexico.

Cummings Middle School teachers Ana Maria Bujanos, 56, of Brownsville, and Rebecca Pemelton, 68, of Harlingen, were killed in the collision as well as BISD psychologist Roger G. Burns, 64, of Harlingen. Also killed was former BISD staff member Maria Concepcion Sanchez, 54, of Harlingen.

A tractor-trailer slammed into a bus carrying Canadian and U.S. tourists in northern Mexico, killing 11 and injuring 16, officials said Tuesday.

The truck driver, who Mexican authorities said was drunk, apparently lost control and swerved into the bus' lane on a highway outside the city of Saltillo, officials said. The bus driver was killed and the truck driver was among the injured.

The injured include Royce Gourley, 70, and his wife, Georgina Robles Gourley, 60, former teachers at Porter High School. Royce Gourley is now a lecturer in the Curriculum and Instruction Department at the University of Texas at Brownsville and Texas Southmost College.

Royce Gourley was transported from the crash site to Christus Muguerza Hospital in Saltillo.

Gourley is in intensive care having suffered critical multiple trauma and is under the aid of a respirator apparatus, said Dr. Bernardo Davila, the medical director at the hospital .

``His condition is grave,'' Davila said. ``But he is stable. We trust that with the proper care he should improve. Through the consulates we are in contact with his regular doctor and we were able to get his medical history.''

Gourley's wife, Georgina, was transported to Centro Hospitalario La Concepcion.

Hospital spokeswoman Kyra Duarte, said Robles Gourley is out of danger.

``She received impact injuries and might have some fractures,'' Duarte said. ``She is being treated in a room but is not in intensive care.''

Chris Bujanos, 58, said he didn't find out about the accident and his wife's death through the tour company or authorities, but through a friend.

"I received a call from a friend, who told me ‘Chris are you sitting down?' " Bujanos said. "The Mexican radio is reporting that your wife died."

Upon hearing the news, the distraught husband rushed to search various news Web sites for clues to his wife's fate.

"I spent all day following the news and searching the Internet to find out if she really died," he said.

The timing of the accident hit the Bujanos family especially hard because Ana Maria died two days before the couple was to celebrate their 33rd anniversary.

"I was waiting for her; we were going to spend Friday, Saturday and Sunday riding our motorcycles," he said, referring to the couple's love for Harley Davidson motorcycles. "We did everything together. We would ride together, go grocery shopping together. Basically, we were always together. Instead we are working on the logistics of bringing back the body. I don't know what I'm going to do without her by my side."

"All those people," said distraught BISD board President Rolando Aguilar. "What a tremendous loss for the school district and the community. It's devastating. I just can't think of words." Aguilar learned of the collision through The Brownsville Herald, while in Houston.

Fellow teachers and friends of those injured and killed were also stunned by the deaths of the BISD employees they had known years.

Longtime friend Lydia Cadriel knew Bujanos for at least 25 years. The two families would socialize together.

"She was very outgoing and always there for everybody," Cadriel said. "Her family - that was her world. We are still in shock."

School board trustee Dr. Enrique Escobedo said he recognized many of the names of those listed as injured or killed in the accident as BISD employees.

"It is very tragic accident," Esobedo said.

Escobedo said interim Superintendent Brett Springston was out of town and will be returning today to learn more about the accident and what the district can do.

Sanchez's brother-in-law, Ruben Gallegos Jr., learned of the devastating news while on a trip to San Antonio and he and family members returned Tuesday.

"Connie was a genuinely good person," Gallegos said. "She was the kind of person that would the take the shirt off her back to help. Anybody who knows her will back that up."

He added: "She was the type of person who would stop at the side of the road to help a stray animal. She was few and far between. She was a genuinely good person."

Like the majority of the community, Porter High School teacher Christina Cavazos learned of the tragedy through the news media. She knew Bujanos not as a teacher, but as a neighbor.

The two lived on the same street for several years and Cavazos said she remembers Bujanos' friendly smiling from across the street.

"It was a shock. You just don't expect" something as devastating as this to happen, Cavazos said. "It is awful to think about it."

Cavazos also remembers the Gourleys from the several years they worked at Porter High School. Georgina Gourley worked there for about 25 years and Royce Gourley for about 10 years before they both retired.

The couple met while working at the school and married sometime after.

"They were good teachers," Cavazos said. Georgina Gourley taught biology and Royce Gourley coached football and tennis.

Royce Gourley began working for UTB-TSC in 2005. He teaches students interested in becoming teachers.

Staff members at the university were unable to immediately get additional information about Royce Gourley. All they knew was that he was a victim in the bus accident, said Gayle Brogdon, associate dean for the School of Education.

"I saw something close to his name (in an article), but they misspelled it, but I thought well it's not him, but later I found it was," Brogdon said. "We are all in a kind of state of shock."

Aguilar had known Burns for about 30 years. Burns first diagnosed the learning disability of Aguilar's son. "And he was very kind, very caring and concerned about my son," Aguilar recalled with emotion. "He tried to help me get help (for my son)," Aguilar said.

"He was always very concerned about young people. In my book, he was a very kind man," Aguilar added.

Burns also was the psychologist who testified in October 2003 in a hearing regarding the mental capacity of accused killer John Allen Rubio, 27, of Brownsville. Rubio is accused of decapitating Julissa Quezada, 3, John Esthefan Rubio, 1, and 2- month-old Mary Jane Rubio in a run-down East Tyler Street apartment that year.

School board trustee Catalina Presas-Garcia, who didn't believe the news when a friend called her to tell her what had happened, explained: "I said, ‘You've got to be kidding me."

Presas-Garcia said she not only feels for the families of those killed, but for the students who lost their teachers as well.

"What we need to focus on is to make sure that the students are going to be able to cope and deal with it - and make sure counselors are going to be prepared," Presas-Garcia said.