Odessa College to celebrate the Grand Reopening of the Rudy Acosta Student Pavilion
The new and redesigned Rudy Acosta Student Pavilion will resume its function as an outdoor space for celebrations, dances, meetings, concerts, as well as providing a daily social gathering location for early college high school students and OC students.
The grand reopening is set for 10 a.m. Oct. 17. The Rudy Acosta Pavilion is located between Deaderick Hall and the Wood Health Sciences Building.
The original pavilion was donated to Odessa College by anonymous donors and was dedicated in 2008 in honor of Acosta, former OC student and graduate. Then in 2015, family members established the half-million-dollar Rudy Acosta Endowment in his name to make it possible for many Odessa College students to earn their college degrees.
Rudy was born Nov. 25, 1964 in Presidio, but he was raised in Odessa. Orphaned at an early age, and afflicted with Werdnig-Hoffman’s disease, a rare and severe form of muscular dystrophy, Acosta was totally paralyzed and bedridden. Unable to use a wheelchair, he relied on a customized gurney to get around. Due to his complex needs, he lived in a series of nursing homes and facilities from age 12 until age 30, when he finally received services and support to move into his own apartment in Lubbock.
He graduated from Permian High School in May of 1984, through the ECISD Homebound Student Program, while he was a resident of Avalon Place Nursing Home in Odessa and entered Odessa College in September 1984.
With the unusual support and dedication shown at Odessa College by countless staff and instructional personnel, he received his associate of arts degree there in May of 1990, and entered UTPB, where he attended until 1996, when he transferred to Texas Tech University in Lubbock.
In December of 1998, he received his bachelor of arts degree in psychology at Texas Tech, receiving a standing ovation from his classmates and an overflow crowd at Tech’s Coliseum Arena.
Dr. Donald Haragan, president of Texas Tech University, then proudly posed for photographs with Rudy on the Coliseum floor. Thus came to its conclusion a 15-year quest for that degree awarded to a courageous young man who was never physically able to turn a page in a book.
Shortly thereafter, Rudy was appointed, by then-Gov. George W. Bush to the Texas Council for Developmental Disabilities, and moved to Austin, where he lived until his death. During his years in Austin, he became a tireless and widely renowned advocate in the Texas Legislature seeking and securing support for numberless programs to assist disabled people in all walks of life throughout Texas. During his college years, he managed to overcome his own total paralysis and with remarkable determination, he finally earned the degree, which was such a meaningful goal ahead of him for his entire life. He once explained that his motivation came from the certainty that having a college degree would better qualify him to help people who had “real problems.” The reputation that he built for himself in the Texas Legislature in Austin makes clear that he was successful in those efforts, as he lived out his dream of serving unselfishly those whom he felt he could help. He was honored in 2003, by the Heritage of Odessa Foundation as a Distinguished Former Odessa
