Lori is a Yankee by Birth, Texan by Choice, and Mexican by Marriage. She grew up in Detroit, joined the Army and learned to fix computers. Upon discharge, she needed a job in tech and Texas was booming; her dad’s AAA travel guide described Austin as “a college town, known for its artificial moonlight…”, she headed to Austin never looking back. She found a job at IBM fixing computers where she met her Latin Lover, Pio Renteria, whom she married a few years later. She and her husband live in a barrio 10 blocks from the state Capitol called the East Cesar Chavez Neighborhood, an area suffering extreme pressures from gentrification. After 10 years, she left IBM to attend University earning a BLS in English Writing. Landing a job with the Austin School District, she designed and implemented prevention programs for homeless youth and wanna-be gangsters. Their summer youth employment program won 3rd place for youth employment programs by the US Dept. of Commerce in 1992. She helped launch the city’s first Campaign to End Homelessness facilitating the Street People’s Advisory Council and kept Homer the Homeless Goose, the group’s mascot, for 18 years. Now retired, she is active in the Austin-Saltillo Sister Cities Association creating a student and teacher exchange program. She also volunteers to coordinate and is a trail guide for the Tejano Healthy Walking Trails as a way to preserve, protect, and promote the rich history and cultural identity of our beloved neighborhood. As a trained writer and great story-teller, she is collecting experiences for a political romance she will write someday. She promises that the names will be changed to protect the guilty.