Aggie Women Network Announces 2019 Legacy Award Winners

The former student group Aggie Women Network announced the recipients of this year’s Legacy Award, one which honors women who have achieved excellence as a student or former student, and whose accomplishments have had an impact on future generations of Aggie Women. Given annually, the Legacy Award recognizes women who are driven by the Aggie spirit and exemplify the university’s core values, organization officials said.

A ceremony honoring the Legacy Award winners as well as this year’s Eminent Scholar, M. Cynthia Hipwell, will be held in the Memorial Student Center Bethancourt Ballroom on Texas A&M University’s campus on Friday, Nov. 15 at noon.

2019 Aggie Women Legacy Award winners

Rita Berrera Hernandez ’86

A first-generation college graduate, Hernandez earned her education degree at Texas A&M and became a middle school teacher in Brownsville, Texas, where she earned Teacher of the Year recognition.

A teacher, principal and assistant superintendent, she retired from public school education after 30 years. She currently serves as president of a nonprofit career school committed to increasing the earning capacity of families via affordable career training. As president of Cameron County Education Initiative (CCEI) she has successfully written grants aimed at providing zero-cost career training for struggling families, women with felony convictions, and young single mothers.

For over 20 years, she has teamed up with an “army” of local Aggies who collaborate with university leaders to create a pipeline of students to Texas A&M from Brownsville. Together, they have sponsored senior trips for high school students (groups as large as 300), which include university tours and athletic events. While here, she maintains contact with students often treating them to holiday dinners, movies and locating work and internships.

Hernandez was named an Outstanding Alumni for the College of Education and Human Development in 2016.

Angie Stooksberry Rogers ’84

After receiving her bachelor’s degree  in Veterinary Science and Doctor of Veterinary from Texas A&M, Rogers spent her entire practice career in the Dallas area, the last 13 years at Eldorado Animal Hospital in McKinney.

She currently serves her alma mater as a board member of the Friends of the Texas A&M Libraries and on the biomedical sciences board in the College of Veterinary Medicine and Biomedical Sciences. Rogers is heavily involved with Aggie Moms and was honored as a Fish Camp Namesake for Fish Camp 2019.

After losing her son Brandon to a drug overdose in 2015, the Rogers family created The Brandon Rogers Endowed Memorial Scholarship Fund with the help of The Association of Former Students and through the generosity of family and friends. Rogers met with administrators at Texas A&M about the need for a collegiate recovery community for students in recovery and the Aggie Recovery Community (ARC) was up and running in August 2016. Currently, the funds from her son’s scholarship go to the ARC. Rogers also serves on the Recovery Services Committee at Texas A&M and is an avid volunteer in the local recovery community.

She received the Association of Recovery in Higher Education (ARHE) Community Member of the Year Award in 2018 and the V.IP. (Very Inspiring Parent) Award from GoodLifeFamily magazine, a local Dallas publication. She has appeared on CNN and local media outlets, raising awareness about substance use disorder and the hope found in recovery.

Charean Williams ’86

As a sports reporter covering the NFL since 1994, Williams earned a place in the Pro Football Hall of Fame in 2018 as the first woman to win the Dick McCann Award, given annually by the Pro Football Writers of America (PFWA).

In 2007, she became the first female member of the Pro Football Hall of Fame Selection Committee. She was the 24th president of the PFWA, and the organization’s first female leader, serving in the position during the 2009-10 NFL seasons.

Williams has worked for Pro Football Talk, NBC’s digital NFL site, since June 2017. Williams spent 17 years covering the NFL and the Dallas Cowboys for the Fort Worth Star-Telegram after six seasons as a Tampa Bay Buccaneers beat reporter for the Orlando Sentinel. Williams also has worked at the Bryan-College Station Eagle and the Orange Leader. In her more than 30-year career, Williams has covered 25 Super Bowls and seven Olympic Games.

Williams, who earned the nickname “Mother Football,” was selected to the Texas Sports Hall of Fame in 2019. She received the 2017 Blackie Sherrod Award from the Dallas Sports Commission for lifetime achievement covering sports in the Dallas-Fort Worth area and was inducted into Texas A&M’s Former Journalism Student Association’s Hall of Honor in 2012.

The Dallas Press Club honored her with a Legends Award in 2018. Williams received her B.S. in journalism from Texas A&M in 1986, where she worked as an assistant sports editor for The Battalion. She graduated from South Dakota State with a master’s in mass communication in 2018, earning Top Scholar honors. She is an adjunct professor at SMU.