91̽»¨

---

Podcast: S9 Ep. 12
Date: May 05, 2026
Title: LU Moment: Victor Almazan writes his own story at LU | S9 Ep. 12
Host: John Rollins

---

JOHN ROLLINS: Welcome to the LU Moment, where we showcase all the great things happening with 91̽»¨ faculty, staff, students and alumni. I'm John Rollins, Associate Director of Community Relations and Public Affairs here at LU, and I want to welcome you all to this week's show. My guest today is Victor Almazan. He's a sophomore public relations major here at 91̽»¨. That major is about to change, right? We just talked about that.

VICTOR ALMAZAN: Yes.

JOHN: So, welcome to show. I know you wear a lot of hats on campus, so welcome to the LU Moment, and I'm glad to chat with you today.

VICTOR: Well, thank you so much for having me today.

JOHN: Yeah, it's going to be a good chat. So, your friend Sergio Mendez reached out to me and told me that you were interested in being a guest on the podcast. So, I'm glad we could get together and make this happen. We know you're a sophomore here at Lamar, but what else would you like to share about yourself? You know, let's go ahead and have you introduce yourself, and then we'll kind of get into the chat.

VICTOR: Like you said, I'm a communications and public relations major which is going to change, hopefully, within the next semester, at the end of this semester, but really my main thing, a lot of people will tell you, is that I'm a very loud person, and I talk a lot and have a very contagious laugh, and like meeting strangers is one of the best things that I enjoy doing, which everybody would run away from because they like to meet, stay with the same people they have, and also just enjoy being at Lamar based off of just the amount of things that you can get involved in that you never really realize. Like, if there's a student organization, I'm probably eventually going to join it.

JOHN: Okay, awesome. Well, we know now your public relations concentration, but you told me, before we started recording, you're looking into journalism, and I think with you saying I like to meet new people, and I like to put myself out there, journalism is perfect, because you have to interview people, you have to take their photo, you have to write down their name, get their information, get quotes from them. So, I think you're going into a really good field for your personality.

VICTOR: Definitely. That's especially after I talked to Mr. Malick from the department and Rayna and Regina after just be like, I think I want to change it. And they said, Well, you do a lot of journalism for the University Press. Yeah. So it really combines a lot. And actually, Sergio is the one that helped me change my major from pre nursing to communications. Because I was struggling on the midst of these classes are kind of getting harder. And the main question he asked me was, what do you like doing? And I said, talking. And he said Victor… there’s literally a whole college and department for people like you, and here I am.

JOHN: People who like to talk, right? Yes, so go ahead and take us back for a moment, if you will. What was the moment or story that led you here to 91̽»¨? I know you mentioned to me earlier, you're a first-generation student, so kind of what brought you here?

VICTOR: So what's crazy is that in middle school, I actually attended band camp twice, and I played the saxophone. That's, I guess, a little fun fact. And so I came here, I was like, that was nice, but time to go home. And in senior year, really, when, usually when all the senior teachers hound you on what you're going to do after high school. So I go apply in different universities, and the only one that gave me a scholarship was 91̽»¨. I was like, it's great, but then I also realized it's pretty close to home and also pretty far from home, so nothing can really get mixed in there. And also I've recognized some of the places, and then I looked up a bunch of the records, and it seemed like a pretty good university, good teacher to faculty, student ratio, and it's mostly what it is, is just how close you get to be with a lot of the professors, and also just enjoy being here in the Beaumont area.

JOHN: I like that you bring that up because I don't know if you saw recently, although you writing for the University Press, you probably saw this, but Lamar was just named the number one in Texas for lowest student debt, and I think a lot of that we can contribute back to the scholarships and financial aid that we offer. So, I love that. That's kind of one of the big driving forces that brought you here. I think we need to share that message more. You know, it's affordable, but we also offer ways for you to come to our university. That's how we got you.

VICTOR: Definitely. I just mostly saw it for the things that you can do and the people that you get to meet, and the ratio, because no offense to A&M, but you know, it's one professor with 300 students in one classroom, so you are just one in a million, as the people would quote nowadays. And so here it's one out of 30 or so. And usually, if you stay in the same department, you're going to end up having the same professors over and over.

JOHN: It's a lot of overlap. Yeah, and you get to have the one-on-one time that you, like you said you maybe wouldn't have at a larger university. I've had a lot of students on the podcast over the last two and a half years, and a lot of them bring that up. They bring up the teacher to student ratio, the sense of community on campus, just all kinds of things. So, I love every time I hear that, I'm like, okay, yes, we're doing we're doing good stuff. We're doing good stuff. So Sergio shared with me in an email about you Victor, he said “Victor's love for Lamar transcends from his involvement on campus to working at Spindletop Boomtown Museum.” So would you like to share about some of the things you're involved with on campus and then at Spindletop as well?

VICTOR: So for on campus, I'm an officer of the Catholic Student Center, an officer of the Knights of Columbus, a member of the Hispanic Society, a member of the Fitness Club, and recently joined the University Press, where I've written three stories, and hopefully in this coming semester, I'll be employed and start being able to produce more stories for the newspaper, and working an on campus job with Spindletop really taught me a lot of how Beaumont really got its name and sparking up to now, Beaumont is practically the capitol of museums in the United States. So that was a crazy fact that I learned actually just a couple weeks ago, and then really learning about how people lived in the early 1900s to now, it's like everything's modernized, which I like to bring up in the guided tours I give. Everything's now convenient, where at this time period, you have to do everything yourself. And your reward was you were able to do it instead of just go to the grocery store and just buying all the groceries and really just learning more about the university by meeting different people. Like I met Dr. Flores through the museum. I met Jason who works in the athletics department through the museum. Like, you really meet a lot of people who you really don't know what their job is on campus until later on. Then you just talk to them and talk about them, be like, Yeah, I met this person. Why? Because I'm a very social person. I just talked to everybody that walks in, yeah, not really caring about who they are, because at the end of the day, we're all still people who just want to socialize.

JOHN: That seems like a really good role for you, giving tours. I mean, you're talking and communicating and meeting people, and you’ve got to connect with them, because what y'all offer at Spindletop Boomtown Museum is very specific. You know you're there because you might be a history buff, or you might be a Lamar employee who's enjoying an after-hours event, or, you know, you're there for a reason. So y'all have a very specific job at hand of what you're doing when you give those tours.

VICTOR: Definitely, especially best, some especially the kids, are funnier, as when you give a tour, oh yeah, a lot of them have never seen things like these, so you have to tell them what it is and how it worked. And a lot of them were like, I didn't know that was a thing. I usually use my phone or my tablet. Or this is more convenient, because our oven is electric and not an actual wood burning stove. So that's mostly as everybody's always interested whether you like you think they are not, because you just have to find the way of the dialect to educate them in that particular thing.

JOHN: Got to cater to your audience, right? Like you said, young kids may not be as interested as adults who are big time into history, but you can find ways. Do y'all still do the live reenactments? And then there’s a blacksmith from time to time, right?

VICTOR: Yes. So we actually just lost our blacksmith, Rob. He was already pretty much retired, but he moved in with his son in The Woodlands. So we're slowly either trying to find another volunteer to do the blacksmith a couple days out of the week, because it really entertained all the crowds. Yes, crazy to see it happening. And cool, yeah. And so that was, like a like, the peak of the tour was, this is the only building that's still being used today as it currently is, because you have like the newspaper, The Lamb's Print Shop, then you have like, the lawyer's office, the general store. But in modern day, they look way different now than they did at this time. But the blacksmith still looks the same because there's just a fire and a bunch of tools. I don't know what none of them are called, right? That's what the blacksmith it's somebody that knows how to work them, right? Somebody who's working hard knows how to work them.

JOHN: So I want to ask you this. Imagine a prospective student asks you, “What's it really like at 91̽»¨?” What do you tell them?

VICTOR: It's crazy, in a good way. Because there's always something to do every hour after 9 a.m. There's either a tabling or fundraising for something, selling things. So I buy a lot of cupcakes and brownies from people, some food items from organizations. You also see a lot of different departments table and educate like Study Abroad. They like to go informed by study abroad, and especially the Career and Professional Development Center table. I've gotten a lot of free merch from them on Friday.

JOHN: Yeah, they're always out and about. They kind of push the way red on Fridays, right?

VICTOR: Yes. I usually always end up, and it's, I was coincidentally, wear red on Fridays. So it's funny how that works out. It's just kind of what happens, yeah, just always expect something to happen on campus. Just look on LU Hub, and there's something that's going to be happening.

JOHN: Yeah, I love hearing that from a student. You know, being part of staff, we hear the opposite side a lot. “There's nothing to do. Where do I go? What do I do?” And I'm like, just pay attention. Look around. Walk through the Setzer Center every now and then, walk through the quad. There's a lot of events that take place on the dining hall lawn. You know, you just have to pay attention. Literally, it's there. So thinking back on your time at 91̽»¨ so far, because I know you’ve got a couple years left, what are some of the moments that really stand out to you?

VICTOR: Really the sense of community, because I know a lot of people are shy and timid at first, and it's really hard to make new friends, but if you find a student organization that you like, like I know they're recently, just had a Chess Club, and a lot of people do like playing chess. So you can meet a lot of other people who play chess, and that's how you can make friends. And you can be like, oh, let's go ahead and go to Chick-fil-A on this day, and you get to really meet. I've met my best friends in college. No offense to my hometown best friend, but I've met more close people here than I would have thought of or me in college, because you have all the college movies. I mean, they're nothing like in real life obviously, because they're made in like the 90s and early 2000, right? But a lot of it does portray to now where you just have to go out and explore and be out of your comfort zone, and you find your people.

JOHN: Yeah, you're bringing up some really great points. And I think the Chess Club is a good example, because I remember it might have been University Press that put a story out, and I remember the photo of or somebody put it out. I don't know it looked awesome, but it had a photo of all the different people playing chess, and they were lined up in a row. It was awesome, but I think people sometimes think something that I love maybe wouldn't be popular with my peers, but there's a Knitting and Crochet Club. I think we've got, like, a K Pop Club that started. I mean, there are some very unique clubs on this campus, so thinking that your interests maybe aren't there or there aren't other people out there with them, I bet you there are, you know, more often than not.

VICTOR: Right. Like, I know a lot of my friends my freshman year, whenever they finally did the K Pop Club. They're like, let's go to that K Pop thing. I was like, Y'all can go. I'm already a K Pop person, but I know y'all really enjoy and ended up doing it. Like, I think the first event they did was karaoke. So they ended up going to that. And they came back, and it was such they enjoyed it, because someone, there's a K Pop Club on campus, yeah, and they thought only, like, the four of them enjoyed K Pop. There's a lot of people out there. And it's always funny, because if you don't have an organization that you like go ahead and try to start one, find more people, and be like, let's find a full time staff. And we have an idea to do this. And the market’s most likely out there for students who want to do something.

JOHN: I think you said it amazing, start your own, if you’ve got the ability, all you need is what, I guess a group of start a president and, you know, start building your officers, and then everything else kind of comes together, as simple as that, yeah, and put yourself out there. Like you said, always important. No matter who it is, you’ve got to put yourself out there.

VICTOR: So, for any information on the Spindletop Museum, you definitely follow us on Facebook, at Spindletop Boomtown Museum and on Instagram with the same handle, Spindletop Boomtown Museum, and we do post about any events or stories about what's happening or anything interesting. I do like the sunset pictures with like the oil derrick in the background. I used to do those when I used to work in the mornings. I posted on my own personal Instagram story. There's something about a sunrise and then a derrick combined. I don't know how, it just works.

JOHN: It just works. And it's very Texas.

VICTOR: It is, and that's, like, the great part of, like, the university. There's always flat land that the university owns a good amount of, like, flat land where there's nothing built on. So you can just, you can see the fog sometimes in the morning on the grass, ominous kind of but it's also interesting to see that it's not just building after building. There's always people there and nature still around. And that's the great part, and especially always remembering that there's always something to do if you're scared a first time college student as myself, first generation, where a lot of the problems I've encountered are they're not as difficult as you would think, because there's always someone who can help you, guide you, like Sergio is my senior bestie. So anytime he knows something that I don't, I usually ask him, and he goes, “Oh, go talk to this person.” I've also informed him about a bunch of things that he didn't know, and he's been here for four years, so it's funny whenever I tell him about those so you're really it's good to meet different people of different classifications and different majors, because y'all actually have a lot more in common than you. I think that's my best part of attending 91̽»¨.

JOHN: I think that's great advice, and you know that's advice to take into your career as well. Just because people maybe are a little older, a little younger than you, doesn't mean you can't learn from them, you know. So thanks again for joining me on the podcast. I'm glad we finally got to connect and get an episode out there for you, and you’ve got a couple more years here at Lamar. So we're excited to see what's to come for you.

VICTOR: Definitely. I'm excited too, because you never know what's happening the next day.

JOHN: That's right. Keep putting yourself out there, for sure. To catch the LU stories just like Victor's, be sure to search LU Moment wherever you get your podcasts, to keep up with the events, activities, programs and people right here at 91̽»¨. This is John Rollins, your host. Thank you for listening, and we'll talk to you next time.