If there is one word to describe Gary Perez, perhaps it is “chosen.”
First, he was chosen to be the treasured first child of Reymundo and Frances Perez of Pearsall, who brought him home in as a baby from St. Peter-St. Joseph Children’s Home in San Antonio.
Then as a young man, he was asked by the City of Austin to be part of a diving project to help save the endangered Barton Springs salamander by clearing lifechoking algae from the floor of the popular springs.
In 2005, when Amada Cardenas, matriarch of the Native American Church in Mirando City, passed away, Perez found himself caretaker of the church’s holy lands.
Later, because “I had been exposed to the Native American Church for so long and understood the nuances of the ceremony and the language that was being used,” he said, “I was invited to take a look at this particular piece of rock art by a researcher out in West Texas.”
