Region 13 Education Service Center dedicated their new La Grange campus in honor of Erwin Sladek during an open house on Thursday, Feb. 12.
Sladek, a retired La Grange ISD Superintendent and current vice chairman of Region 13 board of directors, was instrumental in bringing the facility to La Grange.
The Region 13 Education Service Center, headquartered in Austin, provides training and other professional development resources to public school districts throughout Central Texas. At the dedication ceremony, Region 13 Executive Director Rich Elsasser said his organization had long-wanted to set up satellite campuses so that teachers and other school personnel could receive training closer to home.
“We put a survey out and asked superintendents all across our region, what can we do to be better?” Elsasser said. “What we do to help you out more. And really interestingly, probably one of the top responses was that it’s just so hard to get to Austin.”
Around that time, the old Bealls department store closed in La Grange.
Region 13 board chairman Gary Barnett, who lives in Burnet, recalled the discussions the board was having about satellite campuses.
“I drive in from Burnet trying to get to Region 13 in the morning,” Barnett said. “I’m going like, this is a no-brainer. Erwin was the first one. He says, ‘Oh, I got us covered in La Grange.’” Region 13 purchased the old La Grange Bealls store in 2022 and began remodeling it as a training facility that includes a reception area, training rooms of all sizes, a prep kitchen and break room area.
And now, a plaque outside the building bears Sladek’s name. Elsasser and the Region 13 board also presented Sladek with an award for his many years of service in public education.
During the ceremony, Sladek spoke about some of the lessons he tried passing on to students over the years, including this entertaining yet philosophical story about a turtle.
“The turtle can stay in a shell and they’re very well protected,” Sladek said. “But if the turtle wants to move forward, they have to stick their neck out. And that can be dangerous. But that’s life. You decide you’re going forward, you stick your neck out. And then the turtle slowly goes down the path. It may be rough, it may be hilly, it may be muddy. Different things can be in its way. And then it gets out and all of a sudden it’s on some smooth ground and it’s sailing good. That’s when you better stop and look, because you may be in the middle of the highway. That’s life, folks. And you see that turtle on top of the fence post? You better believe he never got there by himself.
“And that’s the deal, you see,” Sladek continued. “As human beings, we become part of each person that we meet. Each creature we may meet, it becomes part of us and stays with us. And that is how I see this. That name on there, it’s my name. But it’s all of us.”