\u00a0Two San Antonio streets will soon honor a couple of beloved locals\u00a0\u2014 a late drag queen and a NFL football star.<\/p>\n
Splashtown Drive between Interstate 35 and Copeland Drive on the East Side will be\u00a0renamed \u201cWillie Mitchell Drive.\u201d<\/a> Mitchell made it to the Super Bowl with the Kansas City Chiefs twice in his eight-season run, including the first-ever Super Bowl in 1967.\u00a0<\/p>\n A half-mile stretch of North Main Avenue near downtown will be called \u201cErica Andrews Memorial Way\u201d<\/a> to honor an award-winning drag queen who lived in San Antonio from 1992 through 2012. The section will be in the center of the city\u2019s Pride Cultural Heritage District<\/a>, which is known for its high-volume of LGBTQ+ bars and businesses.<\/p>\n \u201cErica\u2019s memorial way represents both preservation and progress,\u201d said Luis\u00a0Vazquez, executive director of the San Antonio LGBTQ+ Chamber of Commerce. \u201cIt honors an important part of LGBT history while contributing to the revitalization and economic vitality of North Main.\u201d<\/p>\n The City Council approved both name changes by a vote of 10-0. The measures were on council\u2019s consent agenda\u00a0\u2014 a long list of noncontroversial items approved in a single vote. Councilwoman Misty Spears was absent from the meeting.\u00a0<\/p>\n Andrews was known for mentoring young performers. She won the International Queen beauty pageant in Thailand and Miss Gay\u00a0USofA, and she was featured in a documentary called \u201cTrantasia\u201d in 2006.\u00a0<\/p>\n Mitchell grew up on the East Side and is a 1959 graduate of Phillis Wheatley High School, now called the Young Men\u2019s Leadership Academy. He helped launch the nonprofit San Antonio Fighting Back, which promotes education and addresses violence and drug abuse.<\/p>\n Mitchell was honored with a standing ovation at Thursday\u2019s council meeting. Several of Andrews’ friends and family spoke fondly of the late performer ahead of the City Council vote.\u00a0<\/p>\n Jacquelyn Ali cheered the renaming on behalf of the United Homeowners Improvement Association.<\/p>\n \u201cMr. Willie Mitchell is a longtime East Side resident whose life reflects both extraordinary accomplishments and meaningful service,\u201d Ali told council members alongside Mitchell and a handful of supporters.\u00a0<\/p>\n The roadway between West\u00a0Ashby Place and West Cypress Street that will honor Andrews won\u2019t be formally renamed and will not force business owners on the stretch to change their addresses. Memorial designations are symbolic.\u00a0<\/p>\n The street that will bear Mitchell\u2019s name is less than a quarter mile and won\u2019t prompt address changes because the surrounding properties’ addresses aren\u2019t tied to that road.\u00a0<\/p>\n Each of the projects cost about $5,000, largely to pay for a handful of signs. The changes will be paid for with discretionary funds from the offices of council members Sukh Kaur, who called for the Erica Andrews Memorial Way, and Jalen McKee-Rodriguez, who pushed to honor Mitchell.<\/p>\n New signs will go up on the roads in the next couple of months.\u00a0<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"\u00a0Two San Antonio streets will soon honor a couple of beloved locals\u00a0\u2014 a late drag queen and a…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":454160,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[8],"tags":[82,84,83],"class_list":["post-454159","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-san-antonio","tag-san-antonio","tag-san-antonio-headlines","tag-san-antonio-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/454159","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=454159"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/454159\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/454160"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=454159"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=454159"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=454159"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}