Cantu spends nearly
half a century at
St. Joseph Academy

   BROWNSVILLE — A “Celebration of Life” monument down a green slope from the entrance of St. Joseph Academy pays tribute to the school’s teachers.
      “Let us cherish the moments they shared with us and forever keep them in our hearts,” says the monument, which stands near one of Brownsville’s many resacas.
      It is St. Joe’s teachers, the monument states, “who inspired us and believed in us before we believed in ourselves.”
     All of those words — and many more — reflect what Antonio “Tony” Cantu has meant to St. Joseph. He recently celebrated 40 years of being a mentor and educator on the beautiful open-air campus in Brownsville. Church history, morality, social justice, and Christian identification are among the many subjects Cantu has taught at the Catholic college preparatory school. He also serves at the director of campus ministry.
      It provides a thumbnail of the academic and theological aspects of Cantu’s contributions to St. Joseph. It does not describe what his spirituality and influence has meant to SJA, and how his presence has been felt by generations of students. Their tributes tell the real story.
     “Mr. Cantu is the heart of St. Joseph,” said Melissa Valadez, a former student of the educator who today is the school’s principal. “The values that are with us are because of that man. He truly believes in what he’s teaching our kids.”
     Not long after Valadez said those words a morning bell rang and students on her campus began heading off to their next round of classes. Cantu went out to the SJA courtyard as students circulated around him.

Deep Roots
     Cantu himself was raised in the tradition. He is a 1975 SJA graduate. Before him, Cantu’s father attended the school, as did his siblings. Cantu’s story is typical of the deep roots many Brownsville families have to St. Joseph. The same can be said of the city’s historical connections to SJA.

     The institution was originally founded in the latter part of the 1800s by the Missionary Oblates of Mary Immaculate in downtown Brownsville. In 1906, the Marist Brothers arrived from Mexico and took charge of the school and built a threestory building. In 1959 the Marists relocated the historic school from downtown to where it stands today on the banks of a resaca just off Palm Boulevard.
      It’s all vintage Brownsville, as is Cantu, who has spent nearly half a century at St. Joseph as a student and educator. He has been guided through the years by 1 Peter 2, verses 9-10, which reads in part, “You are a chosen generation, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, His own special people, that you may proclaim the praises of Him who called you of darkness into His marvelous light.”
     Cantu says he has always been inspired by Marcellin Champagnat, the French priest who founded the Marist Brothers in the early 1800s. Champagnat was motivated to establish a new religious congregation of brothers who would educate students, with special care given to indigent children.
      “Keep loving them as long as they are with you,” Champagnat instructed the Marists. “Love them all equally; no outcasts, no favorites.”
     That religious order — teach all children about Jesus — is the foundation that has touched the generations of St. Joseph students.
      “It is why people keep sending their children here,’’ Cantu said. “We keep an eye out for them (students). They (parents) have that trust in us. It’s the idea that we take care of each other. It’s the hallmark of our (SJA) family.”

Timeless Values
Times change, of course, but it doesn’t mean principles and values have to, and they’ve haven’t at St. Joseph.
     “The mission has stayed the same,” Cantu said of St. Joseph’s enduring presence in Brownsville. 
Today’s students, he said, “have everything at their fingertips,” a quick search on Google never far away. The quick accessibility of knowledge provided by technology may obscure the need for personal contact, but it’s there if you look hard enough.
     “What I’ve discovered is they (today’s students) have a longing for a sense of belonging and for community,” Cantu said. “They really want human connections.”

     They will get it from the venerable instructor. He describes himself as “doing the old school,” a teacher who insists his students take notes and not always take pictures of something with their phones. Speaking of which, Cantu has students put phones away to focus on his lectures and the human interactions that are at the heart of the St. Joseph mission.
      “The way I describe it,” he said of being at SJA, “is that my job is to show people the face of God.”
     Four decades in, Cantu is still doing it, every school day on the 33-acre campus with just over 400 students, spanning grades 7 through 12. Be it the high school principal who is his boss and once sat in these same classrooms, or the doctors, lawyers, artists, and elected community leaders who call him
a mentor, Cantu has been a foundational piece from which St. Joseph is anchored.
     “We’ve armed them, (students), to be themselves and to know God loves them,” he said. “They know they always have a place to come home to, that they’re not alone.”’