‘Padre Mike' Allen dies at 72

CORRECTION: This version of the story corrects the address of Our Lady of Guadalupe Church.

Also, the story failed to note that Sacred Heart Parish in McAllen was one of Mike Allen’s first assignments as a priest. A press clipping from the time tells of Allen’s first days as the pastor and how he struggled to find a place to live in the rough La Paloma neighborhood so he could better reach the poorest of his parishioners.

“He would have told you that what he experienced at Sacred Heart led him to his quest to create more jobs and to ensure a quality education for our youth,” wrote Raquel Oliva in an e-mail to The Monitor. Oliva said she was 14 at the time and was one of the many youth he took under his wing.

McALLEN — Mike Allen, the priest-turned-businessman who helped expand the Rio Grande Valley’s booming maquiladora industry, died Wednesday night. He was 72.

Allen led the McAllen Economic Development Corp. for 18 years. He retired in 2006 but remained active in the Valley.

Relatives said he died at Rio Grande Regional Hospital after complications of chronic lymphocytic leukemia. He was diagnosed in October 2005 but had been in remission from early 2009 until recently.

“He made a life of helping other people,” his sister-in-law Joyce Skloss said. “He was a great source of strength.”

City leaders remembered Allen for forging strong ties between McAllen and Reynosa, developing the twin-plant maquiladora model that created jobs and brought an economic explosion to the region.

“What I found in Mike was a focus and a tenacity to just never ever give up on anything,” said Keith Patridge, who replaced Allen as head of the economic development corporation when he retired. “He definitely wouldn’t let anyone run over him or over our community.”

Patridge, Allen’s longtime No. 2, called him the “glue” that held the development corporation together.

“He was the machine that made it all work,” Patridge said.

Steve Ahlenius, president and CEO of the McAllen Chamber of Commerce, said Allen had a warm personality that “made people feel special.”

“He just had those connections with folks,” Ahlenius said, recalling the day Allen welcomed him and his family to McAllen and invited them to eat cabrito, or goat, in Reynosa. “I was fortunate to know him.”

Allen helped lead the Valley through growth that brought thousands of jobs, hundreds of companies and millions of dollars in investments on both sides of the border. He also helped transformed South Texas into a major corridor for cross-border traffic between the U.S. and Mexico.

“He did that by developing relationships,” Ahlenius said. “He worked miracles.”

Allen lobbied state officials to spend money expanding highways throughout the area and was a co-founder of the Texas Border Infrastructure Coalition. Last year he received the Good Hand Award from the Texas Department of Transportation in recognition of his decades of work to improve Valley highways.

He was voted the city of Hidalgo’s Border Texan of the Year in 2006 and was one of six cancer survivors honored on June 25 by the local chapter of the American Cancer Society at the Cattle Baron’s Ball — an annual event that raises money to fight cancer.

Allen was a founder of South Texas Community College — now called South Texas College. He was chairman of the school’s board of trustees before he died.

“I lost a dear friend,” McAllen Mayor Richard Cortez said in a statement on the city’s website. “Mike helped define this region as a vibrant economic area with great opportunity.”

END OF AN ERA

Allen was the Valley’s third political heavyweight to die in less than a year.

Former McAllen mayor Othal Brand died in late December of congestive heart failure. Brand — who hired Allen to lead the development corporation — first became involved in politics when he ran for the McAllen school board. He won and served as a trustee for nine years, then ran for City Commission and won in 1973. A year later, he won his first race as mayor and went on to serve five terms.

“Mike was not one of Othal’s favorite people, but they became very close allies,” said former McAllen City Manager Mike Blum, who worked under Brand for decades. “It was a wonderful relationship.”

City officials were initially skeptical of Allen, an activist and clergyman who moved to the Valley to live in a mobile home in an impoverished colonia.

“I wondered why Mayor Brand would hire a liberal, rabble-rousing ex-priest to work for McAllen,” said City Commissioner Jim Darling, who was city attorney at the time. “It didn’t take long to realize that Mike was just as passionate about creating jobs for our citizens as the director of (the McAllen Economic Development Corp.) as he was in any of his past endeavors.”

Allen often clashed with community leaders, Blum said.

“At the end of the day, his job was to make things happen,” he said. “And he made things happen.”

Mike Perez, McAllen’s city manager, knew Allen for about 20 years.

“He was the first one who called and welcomed me to McAllen after the mayor and commission hired me,” Perez said. “He is the father, the architect, of how we leverage Mexico.”

The Valley also recently lost Bill Summers — a tireless advocate who helped bring growth to the region. The president of the Rio Grande Valley Partnership — a regional chamber of commerce — died in early December after battling lung cancer.

Through the partnership, Summers brought state lawmakers to the Valley to teach them about the area. Local legislators said that resulted in more funding and awareness of the role South Texas plays in the state’s economy.

“PADRE MIKE”

City leaders had a nickname for Allen.

“We called him ‘Padre Mike,’” Blum said. “He was a passionate pastor for the community.”

Allen, a former Oblate priest, was born in New Kensington, Penn., and moved to Port Lavaca as a young boy.

He attended the St. Anthony school in San Antonio for high school and for two years of college. After spending a year in the Valley, he studied at Oblate College in San Antonio, where he was ordained a Catholic priest and from which he graduated in 1964.

He then moved back to McAllen and married his wife, Theresa, in 1991.

“He was a lion-hearted man,” said the Rev. Roy Snipes, an Oblate priest and pastor of Our Lady of Guadalupe Church in Mission who was a close friend to Allen over the years. “He was like my big brother.”

Snipes will officiate at a funeral Mass for Allen on Saturday morning at Sacred Heart Church, where Allen first celebrated Mass when he moved to McAllen. Snipes said he last saw his late friend a few days ago, when Allen visited him in the hospital as he recovered from knee surgery.

“I anointed him with the oil of the sick, and he anointed me,” Snipes said. “I’m in the hospital right now, but I’ll be at the funeral … in my wheelchair.”

Allen and Snipes were among a group of city leaders and residents who rushed to stop the demolition of the historic novitiate building on the grounds of the modern St. Joseph and St. Peter Seminary in Mission. The Roman Catholic Diocese of Brownsville, which owns the building and the seminary, ordered the building’s destruction, saying a fire had damaged the structure irreparably.

The 98-year-old building — where Allen spent a year studying — had been built to house the Oblates of Mary Immaculate Novitiate, a Catholic order of priests who helped settle the community around Mission.

Preservation advocates ultimately stopped bulldozers from destroying the structure’s façade.

“He had a fierce … zest for life and for serving God and his community,” Snipes said of Allen. “When he disagreed with you, he could be just as ferocious.”

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Monitor staff writer Dave Hendricks contributed to this report.

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Ana Ley covers business and general assignments for The Monitor. She can be reached at (956) 683-4428.

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FUNERAL ARRANGEMENTS

Kreidler Funeral Home in McAllen is handling funeral arrangements. There will be a recital of the rosary at noon Friday at Sacred Heart Church, 306 S. 15th St., McAllen. A funeral Mass will be celebrated at 10 a.m. Saturday at Our Lady of Guadalupe Church, 620 N. Dunlap Ave., Mission. Allen’s burial will be private.

In lieu of flowers the family has asked for donations to the Our Lady of Guadalupe Church Building Fund.

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TIME LINE

1937                        Mike Allen is born in New Kensington, Penn. He would later move to Port Lavaca as a young boy.

1963                        Ordained a Catholic priest.

1964                        Graduates from Oblate College in San Antonio.

1972                        Leaves Our Lady of Guadalupe Parish in Mission.

1980s                      Moves to Austin.

1988                        Named first president/CEO of McAllen Economic Development Corp.

1991                        Marries wife, Theresa.

1998                        Helps establish the Texas Border Coalition. Comprised of border mayors, county executives and local economic development officials, the coalition advocates on behalf of communities along the Texas-Mexico border on issues such as education, security and transportation that affect the quality of life in the region.

2004                        Begins serving as a trustee for South Texas College.

2005                        Diagnosed with chronic lymphocytic leukemia. Forbes magazine ranks the McAllen metro area — which comprises all of Hidalgo County — No. 1 in job growth and No. 2 in cost of living.

2006                        Named the city of Hidalgo’s Border Texan of the Year. Retires from the McAllen Economic Development Corp.

2009                        Receives the Road Hand Award from the Texas Department of Transportation.

2010                        Wins re-election to seat as STC trustee.

   — Compiled by Monitor staff writer Naxiely Lopez

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This version corrects the address for Our Lady of Guadalupe Church in Mission.