New name for Citizens Field: Group’s push to memorialize Mark Martinez successful

A group’s quest to have a Little League baseball field memorialize their classmate who died last year culminated in victory Tuesday night as the Lockhart City Council voted 5-2 to add Mark A. Martinez’s name to a new scoreboard the group plans to donate to Citizens Field.
Cheering and weeping erupted in the crowd as an emotional campaign by the Lockhart High School Class of 1989 to honor a well-loved former Little League volunteer came to fruition.
The group, led by former Marine and Lockhart High School graduate Pete Mireles of Austin, urged the council to honor Martinez as it had in the case of the late Johnny Hazelett, a 1987 LHS grad and former baseball standout whose name is emblazoned on the scoreboard at Memorial Field, and Cpl. Jason LaFleur, a Lockhart local killed in action whose name is now attributed to the youth soccer fields near Lockhart Junior High School.
“Do the right thing,” Mireles said prior to the council’s vote. “The third one is up to bat, and it’s Mark.”
Councilmembers John Castillo, Angie Gonzales-Sanchez, Juan Mendoza, Brad Westmoreland and Jeffry Michelson voted for the name change, and Mayor Lew White and councilmember Kara Bliss McGregor voted against.

Read the rest of the story in this week’s Post-Register.