Raul Armando Valladares November 8, 2020
Raul Armando Valladares, born one of seven children in San Salvador, El Salvador, Raul spent his childhood years in a tumultuous country. When he was 8 years old, a military coup toppled the government. A couple years later, at age 10, he started working to help support his family. Before long, just as he reached his teenage years, he learned to weld – a skill that would become part of Raul’s identity. Though he came to the craft as a way to earn a living much younger than most, this was the beginning of his life as a tradesman.
In 1969, when Raul was 16, fighting broke out between El Salvador and Honduras. At about the same time, Raul and six friends left in hopes of a better life. Their path was north, but only three were able to make it to that better life. The others returned home. The journey was grueling. It took years.
Along the way, Raul did whatever odd jobs he could find, always trying to employ his skill as a welder. He slept in the warmest place he could find, often under bridges, usually on a bed of cardboard. He ate only when he could earn money to pay for food, which often meant going without. When Raul made it to the United States, he first found a home in Cheyenne, WY, where he lived for many years before moving to his final home in Minatare. Once a member of the Panhandle community, he came into his own with his chosen craft of welding.
He earned his welding certificate at WNCC, and then spent more than 15 years welding at Lockwoods. It was during this time that Raul realized the dream that pulled him north from his home country. For several years in the late 1980s, Raul came home from welding every day to study his book on what it was to be an American citizen. His wife Mary quizzed him mercilessly on every possible question he could encounter on his citizenship tests.
As part of the process of becoming a citizen, he and Mary scrounged to pay the $1,500 cost of testing – more than a year’s rent to a welder in the 80s. He drove to Lincoln multiple times to take 4 separate tests. And he became a citizen of the United States of America.
In 1991, on his 6th trip to Lincoln, he was one of 350 new America citizens who swore to our common creed, that his highest allegiance was to the Constitution of the United States of America. When Lockwoods went out of business, he joined Aulick Industries in Scottsbluff. At Aulick, he worked for 20 years, and learned every step in the fabrication of Aulick’s variety of trailers.
Raul’s reputation was that of a hard worker, a man who worked hard every day to provide for his family. Raul’s work continued until October 2020, when he was diagnosed with Covid-19. He spent three weeks in the hospital, in the isolation that is a hallmark of this pandemic, as his condition worsened. On November 8, 2020, at the age of 67, Raul Armando Valladares passed.
Raul leaves behind his sons, Chad and Tyler, their mother Mary Valladares, Tyler’s daughter and Raul’s granddaughter Yesenia, as well as his son Damian, father of Raul’s grandchildren Damian Jr. and Anela, and his daughter Erica, the mother of Raul’s grandchildren Adrian, Julian, and Giovanni. His kind, caring, and sharing spirit is and will be missed by all who knew him in this community and far beyond.
Raul, we will never forget how you made us feel.
