Masters
Rudy and Nancy Guerra are the new Jones Masters. Rudy is a professor of statistics and has been at Rice since 2000. Since moving in, Nancy devotes the majority of her time to being a Master and taking care of their 12-year-old daughter, Olivia. Rudy and Nancy have been married for 21 years and have two other children. Their oldest, Amanda, is a 20-year old junior at the University of Oklahoma where she majors in broadcast journalism and enjoys spending time with her family while on breaks. Andrew, 18, is a Rice freshman this Fall. He plans to major in a bioscience and will also be part of the Owls baseball team. The family also brings a black lab, Maggie, who loves attention and a Torta cat, Groucha.
Rudy and Nancy met in college when Nancy was looking for a math tutor. It was love at first sight of a quadratic equation and a year later they were married and moved to Berkeley, California, where Rudy earned his PhD in statistics. Having studied at the University of Oklahoma, Nancy is a registered nurse which comes in handy at Jones. During college football season you can hear her cheering all the way to the Village when OU scores a touchdown. (Longhorn fans, watch out!) Nancy is in constant motion, driving Olivia back and forth to school and her various activities, volunteering at Olivia's school, watching Andrew play baseball, managing Jones events, and spending time with students. In her spare time, Nancy enjoys gardening, reading, listening to all sorts of music, keeping up with college and major league baseball (generally a sports enthusiast), and cooking - she really likes cooking. If you know Carl Hiaasen, then you know the kinds of books and humor Nancy enjoys. On the music side she likes just about everything - classical music, jazz, latin rhythms, pop, R&B, rap. Nancy is also a great listener. She loves to talk and is genuinely interested in anything you have to say. You will always feel at ease with her and somehow she's able to find the humor in any joke you tell her. As her other half, Rudy shares Nancy's love for reading and baseball. On the other hand, Rudy has never read a single page of Carl Hiaasen. More his style is non-fiction, mystery and espionage, biographies and memoirs, natural history, and baseball books. His all-time favorite book is October 1964, which covers the World Series between the NY Yankees and St. Louis Cardinals. Other modes of relaxation for Rudy are family activities, sports, book collecting, and watching old black-and-white films from the 30s, 40s, and 50s. He also enjoys board games. For 5 years Rudy commuted between Dallas to Houston so that Amanda and Andrew could finish high school with their friends in Dallas. He is thrilled to return to a more normal family life, although he inherits 250+ more family members at Jones. There are more mouths to feed, but at least his commute is now 100 yards to Duncan Hall instead of 250 miles. Rudy enjoys teaching very much but says he is still intimidated by the scary smart Rice undergrads and so he tries to stick to non-academic anecdotes during class. His areas of research include genetics and bioinformatics; he is currently writing two books on the subject.
The Guerra's are a close family and you can expect to see Amanda around when she is not in classes at OU. She is looking forward to having an extended college family whenever she is living at Jones with her parents. This summer she is enjoying a cushy job at Barnes and Noble (with Mom and Dad liking her employee discount), sitting out by the pool, reading, watching baseball, and being a great big sister to Olivia. Andrew's life is baseball with only a few weeks off over the entire year. He has several friends attending Rice next fall and is really looking forward to college life. His only concern is that he ends up with Mom and Dad as masters. (Don't worry, Andrew, it won't happen.). Andrew is a huge sports fan. He also likes listening to music and participating in community service. Olivia will be at Jones full time, being only a 7th grader. She is a big fan of the Gilmore Girls TV show and plans to have Olivia's TV Night as a regular Jones social activity. She very much likes to be in the middle of the action so you can expect to see her at lots of Jones events. For a 12-year old she is very confident with adults and can carry on conversations on any number of topics. Fun - Olivia loves to have fun playing games, dancing and acting, talking, going shopping, being on IM with her friends, having sleep-overs, cooking, going to ball games, reading, and decorating her room. Her biggest claim to fame thus far is her role as a munchkin in the Dallas Summer Musical Broadway production of The Wizard of Oz. At this point she enjoys acting better than singing. She also likes gymnastics and playing on her school's volleyball team and cheering squad. Olivia enjoys life to the fullest and always seems to brighten your day.
Becoming Jones masters is huge for the Guerra family. Houston will be their new home and life will once again take its course with all kinds of surprises. However, having already met many of the students and staff the Guerra's feel they've made the right choice in wanting to join the Jones family. They plan to have a home-away-from-home atmosphere at Jones House. Although Nancy quickly guessed the acronym JIBA during their interview, they are very much looking forward to learning the real meaning of JIBA-ness over the next 5 years, and collecting all the Jones apparel that comes with the job.