Teresa Cuevas felt it was her destiny to keep mariachi music alive so future generations could enjoy it, says her granddaughter, Michelle Cuevas Stubblefield.
Tuesday will mark the 101st anniversary of the birth of Cuevas, the driving force behind Mariachi Estrella de Topeka, one of the first all-female mariachi bands in the U.S.
Her family is working with the Downtown Topeka Foundation to honor her legacy by having a bronze, life-sized statue of Cuevas, who died at age 93 in 2013, put up near downtown Topeka s Evergy Plaza.
Cuevas is to become the first woman honored with a statue along S. Kansas Avenue, Cuevas Stubblefield said.