Written by Kirby Conda, Kylie Cooper, Evelyn Martinez and Vanessa Perez
Portraits by Shoocha Photography | Location: Performing Arts Center at Texas A&M University Corpus Christi
Makeup by Evangelyn Reyes, Dust My Face | Hair by Hector Perez Jr., Design Concepts | Styling by Alexa Gignac, Julian Gold – Corpus Christi
Each October, The Bend proudly dedicates its issue to celebrating the women who shape our community. The HER feature and award serve one clear purpose: to honor the dynamic female leaders of the Coastal Bend who are creating a lasting impact and paving the way for others to thrive. Across diverse industries, these women have invested their time, energy and resources to drive meaningful change. We are honored to present to you the HER 2026 honorees.
HER 2026 Humanitarian: Catherine Tobin Hilliard
When asked which of her many titles feels most like her, Catherine Tobin Hilliard doesn’t hesitate: “Mom.”
The answer arrives before attorney. Before community leader. Before philanthropist, board chair, mentor, business owner or civic advocate. It is immediate, emotional and deeply revealing. In fact, the question brings tears to her eyes as she talks about her children, including a daughter away at college, a high school junior who is captain of the cheerleading team and a 10-year-old son who still lets her pick him up from school. For a woman whose public life has been defined by leadership and service, her greatest sense of identity remains rooted firmly at home.
That grounding helps explain why Hilliard approaches service differently than many. Recognition and visibility don’t fuel her humanitarian work. Rather, a proud sense of gratitude toward the people who have helped shape her life, paired with a conviction that success carries an obligation to create opportunities for others, pushes her forward.
HER 2026 Rising Star: Alexa Gignac
With her signature nail color — a specific deep navy she’s been getting from the same nail salon for as long as she can remember — perfectly placed jewelry adorning each finger and wrist and a presence that immediately makes you feel as though you’ve been friends for years, Alexa Gignac is distinctly herself. In many ways, she always has been.
As a little girl, Gignac cut up her Barbie clothes to create new looks and altered her school uniform to better fit her personal style. The costumes, makeup and production of theater classes appealed to her just as much as performing. And, with numerous family members in creative fields and an aunt who was a seamstress, Gignac jokes that fashion and creativity might just be in her blood. Looking back, the connective thread is almost too obvious, and today, it shows itself on a larger scale, and often, for other people.
HER 2026 Legacy: Sara Morgan
There is a common misconception that legacy is built through grand gestures, singular achievements or moments of public recognition. In reality, legacy is often quieter; built person by person, year by year, through the steady commitment to making a place better than you found it.
Few people embody that truth more fully than Sara Morgan, director of the Art Museum of South Texas. For decades, Morgan has helped shape the cultural fabric of the Coastal Bend, transforming the museum into a welcoming space where creativity, learning and community thrive. Her influence shows up not only in exhibitions and programs, but in a new generation of residents who now see the museum as a place that belongs to them.
Ask Morgan what fills her with the greatest sense of pride, however, and she does not begin with her career. “My daughters,” she said without pause.
HER 2026 Catalyst: Arlene Medrano
Inside the Downtown Management District’s newest office space, Arlene Medrano settles in for another day of unglamorous, gritty administrative work. On midsummer afternoons, her days unfold through staff meetings and conversations with her diverse group of stakeholders. Outside her window, murals add life to street dead ends, pink benches dot the clean sidewalks and the nebula of Peoples Street’s thriving small businesses waits for her at the end of the block.
Since the most recent boom of activity within the organization back in 2015, the downtown of her childhood pales in comparison to the view now outside her windowsill. In the almost year since her official swearing-in as the DMD’s executive director, Medrano took the organizational era of her predecessor into a new chapter, reaping what she sowed and taking action to replant the seeds of future success. Ripe with ideas and determined as ever, Medrano’s hyperlocal approach, shaped by her own roots in the city, serves as her biggest driving force—as do the memories she holds of the same block she now admires.
HER 2026 Industry Leader: Teri Moffitt Cardenas
In communities throughout the Coastal Bend, ready access to care is one of the leading determinants of health across one’s lifespan. Since 2021, Teri Moffitt Cardenas has served as CEO for Physicians Premier, striving toward its mission to provide the most efficient, compassionate and patient-centered emergency care. A servant and advocate in the healthcare industry for over 30 years, Cardenas has made a career of listening to the needs of patients, practicing physicians and other healthcare professionals, and the community overall.
Growing up in the Memorial area of Houston, she recalls the thread of ambition among her peers, as well as what her parents instilled in her. Her father worked in the finance sector as an entrepreneur while her mother worked reception for big-name accounting firms. Her earliest work experience in high school looked like painstaking, manual entry of general ledgers and accounts receivable at her dad’s office. “My father had a lot of impact on me,” Cardenas said. “It was good for me from that perspective, being responsible and accountable. It gave me a really sound foundation to go into the jobs I went into.”
HER 2026 Community Visionary: Sharon Bailey Murphy
On bright South Texas mornings, Sharon Bailey Murphy begins her workday with a quiet ritual. She plays soft gospel music (or sometimes Earth, Wind & Fire) and takes a moment to acknowledge her blessings. From her office window inside the old Port Harbormaster building, the bay glistens, serving as a daily reminder of the air and water she works to protect.
As Executive Director of the Coastal Bend Air Quality Partnership, Bailey Murphy leads one of the region’s most complex and emotionally charged collaborations. She spends her days guiding municipalities, industry leaders, environmental agencies and residents toward a shared goal of keeping the Coastal Bend’s air clean for the people who call it home.
Her job requires technical expertise and a level head in conversations that sit at the tricky intersection of industry and advocacy. Yet she continues to lead with the same devotion she carries in her everyday life, a leadership rooted in scripture and shaped by a deep‑rooted calling to protect others.
HER 2026 Medical Hero: Dr. Crystal Garza
Through the ebbs and flows of life, Dr. Crystal Garza finds that her “why” constantly evolves, taking on new shapes from its past iterations. In the wake of the recent loss of her father, Garza began the process of sorting through old photos and pieces of life, eventually stumbling upon her original personal statement for medical school. Reading her own words from 21 years ago, she felt how her father’s determination and sense of perseverance shaped the physician and person she would become. She strives to wear many hats—mother, wife, daughter, sister, doctor, friend—and through her devotion to wearing them all with compassion and strength, she finds her stride.
Garza’s call to medicine came at a young age, in the form of a third-grade school project requiring drawing different organ systems of the human body. “I remember being fascinated by how everything worked together and immediately wanting to understand more,” she said. “Even then, I wanted to become a physician.”
