THURSDAY, MAY 8, 2025 VOLUME 99 ISSUE 10
OPINION
LA VIDA
SPORTS
The DT’s Cory Whitman details why the changing college landscape calls for athletes to pursue NIL deals over entering the professional league.
Mark Levitan, with the National Institute of Standards and Technology, uses skills learned at Texas Tech in his professional career.
Texas Tech’s women’s rugby club earned the university’s Sport’s Club of the Year award. Members detailed how they did it without a coach.
PG 2
PG 3
PG 4
LA VIDA
NEWS
Student visas were reinstated just as quickly as they were revoked. Many are still afraid as the Department of Homeland Security has yet to announce what will happen next.
PG 5
Sydney Caro served as Raider Red for two years, but on April 18, it was time to take off the suit.
PG 6
LEGACY
LPD officer leaves impact on Masked Rider program By MARIANNA SOURIALL Editor-in-ChiEf
When faced with the choice of a quality life or quantity of life, John Barber chose to spend the last two years making memories that would supersede his death. Though he died of cancer on April 23, his son Eric Barber said he will remember the way his dad made meaningful experiences even out of the smallest things in life. For Texas Tech, his legacy will live on through the Masked Rider program. “My dad was very much somebody that wanted to live a quality life and not just live for the sake of living,” Eric Barber, from Rankin, said. Through his leather work, John Barber, a longtime Lubbock police officer, handcrafted the horses’ holsters for the past seven years as part of a Masked Rider tradition. “We decided together that the halter every year would have the horse’s name on the nose, the rider’s name on one cheek, and the years of service on the other cheek,” said Ashley Winters, the 2012-13 Masked Rider. She said outside of the holster’s
The late John Barber was a Lubbock police officer, leather craftsman and father.
three standard identifiers, the rest of the design was left to John Barber. An advocate for enjoying life, his son said John Barber tried to capture the Masked Rider’s most significant milestones when designing the oneof-a-kind pieces. “It was not just about getting a gift,” Eric Barber said, “but about making something that had meaning put into the design and how that was made and intricately done.” John Barber learned to work with leather after watching his father for many years. Eric Barber said his dad worked as an electrician, mechanic and a Tech police officer before transferring to the Lubbock Police Department. Through it all, service was at the forefront of his mind. “The work that he’s done and produced, you know, whether it be the leather working, or even his time as a police officer, as a father —
everything that he does and did was meaningful and had significance to it,” his son said through tears. Winters, who started the halter tradition, said John Barber made something each of the Masked Riders will cherish forever. Eric Barber said making the halters left just as much of an impact on his dad. “One of the things that he and I talked about, that he really did pride himself in, was that every single halter that he made for the Masked Rider, he would pride himself on making sure that every single one of those was very different,” his son said. When describing who his father was, Eric Barber said he approached life much like his leather work. “His leather work is a good metaphor for, I think, how he lived his whole life, and the kind of impacts that he made on just the world in general,” Eric Barber said. “There was a precision to the way in which he interacted with people. There was a finesse in which he carried himself.” Rose Rosas, who accepted the Masked Rider role on April 18, is the last person to receive a halter made by John Barber.
JADON CHESNUTT/The Daily Toreador
The 64th Masked Rider carries the last holster made by the late John Barber. The holster is a gift given annually to the new individual taking on the mascot role. Barber kept the tradition alive for seven years.
MASCOTS
Raider Red passes guns; Masked Rider inherits reigns Rosas carries on legacy as 64th Masked Rider By MARIANNA SOURIALL Editor-in-ChiEf
JADON CHESNUTT/The Daily Toreador
Rose Rosas, a third-year Texas Tech student from Brady, poses next to Centennial Champion as she accepts the role of the 64th Masked Rider April 18, 2025.
Rose Rosas began riding horses when she was a teenager, but it wasn’t until April 18 that riding horses turned into a “symbol of heart and unwavering dedication.” The Brady native was named the 64th Masked Rider after serving as the mascot’s assistant for two years. As a first-generation student, Rosas said being the Masked Rider is not only a dream come true, but an opportunity to show others that anything is possible. “This is not just my dream,” Rosas
said. “It is a reminder that every Red Raider has the power to rise, to represent and to inspire.” Rosas first was introduced to the Masked Rider when she came to Texas Tech as a freshman to study embryology and sophisticated reproduction methods of small ruminant livestock. “I may not have grown up knowing who the Masked Rider was, but from the moment I saw them, I was drawn in,” Rosas said. Her love for the Masked Rider role grew stronger as she became more involved in the spirit program. “Over the past few years, I’ve come to understand how powerful
this tradition truly is — what it means to represent Texas Tech with pride, humility and heart,” Rosas said. The third-year Tech student said she now is taking all that she has learned from mentors, professors and friends into her new role. Above all, she hopes to lead with “grace and gratitude” as she begins to share her story with others through the Masked Rider. “I stand here today, not just as the next Masked Rider, but as a firstgeneration college student whose journey has been grounded in faith, hard work and an unshakable love of this university,” Rosas said.
Caro, Raider Red part ways after 2 years By GRACE HAWKINS L a Vida Editor
Reflecting on her guns firing in the Jones AT&T Stadium filled with 60,000 fans, outgoing Raider Red Sydney Caro said embodying the fearless, bold attitude of the mascot is a memory she will never forget. “You're becoming Raider Red, not Sydney,” Caro, a senior majoring in biology and Chinese from Centennial, Colorado, said. “You're energetic and fun and trying to engage the crowd, and you're not afraid.”
As Raider Red, Caro said be- behaviors like running up to me sides sporting and hugging me or events, she grabbing my leg, I know that I've has done hundreds of commade a difference in their day, and to munity, Tech I know that I’ve made a and Lubbock difference in their day, me, that’s what it's events. all about.” and to me that’s what “I'll never Volunteering is it’s all about. personally a part of the job Caro said she valknow the impact I've had ues most and plans on the people SYDNEY CARO to continue it in I've met,” Caro her future, even SENIOR BIOLOGY MAJOR said. “But without the cosFROM COLORADO from facial extume. pressions and SEE MASCOTS, PG. 6
JACOB LUJAN/The Daily Toreador
Sydney Caro, a senior biology and Chinese major from Colorado, poses next to the Raider Red statue May 7, 2025. Caro served as the mascot for two years.
RED RAIDERS
Mother, son duo ring in Texas Tech tradition By CHRISTIAN JETER Staff WritEr
With twenty years in-between their respective graduations, mother and son Molly and Logan Lasater, both walked the stage together at the Texas Tech Ring Ceremony on April 6. Molly Lasater of Lubbock, a Tech alumna who earned her master’s in educational instructional
technology, originally graduated in 2005. However, after buying her ring alongside her son this year, the pair received their rings, walked the stage and shook hands with President Lawrence Schovanec together. Her son, Logan Lasater, a fourth-year business management major from Lubbock, said he’ll never forget the celebration
they both shared. “I think this brings us way closer because it’s such a very special moment – I'm always gonna remember it,” Logan Lasater said. “Whenever the crowd erupted, I turned around and knew this was gonna be cemented in my head forever.” Not just revolving around the celebration of his accomplishment
and graduation, Logan Lasater said the moment serves as a testament to the success they’ve both achieved. “It was just awesome to be able to experience getting my graduation ring with her,” Logan Lasater said. “We both get that sense of achievement from walking across the stage and shaking hands with the president.”
Despite the amount of time since her own completion of college experience, Molly Lasater said she never considered ordering her ring until her son’s graduation this year. “Being there was almost natural,” Molly Lasater said. “I could have got my ring 10 or 15 years SEE RED RAIDERS PG. 6