Hidalgo County native Emilia Schunior, born in 1902, graduated from Edinburg High in 1919 and married Rafael Ramirez in 1921; the couple had four children. She attended college and earned a B.A. in 1940, becoming a teacher and principal at several Rio Grande Valley schools. At the University of Texas at Austin, her 1950 master's thesis in education examined children of illegal Mexican immigrants in south Texas. She later taught at Pan American College as an assistant professor of Spanish. She visited Spain and Mexico, and in 1960 represented the Pan American Round Table of Edinburg at the Inter-American Alliance Meeting in Guatemala City. As an educator and historian, she was a role model for Hispanic women and others.