Candelario Armenta – “The Championship Run”
Turner High School (KCK) – 1955 Champs

By Anthony “AO” Oropeza
Media: Mixed Media / Surface: Canvas / Size: 3′ x 2′

About the: “Armenta: The Championship Run” (2015)

AO’s passion for sports always makes a piece something special.  For AO, this particular one has a couple added bonuses.  This piece is not only of someone he knew when he was growing-up, its from a photo of the actual game winning run that won the school championship in 1955.

The subject in this piece is Mr. Candelario “Candy” Armenta, student at Turner High School in 1955, located in the Turner district of Kansas City, Kansas.  AO, who is a life long friend of Candy’s son, Miguel, never knew Mr. Armenta was a high school football player, let alone the game winning scorer of the 1955 championship game.

To AO, Mr. Armenta was just Miguels’ hard-nosed, no non-sense pops that you never talked back because – “you just knew”.  AO forgot that Mr. Armenta was in the Marines.  And per his son, Mr. Armenta scored the last second TD in the 1955 championship game.  Soon after, Candy left school and enlisted in the Marines.  Six years later, he returned from duty and completed his high school requirements.

For AO , working on this piece is not just a huge honor to paint a moment of a game for winning championship play, its not just an honor to paint this piece for a good friend who he (AO) grew up with, but the  biggest honor is that this painting will be an extremely meaningful Christmas gift from a proud son to his pops.

If interested in purchasing your own original of your favorite player, please contact the AOART5 Studio .