OXNARD : Principal Sings New Tune at School Contest

When Oxnard High School Principal Rick Rezinas volunteered to perform with a group of students in a lip-syncing contest, he knew that he took the risk of appearing silly.

But the Spanish-language radio station in Northern California that sponsors the contest promised to give Rezinas and the students $5,000 if they won the competition and at least $1,000 just for entering. All of the money would go toward school scholarships.

“I’ve made a fool out of myself for a lot less than that,” said Rezinas, who competed Saturday in Modesto with 20 of his students against principals and students from eight other California high schools. Dozens of other schools had been eliminated in earlier competition. The top prize went to Santa Cruz High School, but Oxnard received $2,500 for participating.

Rezinas was willing to risk being silly, but he drew the line at lip-syncing a line about marijuana in the song “La Cucaracha,” which the students chose to perform for the program to be televised on a cable television station in Modesto.

In “La Cucaracha,” the lyrics reflect the viewpoint of Pancho Villa and his soldiers during the Mexican Revolution in the early 1900s.

Although the word cucaracha means cockroach in Spanish, Oxnard High bilingual teacher Augustin Lopez said that, in one interpretation of the folk song, cucaracha refers to a broken-down car owned by the revolutionaries.

The song’s chorus refers to the cucaracha as being unable to move because it does not have “marijuana para fumar ,” or marijuana to smoke.

“We were looking for a funny song and a funny skit,” Lopez said.

But, he said, the students and Rezinas agreed that it wouldn’t be appropriate for a principal to sing, or even to lip-sync, about an illegal drug.

So they changed the lyrics to refer to the cucaracha as being unable to move because it does not have a principal.

In the skit, Rezinas and the students wear traditional Mexican garb and act as if they are fighters in the Mexican revolution, with Rezinas playing Pancho Villa.

Rezinas said he learned about the lip-syncing contest when he was a principal in Northern California.

Although the scholarship money from the contest is attractive, the best part of rehearsing and performing the skit has been getting better acquainted with students in the school’s bilingual program, he said.

Such students “frequently don’t participate in athletics,” he said. “They don’t participate in some of the other social activities. We’re always trying to make contact with those students.”

The students said they also enjoyed getting to know Rezinas. But some said they are relieved that the principal lip-syncs rather than sings the song because of Rezinas’ accent.

“He knows the song, but it’s kind of funny to hear Spanish words with an English accent,” said Celeste Mercado, a sophomore.