The duo, trumpet players for the Tejano supergroup Little Joe y La Familia, were guests of honor at a reception Tuesday at the college, where they received congratulations, were welcomed home and reflected on a dizzying year that was capped with the group's winning Tejano Album of the Year by The Recording Academy.

“I can't really describe it. It's like a dream,” Ontiveros said. “Gracie and I have had to keep pinching ourselves to make sure it's all real.”

Ontiveros and Acosta were born in Big Spring in the mid-1980s, attended Big Spring schools and gravitated toward music at an early age.

“My family was my inspiration,” Ontiveros said. “My grandmother was always encouraging me to sing in the choir or play music.”

Acosta's love of music came more gradually.

“I joined the (school) band because my mother made me,” she said. “But the more I played, the more I got into it ... and I really love it now.”

Both played the trumpet — Ontiveros was originally interested in the saxaphone but said the number of keys on the instrument scared him off — in the BSHS band under Rocky Harris, then majored in music at Howard College.

After college, they played in area Tejano bands, eventually joining the Midland group PT Show Band before they received a fateful phone call from “Little Joe” Hernandez, frontman for La Familia.

“We had the opportunity to open one night for Little Joe (in December 2006),” Ontiveros said. “Two weeks later, he called us up and hired us.”

“John called me and said that Little Joe had heard us and wanted to hire us,” Acosta recalled. “I told him, 'Shut up!' ... I couldn't believe Little Joe really wanted us to play for his band.”

Ontiveros and Acosta traveled to the band's home in Temple, where they passed muster during a six-hour rehearsal. “Since then, we've been on the bandwagon,” Ontiveros said.

Switching from area bands to a group like La Familia was a shock, to say the least. La Familia tours nationally, having played before crowds on both coasts.

In 2007, Ontiveros and Acosta joined their bandmates in recording “Before the Next Teardrop Falls,” which eventually received a Grammy nomination for Best Tejano Album of the Year.

And, on Feb. 11 of this year — Ontiveros' birthday — the band beat out four other nominees for the award.

“When they named the nominees, I kind of stopped breathing,” Acosta said. “And when they named Little Joe as the winner, I just about passed out. It took me about 30 seconds to start breathing again and start celebrating.”

Contact Staff Writer Steve Reagan at 263-7331 ext. 234 or by e-mail at This e-mail address is being protected from spam bots, you need JavaScript enabled to view it