With her family moving to Lake Jackson when she was just a baby, Lucilla Longoria Henderson attended school in Lake Jackson and then Brazoswood High School along with her two sisters, Teresa and Rosemary. As a 1979 graduate of Brazoswood, Lucilla was active in Belles, serving as a social officer, along with participating in other campus groups.
Lucilla took classes at Brazosport College concurrently during her senior year of high school and continued another year at BC before heading off to Texas State University where she earned a BBA in Marketing. Following college graduation, Lucilla married her high school sweetheart, Eric Henderson, and they returned to the Brazosport area to begin their careers and raise their family.
Henderson spent 23 years in the shopping center industry where she held marketing director and general manager positions in Lake Jackson and Houston, receiving numerous awards, including:
Top Leasing General Manager in General Growth Properties Third Party Division
Profit Center Management Award and the Administrative Management Award
President's Award as Mall Retail Manager of the Year
Manager of the Year with Marathon Real Estate
President's Award in Marketing
Marketing Director of the Year from with Herring Marathon Group
In 2008, Henderson accepted the opportunity to join the Texas Dow Employees Credit Union, serving as Vice President of Marketing for 5 years. In 2013, Lucilla transitioned to serve TDECU as the Vice President of Community and Business Engagement. She currently serves on the board for the Texas Credit Union Executives Society.
Being of service to her community and to others around the world, has always been a passion of Lucilla’s, so becoming a member of the Brazosport Rotary Club since 1987 was a natural choice. Henderson, along with former BISD Superintendent Pat Shell, were the first two women inducted into the club. Lucilla remains an active member of the service club and is a two time Paul Harris Fellow.
Continuing in her desire to help her community, in 1998, Henderson served as Chairman of the Brazosport Chamber of Commerce and she continues to support the Chamber’s Taste of the Town committee, which she has been part of since its inception. In 2008, Lucilla was appointed to the Board of Regents for Brazosport College, and since then, she has been elected to the position where she continues to serve as a Board Member today. She is a member of the Alliance of Brazoria County Economic Development board and had the honor of serving as Co-Chair of Brazoria County Day in Austin in 2015.
Over the past 35 years, Lucilla has served the boards of BACH, Junior Achievement, SPCA, City of Lake Jackson Parks Board and Development Board and has been active in St. Michael’s Catholic Church Youth Ministry.
Lucilla Henderson was recognized as a Distinguished Alumnus of Brazosport College in 2003, and named Woman of the Year by the Brazosport Area Chamber of Commerce in 2011.
Although she has accomplished a great deal, Lucilla Longoria Henderson’s most cherished roles are that of being “the mom to her three children, Audrey, Indy and Emily; the wife of Eric Henderson; the daughter of Juan and Mary Ann Longoria, and the daughter in-law of now deceased Vincent and Fern Henderson.