As a dedicated, caring individual, Claudio Romero strove for excellence and fun while staying a role model to his friends and family.
Since he was a small child, Claudio’s mother Gabriela Romero said she admired his natural intelligence and curiosity that led him to plow through piles of books, puzzles and other challenging tasks.
“From a very young age, he loved doing puzzles,” Gabriela said. “And for Christmas, he would always ask for books. I remember when he was little and we would go to Walmart or Target, he would go and grab a book from the book section and come to me and sit next to wherever I was and read the book. By the end of the shopping trip, I would ask if he wanted me to buy him that book, and he would say, ‘No, I already finished it.’”
Claudio’s love for knowledge only grew. As he got older, he found his niche in the world of numbers, deciding to study statistics at Texas A&M.
“His passion was math and just numbers in general, and he was very good at it,” Gabriela said. “He probably chose that because it was a branch of math, and he excelled at it and it was easier for him to do. Challenging in a way, but he liked that because it was what he knew best.”
At A&M, Claudio never hesitated to get involved and make connections, participating in Philosophy Club, Student Bonfire and tutoring other students as a peer mentor.
Outside of intellectual pursuits, Claudio dedicated his time to interacting with his friends and making everyone around him feel safe, welcome and content, Claudio’s aunt Gloria Espino said.
“He wanted to live life to the fullest. He was never worried about anything,” Espino said. “He was very outgoing and close with his friends, and they say he was the life of the party and that he was always smiling, making jokes and being happy.”
One high school classmate, Krysten Creen, said she admired Claudio’s fiery spirit and all-in attitude that he exhibited day-in and day-out.
“He always carried around rather large sizes of drinks for such a small person,” Creen said. “Like I picked him up one time and he got in with a two-liter bottle of lemonade and he drank right out of it. I feel like that goes with everything else about him: small, but that didn’t scare him. He jumped into the deep end with everything. He was fearless in everything he did, and he did not care who was watching him.”
Everyone in his family looked up to Claudio, whose fun demeanor and intelligence stood as a figurehead for his younger cousins.
“He was a genius,” Gabriela said. “He didn’t care what others thought about him. He just did what he wanted to do. He was a role model for all his cousins, the little ones and the older ones that were just a few years younger than him. They would always look up to him to get help.”
No matter what, Claudio valued everyone in his life, especially his family, despite growing further from them as he grew older, another high school friend Zivan Zúñiga said.
“He loved his mother and father so much, and he would tell me he wished for a better life for them where they wouldn’t have to work as hard as they do,” Zúñiga said. “He was worried that his parents would never understand him, but one day he came to me crying, saying he told his family how he truly felt in Fort Worth when they were celebrating his birthday and that he was so glad to have told them before he left to College Station.”
Claudio will be remembered as a compassionate friend, stellar student and hardworking son.
“To me, Claudio was the most selfless person I ever got to meet,” Claudio’s friend Brayan said in a document shared with Gabriela. “He was someone you could always count on and wouldn’t judge you. He didn’t really have any hobbies besides always [being] with friends, and I loved that about him. He didn’t care what we would do, he would always just say yes and just enjoy life and everything around him no matter what.”