Martha Buchanan Lucero

Martha Buchanan Lucero passed peacefully on October 31, 2023 in Austin Texas; two weeks after celebrating her 89th birthday. Martha was a remarkable person, both personally and professionally. She was a loving mother and “Lita” to her grandchildren and lived her life with vision and a determination to make a difference. She will be remembered as a person with a persistent passion for life.

Martha grew up in San Antonio, Texas, the only daughter of Walter and Virginia Flack’s three children. Her parents were founders of the First Baptist Church of San Antonio. She graduated from Alamo Heights High School and later graduated from the University of Texas at Austin. She was also awarded an honorary Doctorate of Letters in 1970 from U.T. Austin.

Always a trailblazer, Martha was a woman who established many firsts. Among them: being the first primetime anchorwoman in the state for an NBC affiliate, she developed, built and managed the first “Hacienda” hotel in San Antonio, and worked shoulder to shoulder with the founder of the first national museum honoring female artists in Washington D.C. She was known and respected for her business acumen, journalism and dedication to charitable causes.

Martha’s career in television journalism began in 1965 as a panel member on the afternoon show “Early Evening Report” broadcast on the local affiliate NBC station. She was very popular and gained an even wider audience as the the daily reporter on location at HemisFair ’68, which was the World’s Fair held in San Antonio in 1968. The highlight of her career in television followed in 1972 when she became the first woman in Texas to co-anchor a major weekday news program on WOAI’s 4 Big News which began as a half hour program that expanded to an hour due in part to Martha’s popularity with her audience. She will always be highly regarded in the broadcasting industry for achieving such a pioneering accomplishment.

After her television career, Martha embarked in a completely different direction. While traveling in Mexico, she and her second husband Jose “Pepe” Lucero, became enamored with the hotel they were staying at in Cuernavaca. That trip inspired them to develop an equally unique hotel in San Antonio. Without much background in real estate development, investors were successfully recruited, land near La Villita was acquired, and construction began. In 1979, The Four Seasons Plaza Nacionale Hotel opened its doors. The hotel is still welcoming guests today, and is now known as the Riverwalk Plaza hotel.

In the early 1980s, Martha and Pepe moved to Washington DC to pursue an enduring interest in politics and cultural affairs in a broader arena. She volunteered tirelessly for a number of organizations supporting the arts in both Washington and San Antonio for decades. Some of these organizations included The American News Women’s Club, The Washington Opera, The McNay Art Institute, The Arts Club of Washington, The Kennedy Center and the San Antonio Symphony League.

Leveraging her business acumen, Martha became a sought-after consultant for the American Retail Federation and the Venture Capital Corporation. She continued to leverage her journalistic talent to be a regularly featured travel writer/editor for San Franciso based, Casto Travel. She never lost her journalistic enthusiasm and continued to write freelance articles on a number of subjects for publications like Gastronome and The Washingtonian.

In 1991, she was nominated by President George H.W. Bush and sponsored by former Texas Senator, Lloyd Bentsen, to serve on the Board of Directors of the Corporation for Public Broadcasting and confirmed by the United States Senate Committee. Martha believed deeply in the value and worth of a public broadcasting system to bring education and appreciation of the Arts.

Her most enduring contribution to the Arts, specifically her support of women artists, stands at the corner of New York Avenue and 12th Street in Washington DC. Martha worked closely with fellow Texan, Wilhelmina Cole Holladay, to help realize the National Museum of Women in the Arts founded by Holladay and opened in 1987. Martha served on the founding Board and successfully advocated for female artists from the latin world to perform and be exhibited at multiple museum events.

In addition, Martha had a passion for music, particularly opera and dance. She was also a frequent international traveler. Her favorite destinations were the beaches in Mexico and the cities of Spain and Italy.

Martha is survived by her two children, son Britt Buchanan and daughter Lia Lucero Smith, as well as four grandchildren: Bennett Buchanan, Bridget Buchanan, Virginia Smith and Cecilia Smith. Despite all of her professional accomplishments, Martha’s proudest legacy was her family.

In lieu of a public service, the family is privately celebrating Martha’s full and wonderful life.

Fond memories and expressions of sympathy may be shared at www.wcfishnorth.com for the Buchanan and Smith families.