Armando Villarreal was hanging onto the back of a garbage truck in his hometown of Imperial, Neb., when his phone rang. He quickly hollered to the driver to hit the brakes. Villarreal hopped off and answered the incoming call from Brad Haley, business manager of Schutt Sports, a company that manufactures football equipment. That conversation, which took place six years ago, altered both the trajectory of Villarreal’s life and his artistic career.
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If that call goes to voicemail and Villarreal forgets about it, he likely never leaves his municipal job working for Imperial — a tiny city with a population of less than 2,000 in rural southwest Nebraska.
Luckily, he did
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