Vicente Fernandez Jr. named Mr. Amigo 2010
Champion horseman, singer and actor Vicente Fernandez Jr. -- “a true charro for Charro Days” – is being honored with this year’s Mr. Amigo award.
Son of the legendary Mexican singer and actor, Vicente Fernandez Jr. has made his own mark in the world of charreado, or Mexican style rodeo. Read more...
Johnny N. Cavazos as Charro Days Parade Marshal 2010
 Honorary Parade Marshal for the 2010 Charro Days festival will be successful businessman and philanthropist Johnny N. Cavazos.
Cavazos is being honored for his extraordinary years of volunteer service to Charro Days, and his involvement throughout the Brownsville community. He will ride in a position of honor in the traditional Illuminated and Grand International parades.
“Johnny has been an active member of Charro Days for over 50 years,” said Kenneth Lieck, president of the Charro Days Association. “He’s a past president and life director.
Read more...
Sombrero Fest in Iraq
 Somewhere in Baghdad, the soldiers of 812th Quartermaster Company are getting into the Charro Days spirit, with help from Sombrero Festival and Charro Days officials, plus other civic and veterans groups.
Sombrero Festival officials were contacted in January by Sgt. Mark Anthony Lucio of Brownsville, who is currently stationed at Camp Stryker near Baghdad. Lucio had a plan to stage an Iraqi Sombrero Festival, just like the ones he has attended and enjoyed all his life.
Most of the soldiers in his company, based in Harlingen, are from the lower Rio Grande Valley, he wrote.
“For years I've attended the Charro Days events...Read more...
Charro Days Book signing
 Meet the authors of “Charro Days in Brownsville” at Baile del Sol on Sunday, Feb. 21
Dr. Anthony Knopp, Dr. Manuel Medrano and Priscilla Rodriguez will sign copies of their new book “Charro Days in Brownsville” between 2 p.m. and 4 p.m. at the Charro Days headquarters, 455 East Elizabeth Street.
Books will be available for purchase. A portion of book sales revenues will go toward a scholarship for UTB/TSC history majors.
Read more...
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Volunteers Make Charro Days A Success
Volunteers are the heart, soul and willing hands of Charro Days.
Also, the crepe paper flowers, fajita taquitos and just about everything else.
Whether it’s arranging beautiful table-top decorations or cutting, scooping and rolling hundreds of pounds of grilled beef into flour tortillas for a hungry Baile del Sol crowd, Charro Days wouldn’t be Charro Days without the thousands of helpers who give their time to make the festival happen.
“I think volunteers are very important,” says Lulu Lieck, who followed her husband Ken into Charro Days volunteering about a dozen years ago. “We like to help out. People really enjoy the festivities, and you can see it in their faces.”
Lieck is one of a group of volunteers who help prepare taquitos for Baile del Sol, Charro Day’s kick-off street party and dance.
Barbecuing the 300 pounds of beef is the traditional job of Charro Days past presidents. Cutting the meat into strips, rolling it into flour tortillas and wrapping each of some 60 dozen taquitos for sale and consumption during a popular taco-eating contest is a whole different operation.
“We just have a lot of fun, putting the whole thing together. It’s just like a big assembly line,” says Lucy Escamilla, another longtime Charro Days volunteer.
Escamilla, who is originally from Michigan, got started with Charo Days about 11 years ago because her husband is on the cooking team. Now, she is proud to say she helped recruit more than a dozen of her Brownsville Independent School District co-workers to volunteer this year.
“You meet a lot of people,” she tells them. “It’s like one big party.”
Chickie Samano is one of several volunteers who transform crinkled crepe paper and tape into hundreds of intricate blossoms for table tops, floats and other decorative purposes.
She reckons she’ll help make 800 flowers this year, in a process she learned years ago and has since taught to many other volunteers. The decorating committee on which she serves also arranges the piñatas, sombreros and other colorful items that adorn tables during the many Charro Days dances and parties.
Chickie, 72 years young, followed her mother into Charro Days volunteering many decades ago. “It’s a lot of fun. I’m a party animal and I love it…”
This year’s volunteers say there is always room for more, and you don’t have to be an “insider” to be part of the fun. From organizing parade floats to selling tickets -- whatever your talents, preferences or available time, there’s a job for you.
Carlos Bañales, who now works as interim executive director for Charro Days, got his start as a volunteer driver, pulling floats in the parades. He says volunteers are the “backbone” of the festival.
Lieck agrees: “I’m always trying to recruit people. And we welcome everybody. You can come and join in and you can be part of our Charro Days family.”
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