Dance, eat, play the Vaquero way

Starting Homecoming with a country style

The UTRGV Student Union will bring western culture to the university community with Vaquero Boots and BBQ 5 to 10 p.m. Wednesday on the Quad on the Edinburg campus.

Anahi Esquivel, Student Union program coordinator, said Vaquero Boots and BBQ is an event part of the Homecoming celebration. 

“We barely introduced the event last year and, because of the great success that it had, we’re going to introduce it again,” Esquivel said. “But we’re going to scale it up even more this time.”

She said the event will include live music, free food for students and different activities and games. 

“We’re going to have a bigger stage, bigger bands,” Esquivel said. “We’re going to have student organizations offering a variety of treats by fundraising. We’re going to be having two food trucks as well, with free food for students. The first 300 students that attend are also going to be receiving a free Homecoming T-shirt to start the week of the Homecoming celebration.”

The program coordinator said the Student Union wants to showcase the bands and make the event relevant for students.

“We’re going to have a great band,” Esquivel said. “It’s called Red. It’s a Taylor Swift tribute. We’re bringing an even bigger stage and we’re gonna have an opener. So, the opener is gonna be country; it’s Eros Garcia country band. But those two elements, the two bands, [are] definitely the biggest items we’re gonna have in the event.”

The event will also host a cowboy boot contest.

“We encourage a lot of cowboy boots [on] campus,” Esquivel said.

She said the idea for the event was to celebrate cultural heritage and create an original event.

“We wanted to bring a little more knowledge into the culture of the Vaquero,” Esquivel said. “We started with the idea of having an event where it was gonna be western-themed.”

Management senior Cristian Martinez said the event could bring students together through culture and genre.

“Bringing [a western theme] to the university can bring in a lot of different genre of students that might not feel tied into the culture here and might feel more relatable to the environment around them,” Martinez said.

English sophomore Guadalupe Diaz said the idea of a western-themed event would be a fun time.

“I think I went to [the event] last year and my friend and I had so much fun,” Diaz said. “The food was really good and I’d like to go again.”

Esquivel said students are encouraged to attend the event to be a part of the celebration and become aware of the Homecoming events.

“It’s going to be a really fun event,” she said. “Like I said, we’re going to be scaling up from last year and we’re very excited to offer all the games that we have planned for them.”

For more information on upcoming Homecoming events, visit utrgv.edu/homecoming.