For the second consecutive year, the UTRGV Brownsville campus will host a Charreada on Thursday that will feature a parade and recognition of Mr. Amigo 2016 Fernando Landeros Verdugo.
The Charreada is a UTRGV celebration that is part of Charro Days, a weeklong fiesta that celebrates the friendship between Brownsville and Matamoros, Tamaulipas, Mexico.
“Our legacy institution, UT Brownsville, was a part of the Charro Days festivities for many years,” Veronica Gonzalez, vice president for Governmental and Community Relations, said in an email to the campus community last Thursday. “This is the 80th Charro Days celebration.”
This year, UTRGV is partnering with Texas Southmost College to celebrate Charro Days on both campuses.
“We wanted to emulate that spirit of friendship and collaboration across both campuses just so that students in the region don’t feel a division and they’re more participating in the spirit of unity,” said Abraham Villarreal, Student Involvement program adviser for the Campus Programming Board.
The celebration begins with an intercampus parade at 10:30 a.m. Processions from the TSC and UTRGV campuses will meet on Ringgold Road. UTRGV’s procession begins at the Main Building entrance. The university’s student organizations will compete for a $100 cash prize.
Villarreal said the parade will be similar to the Hands Across the Border ceremony at the Gateway International Bridge that will take place earlier in the day.
Participants from both schools will meet in the middle of Ringgold Road, the border between both campuses “to kind of emulate what is taking place on the international bridge,” Villarreal said.
The first-, second- and third-place winners in a door-decorating contest that began last Thursday will be announced during the Charreada, which will take place from 11 a.m. to 2 p.m. on Ringgold Road.
“It’s going to feature organizations from both campuses, fundraising and selling food items, and we are going to have competitions and activities put on by both student groups here at UTRGV and TSC,” Villarreal said of the Charreada.
Food to be sold includes corn in a cup, tostaditas, hot dogs, pizza, fajita tacos and nachos.
Landeros, founder and president of the foundations Teletón México and Teletón USA, is expected to arrive in TSC’s SET-B Lecture Hall around 11:45 a.m.
“We will have a formal ceremony honoring and welcoming the invited guest from Mexico,” Villarreal said.
He is being recognized by the Mr. Amigo Association for contributing to the friendship of the United States and Mexico. The association was created in 1964. Past Mr. Amigos include Cantinflas, Juan Gabriel, Veronica Castro, Lucha Villa and Arath de la Torre.
Landeros is the “visionary behind the CRIT system of children’s rehabilitative hospitals in Latin America and the United States, which is the largest private pediatric healthcare network in the world,” according to the teletonusa.org website.
Villarreal said it’s important to support the relationship between Brownsville and Matamoros and their shared culture.
Students are also excited to be part of this celebration.
“It sounds very interesting,” said Sabrina Garza, a psychology sophomore. “To gain the experience and see what they have to offer, hopefully, to make a memorable experience out of it.”
Garza believes that it is “pretty cool” that UTRGV and TSC are collaborating on the event. TSC and UTRGV legacy institution UT Brownsville entered into a partnership in 1991 but split after the UT System board of regents voted to end it in November 2010, followed by a similar vote by the TSC board of trustees in February 2011. UT Brownsville and UT Pan American merged in Fall 2015 to create UTRGV.
“It’s going to be good for the community so they know that everyone is united,” she said.
Admission to the Charreada is free and open to the public.
