Cesar Valencia, Silvia Montejano, Erik Valencia, Marilyn Buenrostro and Angelica Montejano
An enthusiastic crowd attended The Calexico Chamber of Commerce 11th Annual Mardi Gras and Beer Tasting Experience on Friday night at the Cultural Arts Center. Hildy Carrillo, the Executive Director of the Calexico Chamber of Commerce, explained that the event was started eleven years ago by Councilman Romero. It’s been a popular event in Calexico every year. It’s a Chamber fund raiser and all the money raised at the Mardi Gras is given back to the community in marketing and promotion for the city of Calexico. All of the vendors at the event were Chamber members. Sponsors of the event included The Calexico Chronicle, Cleartalk, Rabobank, UETA, Wells Fargo Bank, the IID, Don Pedro restaurant, Calexico Taxi and Mi Calexico. Some of the vendors included San Sebastian Rustic who sells Mexican arts and crafts, Ooh LALA Fashion who had custom jewelry and wallets, Chase Bank and Gold Canyon Candles. There were 24 different types of beer between Claypool Distributing and Alford Distributing. Many were new brands of beer that were not on the shelves of local stores. The Holiday Inn Express provided discount rooms for those who didn’t or couldn’t drive home. Three kings and queen were chosen for the event. Congressman Bob Filner, Mayor John Moreno and Eric Ortega were all chosen King and Monica Ketchum was chosen queen of the event. Some of the vendors included Carrizo Gorge Rocks and Gems from Jacumba. Bill and Karen Woodward displayed a variety of wind chimes that were imported from Brazil. Vanessa Vaca from San Sebastian Rustic had a booth displaying a variety of Mexican arts and crafts including Catrina dolls. She said, “These dolls are traditional to the Day of the Dead, a Mexican holiday Nov. 1st and 2nd. They sell well all year long. They are a homage to your deceased loved ones. We have many arts and crafts which people like. It brings your culture to your home. Mexican art through the years has been strongly influenced by religious art. Many of our sun crafts reflect back to the Aztec heritage. We import from Mexico but many pieces of our arts and crafts are made by myself.” San Sebastian Rustic is located on Main Street in Brawley. San Diego State University, Imperial Valley campus, was represented by Aracely Bojorquez, Norma Aguylar and Monica Cortez. They were promoting SDSU’s 2011 Gala to be held on March 18th called “A Journey to China.” The entire event will have a Chinese theme including a fashion show, a Chinese opera singer and Chinese dragon dancers.
During the same week as the gala event from March 14th to 18th there will be an art festival at the SDSU campus. Artists from the campus and community will be exhibiting. A highlight of the event were five clowns who wore very colorful costumes and danced and did photo ops with the many people in attendance. They were an important added attraction to the event and attracted the media photographers like a magnet. They included Cesar Valencia, Silvia Montejano, Erik Valencia, Marilyn Buenrostro and Angelica Montejano. Music for Mardi Gras and beer tasting event was provided by the jazz band Standing Room Only which consisted of Clark Baker on trumpet, Mark Rasmussen on tenor sax, Carlos Valencia on bass, Marty Holbrook on drums, Dr. Van Decker on keyboards, Ralph Torres on congos and Majid Rahmen on guitar.
Bring in the clowns! Congressman Bob Filner has some fun with clowns who were at this year's Calexico Mardi Gras
