San Antonio Express-News (Sunday)
NIOSA volunteers keep Fiesta fun going for 75 years
Each year, about 10,000 people develop, stage and operate the four-night event
Frank Haegelin has lent a hand at A Night in Old San Antonio, or NIOSA, for at least the past 25 years. That includes last year when he accidentally stapled said hand while tacking skirting to his family’s T-shirt booth.
“I tried to pull the staple out myself with pliers,” the 48-year-old said with a laugh. “It was my middle finger. I went to the MedClinic and was back at NIOSA in about an hour and a half to finish the booth.”
Haegelin has only missed a handful of nights at NIOSA in his life: four in 1975 when he was newborn and one in 1998 when he was a student at the University of Texas at Austin. Otherwise, the San Antonio native has been behind a NIOSA booth year after year, a volunteering tradition that started with his father, Frank Sr., and his late mother, Clair.
“I hope to do the same with my son or my nephew,” he said.
Think a lot of families go to NIOSA? Turns out a lot of families also help make NIOSA a reality.
Each year, Haegelin and about 10,000 other volunteers develop, stage and operate the four-night Fiesta event, which celebrates its 75th anniversary April 25-28 at La Villita, 418 Villita St.
That’s all volunteers at the more than 160 food and drink booths that line the cobblestones of the historic artisan district. And all volunteers who put up the banners and signs, set up the electrical appliances and manage the ticket sales. All before the first cascarón gets cracked or the first chicken on a stick gets gobbled.
All that altruism pays off. NIOSA nets around $1 million a year for The
Conservation Society of San Antonio, the event’s sponsor and beneficiary, making it the top fundraiser in the nation for historic preservation.
“I guess for me it’s nice to be part of a community that’s truly committed to preserving the rich history and heritage that San Antonio has to offer,” Haegelin said. “It’s about preserving that for future generations and just having pride in your city. And then, candidly, it’s fun.”
Technically, that fun started in 1936 as the Conservation Society’s harvest festival, according to the NIOSA website, niosa.org. For the next decade, the fall fete went by names such as the “Indian Festival” in 1938 and the “River Festival” until 1944. Then in 1946, city officials asked the Conservation Society to move the event to Fiesta.
The first “A Night in Old San Antonio” unfolded in 1948 as just that — a single-night celebration on a single street. NIOSA gradually grew in evenings and attendance, expanding to its current four-night setup by 1958.
Haegelin traces his family’s NIOSA lineage to 1965, a decade before he was born, when his parents started volunteering at the event after his mother found a lost purse that belonged to a Conservation Society member.
“I literally grew up with some of these (volunteers),” he said.
Keeping NIOSA in the family also goes for volunteers such as Juan Hinojosa, who has chaired the “Fast Draw Suds” beer booth at the Frontier Town area since 2013.
Hinojosa has helped out at NIOSA for more than 30 years since he was a teenager. His late father, Armando, oversaw NIOSA’s biggest beer booth from 1970 until he died in 1994, while his mother, Gloria, has volunteered as Frontier Town’s food deliveries coordinator since
1996. Meanwhile, Juan’s sister Theresa Albach and brother-inlaw Terrence Albach chair the Ranch Steaks booth. And several of Armando’s grandchildren also have volunteered at NIOSA booths.
Then there’s the lineage of
the buñuelos booth in the Mexican Market, which goes back to when NIOSA was still called the Indian Festival. Former Conservation Society president Peggy Penshorn ran the fried Mexican pastry stand for more than 40 years until 1981, when she passed the duties to her son Richard and friend Rosemary Doyle. Now Doyle’s daughter Patti Anderson and her daughters run the booth.
To mark its 75th anniversary, NIOSA is honoring the chili
queens whose ties to the festival go back to 1947, when Conservation Society members first honored the women with replicas of their chili stands that once dotted Juarez Plaza, according to the NIOSA website.
When those replica chili stands go up once again this year, longtime NIOSA coordinator Brad Dietrich will make sure they fit in with the rest of the festival’s sprawling layout.
Dietrich has helped stage NIOSA since he was 15 years
old. The 58-year-old printing sales and real estate agent not only helps set up and tear down the celebration, he also clocks in a good 18 hours each day of the event to ensure it continues without a hitch.
“It’s definitely a challenge but it’s rewarding as well,” he said. “When those gates open at 5:30 p.m. on Tuesday and you realize what you’ve done to put it together, it makes you feel good.”
Dietrich caught that feeling from his mother Nancy Ingall, a former NIOSA treasurer who kept volunteering at the event until about five years ago. His late father Bob Dietrich also once ran a beer bar, while his older sister April Smith-Koebel still volunteers at NIOSA after more than 30 years. Dietrich’s children and Smith-Koebel’s daughter also have lent a hand. As has Smith-Koebel’s grandson, who’s now in college.
“It’s like a family,” SmithKoebel said, as Dietrich and other NIOSA volunteers managed fixtures at La Villita’s Maverick Plaza on a recent afternoon. “And it’s a family reunion every year when we get together here.”
And there’s always room in the NIOSA family for another helping hand.
“Look around at the beautiful city we live in,” Haegelin said. “If you want to be a part of preserving it, do so. It’s just getting involved and having a good time in the process. It’s a lot of work, but you’ve got to be proud.”