Goliad To Hold Cinco de Mayo Celebration

Can you believe it? It's already time for Cinco de Mayo celebrations. There will be celebrations everywhere, and Goliad will have one of the finest this weekend.

Food, music and tradition will convert the Goliad Fairgrounds into a fiesta grande celebrating Cinco de Mayo on Friday and Saturday. Cinco de Mayo Internacional will feature live entertainment, including conjunto music, Mariachi performances, ballet folklorico dancers and Tejano and country music, reports the Victoria Advocate. Other events include a barbecue cook off and rides for children. Admission to the fiesta is free, but vendors will display food, drinks, arts and crafts, for purchase.

The Zaragoza Society will celebrate its 68th anniversary during the Cinco de Mayo festivities as well. General Ignacio Zaragoza, the hero of the Battle of Puebla for which Cinco de Mayo is celebrated, was born in the historic community of La Bahia, which lies two miles south of current-day Goliad.

Additionally, the celebration will honor the 150th anniversary of the Battle of Puebla and the 50th anniversary of the Churubusco Club runners of soil from Goliad to Puebla, Mexico. Some of the original dignitaries who ran soil and an eternal flame from La Bahia to Puebla will be present for Fiesta Zaragoza this year.

A delegation from Hidalgo, Goliad's sister city, will arrive Friday afternoon and will be welcomed by a Goliad delegation of city and county officials, along with officers of the General Zaragoza Society. Fiesta Zaragoza begins Friday evening with performances of music and dance. David Valadez y La Guerra Musical is back by popular demand.

An official ceremony at the site of the Zaragoza Statue will begin at 10 a.m. Saturday. The official program will include former Goliad mayor Hernan Jaso as master of ceremonies and will feature comments by Mayor Eliud Alberto Lozano Cisneros of Hidalgo, Nuevo Leon, Goliad Mayor Jay Harvey and Goliad County Judge David Bowman