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When you're at Fiesta, find a place to sit in the shade and do some people watching.
You won't have to wait long before someone comes along who catches your eye, like 76-year-old Maria Monsivaiz, a lifelong resident of the Alamo City, who was covered head to toe, front and back in Fiesta medals.
Texas Public Radio spotted her Friday walking down West Commerce St. near Market Square—one of the big venues for Fiesta events. We could literally hear her coming, her medals gently clinking together in a light breeze as she walked toward us.
Monsivaiz could not even tell us off the top of her head how many medals she had on her very shiny suit. And forget about asking her to name the favorite medals in her collection.
"I have so many, I can't pick one. I love them all," she said.
She said she keeps them pinned to the suit year-round but wears the suit only at Fiesta time. She does swap different medals every year to mix things up.
You would think she has been collecting them for decades, but in fact she just started in 2022, leaving us more impressed. Monsivaiz said she had bought a few of the medals herself, but most had been given to her.
"People have been very kind," she said of the free medals given to her.
A Fiesta medal is one of the most popular ways for an individual, business, political candidate, military unit or private group to express their Fiesta spirit and do a little advertising at the same time.
According to the charity organization Texas Cavaliers, Italian sculptor Pompeo Coppini, who lived in San Antonio, and whose works include the Alamo Cenotaph, is credited with designing the first Fiesta medal in 1905 for the Knights of the Omala, or “Alamo” spelled backwards.
But it was the Texas Cavaliers, who were the first to pass out commemorative coins during Fiesta after World War II, that helped grow the medal into what it is today, according to a spokeswoman for the group.
