2019 Cowhide Carnival
This year, the 65th annual cowhide, the rally got the adrenaline rushing for the carnival that would happen right after. The plan was to have the carnival last for 50 minutes right after the rally, this would be an extended lunch. This year, there was a variety of foods, and some that are very popular amongst the students. Some of those included Nitro Bike, Chapala Grill, a taco truck and many more
The Background On the Carnival
Nick Miller, Journalism teacher was the one who started this tradition of an annual cowhide carnival. He got the idea from Golden West. Golden West has an annual homecoming carnival since they don’t have a cowhide. This has been an ongoing tradition for many years. At Golden West they lock down the campus and they have booths and food and everything for everyone to enjoy themselves.
One challenge that was faced was that the school was really big. “Mr. Eastman helped build some booths … and we had this carnival. And it was kinda fun.” To this day, the population keeps growing at Redwood.
The carnival
After the rally, all the students gathered through the door to try and beat the rush to the lines. The lines began to get longer and longer as the minutes went by and everyone chooses what they had wanted. One vendor , Snackology and More, had a whole table filled with treats that would be perfect for that little room left for desert. At the table they had mini donuts, popcorn, and many more little deserts. The star of the snacks was Jennifer Shin. She goes to many schools and she sets up her little stand there for more people to enjoy. For them to prepare for these school events it takes lots of work. “We do lots of school events. We vary from High Schools to middle schools all around.”
Another vendor was Chapala. They are well known for their tacos and their burritos that they bring to many of these school functions. This carnival, Pedro Mendez, the owner of Chapala, sold out on all the burritos. He had a long line waiting for his burritos, but then he had to give the news that they no longer had burritos. He enjoys coming to these events because, he knows that people are seeing who he is and what he does. And he knows that if they really enjoy the food, they will come back and they will want to try everything at the restaurant. Pedro and his truck usually go to many of the elementary school carnivals, and many of the events that they know people will be in a mood to eat tacos or burritos.
Other vendor lines like the taco truck and Scoops, also had long lines. Then in the quad, there were some booths set up with games. One of the booths was a cupcake walk. They would ask you to stand at a number and then walk around in a circle and when the time came to stop walking, you would get a ticket if your number was picked that was matched to the cone you were standing by. And then you could go and turn in your ticket and get a cupcake. There was also a bounce house. Two students could go head to head while they raced through the obstacle course.
The students had a variety of opinions when it came to the carnival it’s self. One student, Brooke Logan ‘23, said that she really enjoyed the lunch. She enjoyed having a longer lunch and she enjoyed having the variety of foods. For the upper class men it was different. Most of them prefer to go off campus and enjoy their hour lunch somewhere different.