Tuesday, April 1, 2025

Celebrating the 50th: A look at the party that was precursor to the modern-day Fiesta UTSA and Best Fest

Celebrating the 50th: A look at the party that was precursor to the modern-day Fiesta UTSA and Best Fest

Students dance at the university's first official festival held in Sombrilla Plaza in 1977.

Editor’s note: This article was originally published in Sombrilla Magazine, Spring 2000.

(March 8, 2019) -- It’s May 1977 and UTSA students are dancing in Sombrilla Plaza, perhaps to the Eagles’ “Hotel California,” which was number one on the charts that month, or to Stevie Wonder’s “Sir Duke,” number five.

Spring is in the air, the average age of the student body is 28, and President Peter T. Flawn has approved the party—the first campuswide shindig in the school’s history. That is, unless you count the student-government–sponsored get-together in the Student Lounge a few months earlier. (Take today’s labs in the basement of the Science Building and replace the sophisticated equipment with a few pool tables, some vending machines, and a TV that works some of the time.)

>> Read the rest of this story and relive other memories from UTSA’s history as we celebrate UTSA’s 50th Anniversary.


Celebrate UTSA’s 50th Anniversary and share social media posts about the 50th using the hashtag #UTSA50.

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