We’re just connecting the dots
WINTER TEXAN Volume 10 • Issue 10 December 18, 2024
Your Connection to the Rio Grande Valley
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We’re about to celebrate the end of 2024 and the start of 2025, and I just keep thinking that this brings me one year closer to my dream of becoming a Winter Texan. Well, since I’m actually a homegrown Texan, it brings me one year closer to living the life of a Winter Texan. Don’t get me wrong. I love my job. After all, the next best thing to living the life of a Winter Texan is hanging out with all of you and helping your park/ resort managers and activity directors find all kinds of adventures for you to enjoy while you’re living it up in the Rio Grande Valley. Bringing in 2025 also means the arrival of even more of our Winter Texans, those returning and those who are joining us for the first time. I want to thank all of you returning Winter Texans for telling your friends and family members up north about how great it is down here, hanging out on South Padre Island in your shorts and Ts—margarita in hand-while they’re putting on several layers of clothing and shoveling snow. And thank you for telling them about Cruise with Kristi and Sarah’s tours around Texas. We all know word of mouth is the best advertising around. This is our last issue of Welcome Home Winter Texan for 2024. It’s a time of reflection and a time of excitement. From all of us at Welcome Home Rio Grande Valley, Merry Christmas, Happy Holidays, and Happy Hours! Let’s all ring in 2025 with laughter, fun, and sun.
Thank You
SEASON SPONSORS 2024-2025
Sheet music for the song, “Rio Grande Valley (For We Love Our Valley Home)” was published by American Legion Sam Jackson Post #111 in San Benito, Texas. (Left) The book “For We Love Our Valley Home” features images and stories related to Valley history, including bandits, cattle rustling, floods, conflicts, friendships, and brief backgrounds and descriptions of various towns. (Right)
History of the Valley Anthem
by Eryn Reddell Wingert
D
id you know, the Rio Grande Valley has an anthem? Nearly 100 years old, the tune has faded away somewhat--but not entirely. It is still sung today by travelers--upon returning to the Valley, boosting civic pride at Rotary meetings, and in childhood memories. “Rio Grande Valley (For We Love Our Valley Home)” was an ode to the region composed by the Forty and Eight Quartette, buddies who had served in World War I: Cott Boling, William Buck, Dick Collins, and N.G. “Nappie” Chatelle. The group’s name originated from the war, referring to box cars used to transport American troops to the French front. Each car was marked, denoting its load capacity: 40 men or eight horses. They were narrow and
cramped, “A mutual small misery among American soldiers,” according to the website, fortyandeight. org, a society for American veterans. The men took that “small misery” and turned it into a positive. Often referred to as “‘the famous Forty and Eight Quartette of San Benito”’ in newspaper articles, the men performed at venues around Cameron County and beyond. According to an October 1928 article in The Brownsville Herald, the Forty and Eight Quartette was set to perform at a national quartet competition when the event was canceled. “Rio Grande Valley (For We Love Our Valley Home)” was composed in 1928 by Boling, Buck, Collins, and Chatelle, with arrangement by Claire Burton Chase of Los Fresnos. The lyrics: CONTINUED ON PAGE 2