It is with a heavy heart that we report the loss of Mary Cantu. An honorary CMC member, Mary made a HUGE impact on the San Antonio arts scene on multiple levels and all over the city.
We will have a full write up about Mary and her impact, for now, check out past articles that highlight her work we were able to document over the years:
Written by: David Kang
Perhaps odd things are bound to happen when the largest student population in the country gather in a tiny town middle of nowhere Texas.
Following our semester-long coverage of the Aggie Bonfire for the fourth episode of my documentary series College Station Collage, I wanted to shed light on another student organization that showcased the sheer scale of juvenile grit and endurance rarely found in those other than college students, who some might simply label as mad. After all, it may seem a bit foolish to spend weeks camping in a muddy field through rain or shine stacking a couple thousand logs by hand all in the name of school spirit. However, as I found out from my time following these different clubs of Texas A&M, there seems to be an inexplicable force that compels college students to seek adventure, for stories they will carry for a lifetime.
I first met the Aggie Lemons in January 2024 during a beginning-of-semester open house meeting for A&M student clubs. Despite being unfamiliar with the Lemons race, after a brief talk with the club president Ethan Eve, I quickly learned that they were an organization that rivaled, or perhaps even surpassed the madness of the Bonfire crew- a group of unsanctioned students who were building behemoths of wicker to create a literal inferno every year which has already claimed twelve Aggie souls.
The 24 Hours of Lemons is an endurance motorsport race where teams compete for the most laps in 24 hours, much like its more official counterpart: the 24 Hours of Le Mans. However unlike the French race where car companies of great prestige spend millions to squeeze as much performance and reliability into their prototype cars, the spirit of the Lemons race is to race “lemons”, and has a $500 price limit on their cars (though instances of bribery and cheating were often witnessed and sometimes encouraged). It is a race meant to democratize car racing from just the uber-wealthy to everyone with a love for the sport.
Immediately intrigued by the premise, me and my crew of journalists immersed ourselves within the Aggie Lemons, joining their club meetings, workdays, and driving events throughout the year. We saw firsthand the hardships of restoring a barnyard 1997 Mustang to operating condition, let alone racing. It took many months of workdays sometimes ending as late as 4 am just to get the car started and running on all six cylinders. After years of neglect, the wirings were disintegrating and the fuel lines were clogged with old petrol that needed to be repaired and rerouted all by the students. They then cracked the engine block which resulted in a laborious engine swap with a salvaged motor from a junkyard. We learned that there has not been a single successful Lemons race in the club’s history, with the most recent race ending tragically after only a couple of laps and a failed transmission. Although the Aggie Mustang was always a problematic mess of exposed wires and rusted metal plates, it was hard not to develop some feelings of fondness for a scrapped vehicle I personally witnessed being revived into a race car over the course of the year. So when I learned that the club was looking for drivers to participate in the 2024 Lemons race in Houston, I knew I had to apply for a chance at commandeering the maroon steed.
When I introduced my project on the Aggie Lemons to the Creative Media Lab, Professor Lopez provided a complete racing simulator setup equipped with a VR headset. Using the simulator rig I trained daily, learning proper driving techniques such as finding the racing line, optimal braking points, and timings for downshifts. I also followed Ethan on many track days where I sat with him through multiple professional level driving and drifting courses. The driver tryouts were two different events, an aptitude test for driving manual cars, and a race held at a karting track. Although I was a newcomer in the club with less than a semester of experience, I was able to prove my competence and was selected as a reserve driver outside of the four drivers chosen.
The events of the actual Lemons race held in November 2024 is one that deserves its own essay, but I will leave it omitted for the reader to watch the story themselves from the fifth and final episode of my show College Station Collage. As for the results, the Aggie Lemons successfully finished the entire race for the first time in the history of the club with more than 170 laps completed, of which I was able to contribute about 20 laps. In my experience, most Aggies- whether they notice it or not- feel a sense of urgency that they are gathered in College Station for a reason and that their time here is limited. This leads to many desperately seeking a sense of community, which was also my reason behind creating this show. I wanted to witness and record the stories made by the thousands of students who will briefly call College Station home. I hope this show can explain just a little bit what kind of things happen in the middle of Texas.
Introduction:
Lorefest is the annual student-driven, research-based celebration of local/ glocal folklore that encourages Texas A&M students to work with Bryan/College Station communities and present their own creative take on regional Texas folklore. The students are charged to explore a range of folktales, then take their research and convert that into performative output shared with the people in the area during the festival. Each day had a unique focus maintaining the theme of local/glocal folklore and public scholarship. The events were all at full capacity, as well, with often over 250 attendees per event (where possible). Students and various local communities assuredly gained knowledge and understanding of their own culture(s) through being part of this annual festival.
Lorefest Day 01: Folklore Wrestling!
Day 01 was an amazing evening of students working with local professional wrestling production company, Lions Pride Sports to bring folklore characters to live and have them take part in exciting battles within the squared ring! Participants from TAMU’s PERF 301 classes trained at the LPS facilities with coach Houston Carson, leader of the Lions Pride Den, and worked with the LPS professional wrestlers to prepare for the night of outstanding entertainment performance art. The students designed costumes, worked with puppet-maker Victoria Snaith to create props, filmed videos and prepared music for the intros of their fighters, and sweat like fiends in the gym to learn the ropes (and be safe). Wrestlers to grace the card included Sirenhead, The White Wolf of West Texas, Sismito, the Mexican Bigfoot, and many more! The first night of Lorefest was a smashing success (pun intended) and we simply cannot wait to host the incredible wrestlers from Lions Pride Sports again next year! Special thanks to our sponsors for all their support including the Racial and Ethnic Studies Institute, The Texas A&M Data Science Institute, PVFA, CMJR, Destination Bryan, the City of Bryan, Lions Pride Sports, the Grand Stafford, the Parker-Astin Gallery, Jason Harris and Rich Copper, slowdanger, Yoko Hiroaka, Marty Regan, 2AM Productions, and of course everyone at the Creative Media Lab! Cheers all! It could not have been done without you!
Day 02: Haunted Japan!
Rudder Forum was the site for an evening of Yoko Hiroaka retelling scary folktales from Japan. She explained the stories in English before reciting them in Japanese with subtitles, including two of the scariest tales to come from Japan – Hoichi the Earless and Kurozuka: Witch of the Black Mounds. Yoko accompanied the amazing tales with performances on the biwa, a traditional Japanese plucked lute. It was a sold-out show and students were invited to dress up for Halloween, adding to the night of unsettling celebration! A delightful treat that should not be missed if Yoko returns to grace us with her tales again in the future!
Day 03: War of the Aggie Worlds + Podcasts + Dungeon Snyth
The third night of Lorefest was hosted by the Grand Stafford in Downtown Bryan, TX, where the students and local residents were bestowed with a Halloween treat – a rewritten version of H.G. Wells’ classic War of the Worlds with a twist: this version was set in Bryan/College Station! That’s right… the aliens landed on Texas A&M campus first! The live audio drama was written by Dr. Michelle Simms and performed by students from voice acting and sonic design classes offered through the College of Performance, Visualization, and Fine Arts. Before that, PERF 301 students presented some of the folktales they researched in the form of a podcast-style discussion, culminating with guests Dr. joey lopez and Johnny Guajardo hosting an Aggielore live podcast, full of spooky tales from A&M’s campus. The night was capped off with outstanding performances from visiting dark ambient and dungeon synth artists from Austin – Hexpartner, Jaycie Carver, and Black Magic Cyborg, all of whom merged homemade instruments, innovative use of technology and aethereal sounds of the unknown for a night of delicious, Halloween-fueled, sonic madness.
Day 04: First Friday – Puppets, Noise, Food, and Dance
Day 04 was jam-packed with Lorefest goodness! Hosted by the Parker-Astin Gallery in Downtown Bryan, TX, students and faculty participated in the monthly First Friday event. Inside the Parker-Astin, students shared a variety of food that they baked/cooked and drinks they concocted related to the folklore they researched for class. Also inside, was a VR-supported, interactive experience inspired by the folklore of La Lechuza, a testing ground for a larger immersive experience, escape-room-style event being developed by Dr.s Edgar Rojas-Muñoz, Anne Quackenbush, and Matthew Campbell. Other inside activities included video games developed by PVFA VIZ students, Board and tabletop RPG games created by PVFA Fine Arts students, and folklore-inspired facepainting by PERF 301 students.
Outside, the night was kicked off with students who worked with visiting artist Victoria Snaith to create walkabout-style puppets based of their folklore research, accompanied by Vozembouch-style instruments built and played by MUSC 381 students. The event was introduced by Allison Pimm, a TAMU Honors Student, where the spirits from beyond the vale (the puppets) were lead a la the pied piper (the musicians) away from the town center to ensure the positive nature of the celebration.
Later, Dr. Grace Adinku’s students presented a promenade of student-designed folklore fashion made from recyclable materials as a lead into a faculty-led performance, It Devours! conceived of and performed by Drs. Anna Holeman, John Cartwright, Riti Sachdeva, and Michael Poblete. Overall, it was an exciting night of creativity and a great chance for students and community to learn through performance more about their own local/glocal folklore!
Lorefest is infinitely grateful to Dr. Kathy Torabi for leading students to populate and perform along a downtown Bryan Ghost Walk! Students used their folklore research to create spooky “stations” along a path that wove through the Downtown area, leading participants to experience a variety of local/glocal tales of the supernatural and other worldly happenings! Truly a highlight of the Lorefest events!
Day 05: Lorefest Conference
The first part of Day 05 consisted of the first Lorefest Conference. The day started with international speakers from India, Pakistan, and Italy. The second panel featured TAMU students, both graduates and undergraduates, covering topics related to their classes including campus folklore, literary lore, and more. After lunch graduate students from other universities joined the discussion and gave talks on hospital folklore and concepts of death, urban legends, and family witchcraft and pagan practices. The conference ended with a captivating fairytale recounted by Dr. Sandy Stone and her analysis of it following the telling. It was an excellent academic round-up of thoughts and discourse on folklore and performance, and we are already excited to host the second conference next year!
Day 05: Abyss!
Lorefest was brought to a close with an amazing performance, Abyss, by the PVFA Artists-in-Residence, slowdanger, visiting the college to develop a new work that will premiere in 2026. The duet currently is based in Pittsburg, but one of the two, Taylor Knight, grew up in Texas and his father has stories to tell of the Forth Worth Goatman! Slowdanger interviewed Taylor’s dad, and they informed their performance specially made for Lorefest with the tales his father imparted. The show was abstract, beautiful, and intense, featuring movement art by the two dancers as well as original music composed and performed by slowdanger throughout the piece. The show also featured an amazing Goatman mask created bespoke for Abyss. We were incredibly lucky to have slowdanger be part of this year’s festivities and we couldn’t have asked for a more impressive and fitting end to the five-day festival – artistic interpretation of ethnographic local folklore research. Perfect!
