SAN ANTONIO — Valerie Mallard is shining bright this evening – not because she has her arms full of medals. She’s ecstatic to be the winner of the 2019 Fiesta Medal Weigh-In.
To claim the prize, Mallard collected 829 medals that weighed about 62.75 pounds. It’s the heaviest collection in Fiesta history.
Glenn Goolsby is another medal maniac. He did everything possible to make sure he wouldn’t miss out on today’s fun.
“I should limit any stressful situations,” he admitted. “I was admitted to the hospital Sunday for emergency surgery on my gallbladder.”
That faulty gallbladder kept him bedridden for days, but he refused to let his hard work blow his chance at being champion. Unfortunately, he came up short, with "only" 249 medals at 19 pounds.
Five sets of eyes examined today’s medals, one-by-one, before placing them onto the scale.
“We’re going through and looking,” explained Executive Director of Fiesta San Antonio Commission Amy Shaw. “We’re kind of medal groupies.”
These eagle-eyed judges are making sure all entries abide by a set of rules.
“They have to have medals from this year, they have to have the date on them, and they can’t be duplicates,” said Charlie Drago of Monarch Trophy Studio. “They have to have a pretty big assortment.”
The winner of today’s festivities gets 250 custom-made medals to start their 2020 collection. But even those who didn’t walk away with the title still got something out of the competition.
“We try to help. Give back to the nonprofits,” Goolsby said. “You get something out of it.”