CROW AGENCY — Sunday was the last day of Crow Fair and the day started off with the biggest parade of the weekend. MTN News spoke with this years parade manager about what it meant to be involved in the 103rd annual Crow Fair.
Spectators lined the streets as the hundreds of parade participants waited to start the show.
At the start of the parade was 23-year-old Brinna Melendrez with her two sons. Melendrez has been working towards this weekend since last year.
“Since December [on] beading. So, it took eight months to bead,” Melendrez said on Sunday.
Eight months of beading the prizes for the parade. Yes - the parade is not just for show. The participants are being judged during the parade and given what the judges estimated as over $100,000 in prizes and money throughout the 3 day event.
“We had 93 winners,” Melendrez said.
What would posses a 23-year-old to want to organize and run the Crow Fair parade? Her three- and four-year-old sons. Last year she was turned away and told she could not walk alongside her boys in the parade.
“I wouldn’t let my little boys go alone this whole route without my help. So that was unfair, and it just made me want to go next year and help these little ones,” she said.
So, Melendrez put her name in to be parade manager and was selected after last years Crow Fair. Her friends and family think she did a great job this year.
“Being successful was the main accomplishment and helping Brinna achieve what she wanted too, and we were able to do that. So we ended it well,” said Melendrez's uncle, David Blaine. Blaine was also a judge during the parades.
A successful weekend for the parade manager that took months to prepare for with the help of her family and friends.
“She put in the sweat, the effort, the tears, you know? And got a bunch of people to help her,” Blaine said.
And now with her work done, Melendrez hopes she has influenced others that are younger to take on the role.
“I hope to see other classmates like me strive out like that, too,” she said.
