{"id":453647,"date":"2026-10-01T22:22:12","date_gmt":"2026-10-01T22:22:12","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/453647\/"},"modified":"2026-10-01T22:22:12","modified_gmt":"2026-10-01T22:22:12","slug":"cowart-elementary-school-teachers-family-has-served-the-state-fair-of-texas-for-decades","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/453647\/","title":{"rendered":"Cowart Elementary School teacher\u2019s family has served the State Fair of Texas for decades"},"content":{"rendered":"

\t\t\t\t\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

Denise De La Cruz, a teacher at Leila P. Cowart Elementary School, has been vending at the State Fair of Texas for over 40 years. Photo courtesy of Dallas ISD.<\/p>\n

The State Fair of Texas<\/a> is underway, opening its doors for the year on Friday, Sept. 25. For Denise De La Cruz, a Stevens Park Village neighbor and Leila P. Cowart Elementary teacher, the Fair brings the family together year after year.\u00a0<\/p>\n

For over four decades, the family has manned vendor booths at Fair Park. The tradition began when De La Cruz\u2019s mother, Benilde Garza, began noticing a lack of customers.<\/p>\n

\u201cMom and Dad started it, and Mother had a restaurant, and all of a sudden during the Fair time, the business was real, real slow, and she couldn\u2019t understand why business got so slow,\u201d she said. \u201cAnd she asked a customer, and the customer told her, \u2018Everybody\u2019s at the Fair.\u2019 She said, \u2018What?\u2019 And so she said, \u2018Well, if they\u2019re not coming to me, I\u2019m going to go to them,\u2019 and started submitting applications to be a vendor.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n

The first item the Garza Family introduced to the Fair was fajitas.<\/p>\n

\u201cAnd 43 years ago, nobody knew what fajitas were, and it was a hit,\u201d De La Cruz said.<\/p>\n

Ever since, the family has brought food to the Fair. They have built up a reputation, with multiple finalist recognitions and wins at the Big Tex Choice Awards.<\/a> The Garza Family has been participating in the annual contest for nearly a decade.\u00a0<\/p>\n

De La Cruz said that she likes to stick with her culture when it comes to the submissions.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

Denise DeLaCruz, a teacher at Leila P. Cowart Elementary School, has been vending at the State Fair of Texas for over 40 years. Photo courtesy of Dallas ISD.<\/p>\n

The Garza Family first won with the Arroz con Leche, a sweet, crispy rice, for Best Taste (sweet) in 2018. They won Most Creative in 2019 for the Fla\u2019Mango Tango, mango puff pastry with citrus glaze, and in 2022 for the Cha-Cha Chata, a horchata milkshake with a churro straw, mazap\u00e1n whipped topping, two arroz con leche bites and two galletas de gragega.<\/p>\n

This year, the Garza Family entered Holy Flan! Bu\u00f1ueloco, also for the sweet category. The Holy Flan! Bu\u00f1ueloco is a crispy bu\u00f1ueloco bowl filled with cinnamon Blue Bell Ice Cream, including a whipped cream topping and caramel sauce.<\/p>\n

The item was named a finalist, and though it did not win, it will be available at the Fair.\u00a0<\/p>\n

With the tradition so ingrained, De La Cruz said it\u2019s hard not to go back each year. The family is now up to four concession stands at the Fair.<\/p>\n

\u201cOne of the things that Dad always wanted is to provide jobs for people that don\u2019t have jobs or may not have a job at this time, so we\u2019re giving those people opportunity to work, and more than anything, it\u2019s tradition. \u2026 I continue to do it, and I\u2019ll do it as long as I can,\u201d she said. \u201cI was pregnant with my first son the first year I did it, and now I have seven grandchildren. So hopefully they can continue the tradition so that I can retire. If they don\u2019t want to, I guess I\u2019ll still be there and continue to provide the flavors that are needed and that people expect from the Garza Family because we have been there a long time.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Denise De La Cruz, a teacher at Leila P. Cowart Elementary School, has been vending at the State…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":453648,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[9],"tags":[141464,155859,137165,102,104,11521,103,155860,155861,368,155862],"class_list":["post-453647","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-dallas","tag-2026-big-tex-choice-awards","tag-benilde-garza","tag-big-tex-choice-awards","tag-dallas","tag-dallas-headlines","tag-dallas-isd","tag-dallas-news","tag-denise-de-la-cruz","tag-leila-p-cowart-elementary-school","tag-state-fair-of-texas","tag-the-garza-family"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/453647","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=453647"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/453647\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/453648"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=453647"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=453647"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=453647"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}