Jan. 9, 2025

NEWS RELEASE

Poe Middle School art teacher Mario Garcia recently led his student herd in painting a 3-foot “mini-moo” cow sculpture for CowParade San Antonio 2025.

The school’s completed cow, named Teodora, features a blend of Latin American art styles, with skeletal elements that honor Mexico’s Dia de los Muertos celebration, an Aztec sun, and multiple brightly colored indigenous-inspired patterns.

CowParade is the largest and most successful public art event in the world, first coming to San Antonio in 2003. The campaign has returned to Alamo City to produce, exhibit and auction off 75 life-sized and three “mini-moo” (calf-sized) painted cow sculptures transformed by local artists to benefit CHRISTUS Children’s Foundation.

After seeing one of the blank mini-moos on CHRISTUS Children’s Instagram, Garcia reached out to CHRISTUS Children’s Foundation to ask if his art department could paint a mini-moo. The foundation gladly agreed.

“Participating in a world-renowned event like CowParade is an opportunity for us to improve the perception of our school and bring more exposure to our excellent art department. This is only the beginning,” said Garcia.

Garcia knew it was important that every student felt involved in the process. Students submitted their designs to a committee of the school’s students and faculty. The committee members voted and decided to move forward with eighth-grader Emely Mejia’s design.

"Seeing my cow design come to life for CowParade San Antonio 2025 is a surreal and deeply fulfilling experience. It's a celebration of creativity and culture, and I'm honored to have my work be part of something that brings so much joy to the community," said Emely Mejia.

While a select number of students painted the cow, Garcia decided to incorporate CowParade into his overall curriculum, insisting that each student paint a large canvas of their own cow design.

“I want them to be proud of their ideas and I hope that some of the students will submit their cow canvases to district competitions,” Garcia said.

The participation of Garcia’s students in the CowParade campaign is one of many efforts he has made to transform the art department. In the fall of 2020, Garcia, a former SAISD student himself, began substitute teaching at Poe Middle School, where he noticed a large percentage of the students “weren’t taking the program seriously.”

“It took a while to earn their trust and respect,” Garcia said. “But I built a really good relationship with the kids by the end of the year.”

The following school year, Garcia was offered a full-time position at a different school. In his year away from Poe, the middle school went through four different art teachers. When Poe offered Garcia the full-time role, he jumped at the opportunity to go back.

“A consistent teacher is very important in the art room because you get to know the students and figure out how to encourage each of their developments,” Garcia said. “I’m making sure students know that the work we do in this classroom is serious and that they are more than capable of creating great art.”

Garcia helped build respect for his department by encouraging his students to compete in district competitions.

In doing so, several students have won UIL awards and Poe Middle School took home the “Best of Show” award last year.

Interested artists are encouraged to apply for a chance to paint the remaining cows. The application is available at https://christuschildrensfoundation.org/cowparade/.

Poe Middle School is having an opportunity for media to interview Garcia and his students with their mini-moo on the morning of January 16th.