b'Community Featureup, locked inside her pickup truck in the motels parking lot. She eventu-ally surrendered, as a crowd of hundreds heckled and cursed her as she was taken away by police and FBI.At the age of just 23, Selena had earned the crown of Queen of Te-jano in the hearts of millions of fans, including just about every young, Hispanic girl in the U.S. and Mexico, and was the pride and joy of her adopted hometown, Corpus Christi, for people of all races and musical tastes. Like Farah Fawcett before her and Eva Longoria after her, Selena was a hometown idolour collective sweetheartwhose talent and ef-fort took her to the very top of the entertainment world. And on that sad, sad day, we lost her.Twenty-five years after her death, Corpus Christi will again suffer the loss of Selenathis time, its her musical legacy that has been cel-ebrated in April each of the last five years, in the form of Fiesta de la Flor. And once again, its mismanagement and indifference at the City of Corpus Christi, this time via Visit Corpus Christi, that costs usagainsomething we all loved.CREATING FIESTA DE LA FLOR geniuses in charge managed to screw it up and lose itright? As long as the mood is somber, let An idea that had been discussed for years came to fruition in 2015us share our tears for Selena and Fiesta de la Flor with Bayfest, the International Boat Show, a when the first Fiesta de la Flor was held in April on the bayfront, next tonon-police-state Spring Break, the Malaquite Beach Boardwalk, Schlitterbahn, and the corporate the American Bank Center. The two-day music festival and celebrationheadquarters of HEB, Whataburger and Omni Hotels.brought together more than 52,000 fans, 76% of them from out of town,Visit Corpus Christi, officially known as the Corpus Christi Area Convention and Visitors Bu-and gave a giant jolt of life to the typically-sleepy S.E.A. (Sports/Enter- reau (CVB), is funded by a portion of about $12 million per year in Hotel Occupancy Tax collected tainment/Arts) District of downtown Corpus Christithe area north ofon every overnight lodging rental less than 30 consecutive days. Their mandate is to promote IH-37. Almost 60,000 fans attended Fiesta de la Flor the past two years,leisure, business and convention travel to Corpus Christi, including the promotion of events like bringing an economic impact estimated at almost $20 million to CorpusFiesta de la Flor. The CVB is generally not in the business of creating and producing events, but Christi. Not a bad weekend! they took on the role of partner/producer of this event, and the result was that source of the tal-Okay, now here it comes. Why did we lose it? May we ask how? Be- ent, Q Productions, Selenas familys company, was not being fairly compensated for their role in cause, like every great thing we used to enjoy here, we all know that thethe success of Fiesta de la Flor.TheCoastalBend.com THE COASTAL BEND MAGAZINEQ2.2020 75'