Friday Night Lights, Flashing Lights

BY JOHN BRICE

FOR THE LAFAYETTE SUN

VALLEY — San Marcos Mexican Restaurant in Valley hosted a taco-eating contest dubbed “Friday Night Lights Meets Flashing Lights” on Aug. 11. Fifteen participants made up of student-athletes from area high schools and first responders from local departments were seated at tables where they were served trays of tacos and glasses of water for the contest. Standing room only was the setting for the crowd of attendees who joined the contestants in the party room at the restaurant. Organizing the event was Greater Valley Area Chamber of Commerce Executive Director Carrie Wood.

“We had a Taco Bowl where we invited two football players from each of our local high schools and a fire or police from the local departments,” Wood said. “We had 15 total participants and they battled it out for the win. We are happy everyone showed up. This was amazing; we had really great community support. When it comes to our kids and our first responders, we know people really come out and support them. We couldn’t be more grateful for that.” 

Wood expressed her appreciation for everyone who helped to make the event a success. 

“We want to thank San Marcos, they donated the tacos for today. We couldn’t have done this event without them. I also want to give a big shout out to Paul Story for coming and DJ’ing for us. We also want to thank our board members and ambassadors that came out and helped work and support it too. It was a great day. I want to tell San Marcos they need to build on so we can have a bigger space next time.”

Wood said the event was modeled after a similar event she heard of in another city. 

“We had a community partner call and say her son participated in this in a different city and said, ‘Hey, this would be something good for you all to do,’ so I took it and ran with it, and this is the outcome. Anything that we can do that brings the community together, the kids together and the schools together. On top of bringing not only our youth but our first responders together and putting them at a table, I think that is 100. We look forward to probably doing it again next year.”