Community members rally to save a South County tradition

“Bonitafest lives!”

These powerful words echoed across Otay Lakes Road at the opening of this year’s street fair, signaling to all who passed by that the people had spoken.

Bonitafest is alive. Bonitafest is here to stay.

In the wake of a Bonita Business and Professional Association (BBPA) vote to permanently disband this May, most thought the 41-year-old festival was good as gone.

Hard work and dedication ultimately overtook dismay and like a phoenix, a new festival rose from the BBPA’s ashes.

Bertha Lopez, Bonitafest’s community outreach coordinator, said that as of six weeks ago it had only two vendors. Co-chair Linda Berke said on Sept. 13 there were 100 vendors serving the 5,000 festivalgoers.

Berke was entertainment chair person for Bonitafest for the last 12 years. She said when the BBPA resolved to fold she instantly grabbed the reigns and steered the revitalization horse to water.

“I’m really glad we were able to pull this off in such a short amount of time,” she said. “Hopefully (Bonita Vista High School) will let us do it again next year.”

Berke said the venders were more successful this year than at recent Bonitafests.

Nick Aguilar, Bonitafest ’14 Grand Marshal, said this year’s location restored a homegrown feeling.

“Bonita Vista High School and Bonita Vista Middle School have been the schools for the Bonita community,” he said. “It’s really good to have the high school connected to Bonitafest.”

Berke said Bonita Vista High was the perfect spot to host Bonitafest because it did not require any street closures, had adequate parking and the high school is generally seen as the cornerstone of the community.

“When I first (said) let’s do it at the high school I got a lot of flak because it was in Chula Vista,” she said.

All complaints were quickly squashed, Berke said, because BVHS is a hub in this area.

“It’s because of the music department, it’s because of the football,” she said. “The school does great things. It really is our touchstone.”

Bonitafest 2014 Historian Mary Oswell said she journeyed 850 miles, all the way from Colorado, to help play a part in the Bonitafest rebirth. She attended the first Bonitafest in 1973 as a girl scout, she said, and the retooled Bonitafest had the same premise it did all those years ago.

“The only reason its going on this year is because some really dedicated people jumped in and made it happen, and that’s exactly what happened in those early years,” she said. “It was a really nice core of people who believed in it and got it going.”

Aguilar said he was proud to ceremoniously lead the first redesigned Bonitafest Parade and that he hoped for many more.

“I’ve never been a grand marshal,” he said. “The highest rank I’ve ever had has been school board member, so this is really fantastic.”

This year’s Bonitafest kicked off on Sept. 12 with an inaugural Bonitafest Twilight Trail Parade around Rohr Park and the Chula Vista Golf Course. VIPs rode in golf carts provided by the Chula Vista Parks Department. They led a ­­congregation of bicyclists, horseback riders and walkers. As night fell, participants took out glow sticks and other florescence, transforming the parade into a twinkling twilight vigil honoring the reborn tradition.

Aguilar said he liked the quaint parade and hoped to get the high school involved next year.

“I’m hoping we can continue this tradition and next year have the Bonita Vista High School’s pep band and banner to lead off the parade,” he said.

Bonita Valley Horsemen President Diane Carter proposed the concept of a twilight parade. She said her organization was going to ride around the park in a silent protest for the Bonita parade, but while attending a Bonitafest meeting she thought, why not invite everyone? Carter said the parade was a success.

“Everyone had glow sticks and little flashlights to lead the way, to let people know that we love Bonitafest and we love the idea of the Bonita Parade,” she said. “We didn’t know how many we would get, and we didn’t know if we’d get a lot of horses even, but we got a lot of horses. We had people coming from as far as Ramona to come and participate.”

Carter said the trail, which gives walkers a tour of commercial, residential and rural areas of Bonita, is a quintessential piece of the town.

“That trail that goes around Chula Vista golf course and Rohr Park is an iconic part of Bonita,” she said. “So the idea of having it there was maybe even more special than having it on the street.”

Chula Vista Council Member Patricia Aguilar, who rode next to her husband Nick in a golf cart during the parade, said it was funny that her husband was chosen to be grand marshal in a reborn Bonitafest when she is currently attempting to revitalize the Starlight Parade in Chula Vista.

Chula Vista Mayor Cheryl Cox, who rode in a golf cart with her husband, County Supervisor Greg Cox, said she thinks sometimes its necessary for the old to make way for the new.

“You know, things change,” she said. “The first feelings are disappointment, because it’s something that has been done for such a long time, but you recognize that some traditions fade away and some new ones come in. Look at the revival of this, which is so different from the Bonitafest parade as we knew it, but there’s a lot of people having a good time.”

Berke said Bonitafest suffered from dwindling attendance because of parking issues and the BBPA’s failure to change the date after area schools switched to a year-round schedule. These reasons, compounded by soaring costs, spelled doom, she said.

Berke said this year’s Bonitafest was carefully (albeit quickly) built on a foundation of grants and sponsorships. All proceeds from vendor rental fees will be donated to the Bonita Vista vocal music department.

Supervisor Cox said the BBPA’s choice to dissolve sent tremors that radiated beyond Bonita well into the surrounding areas and the inaugural Twilight Parade was a valiant return of an honored tradition.

“It’s on a different scale, a little bit different flavor, a little more low key, but I think it’s still community grown,” he said. “It’s a good community event and a heck of a lot cheaper.”

Mayor Cox said the new location was fitting since the 37-year-old Bonitafest Melodrama used to call Bonita Vista’s Bolles Theater its home. Melodrama organizers said it has been financially independent of the BBPA for years and was not directly affected by its disintegration. Melodrama leaders and actors, nonetheless, supported the renewed Bonitafest movement with an unquestionable fervor.

Sweetwater Community Church Pastor Marc LaPointe, who plays villain Cadwell Von Fowl in the Melodrama, rode a horse in the Twilight Trail Parade in full regalia.

LaPointe said the BBPA had been having trouble with Bonitafest for a while.

“I thought it was sad,” he said. “I had been on the BPBA. I understand it was really hard for them to get volunteers and they were tired.”

LaPointe said he was hopeful for the future.

“People are excited,” he said. “It has more of a community feel than it has had in a long time.”

Lopez said though the parade did not have the pomp and circumstance associated with Bonitafest, it was still Bonita’s parade.

“It was a very small parade,” she said, “but it was a full-grown community parade. You saw the kids walking around with their glow lights, on their bicycles with smiling faces.”

Supervisor Cox, Mayor Cox and Carter all noted the efforts and sense of community between Chula Vista and Bonita.

Carter said the Chula Vista Parks Department was very supportive of the Twilight Parade.

Mayor Cox pointed out that Rohr Park and the Chula Vista Country Club, which the parade encircled, were both part of Chula Vista.

Supervisor Cox accounted his part in receiving a lease on property owned by the City of Chula Vista to build the Bonita Library and said recently deceased community member George Kost, who had been heavily involved with the community, summed it up the best.

“He had a phrase that really outlines (this), and that is, ‘Bonita is a state of mind’.”