Monarch Butterfly Festival flies into San Antonio's Brackenridge Park this weekend

The free, family-friendly festival takes place Saturday, October 8.

Photo by rod m on Unsplash

One of San Antonio's favorite parks is teaming up with the Texas Butterfly Ranch to host a colorful celebration of native Texas butterflies this weekend. Taking place between 10 am and 2 pm in the Pecan Grove at Brackenridge Park on Saturday, October 8, the 2022 Monarch Butterfly & Pollinator Festival is a free, family-friendly event worth putting on your calendar.

The event is part of a month-long celebration of the beautiful pollinators, and the day's activities will include a People for Pollinators Parade, a monarch butterfly migration obstacle course for kids, butterfly tagging, live bee hive demonstrations, and more.

Hosted as a partnership between the Brackenridge Park Conservancy and the Texas Butterfly Ranch, the event brings together more than 20 community partners to educate the community on the importance of the monarch butterfly and other pollinators.

Activities will start at 10 am with the caterpillar train. Launching from the train depot in the park, the beloved San Antonio Zoo train has been transformed to resemble a monarch butterfly caterpillar with the assistance of local landscape architecture firm MP Studios. The five-car train — costumed in distinctive black, yellow ,and white stripes with a set of antennae-like protuberances on either end — will be available for rides during the festival, as well as the month of October.

According to a release, additional activations will include:

Monarch butterfly tagging with trained docents.
Forever Journey, a program that tags butterflies in honor of deceased loved ones.
Monarch migration obstacle course organized by Blooming with Birdie.
Butterfly bike rides with the Austin Bike Zoo.
A birding tour of the park.
Adoption events for hundreds of trees provided by the San Antonio Parks Department and pollinator-friendly native plants made available by SAWS.

To learn more about festival day offerings, check the Texas Butterfly Ranch webpage.

Drop the Debt

Students of families making under $100,000 will get free tuition to UT

University of Texas at San Antonio/Instagram

This is an extension of a previous program with a lower income eligibility.

Beginning next fall, some students accepted into schools within the University of Texas system will receive free tuition and have all fees waived, the board of regents announced on Wednesday.

In order to qualify, families of undergraduates must make less than $100,000 a year.

The board gave preliminary approval to the plan on Wednesday. After the full board’s consideration and vote on Thursday, the plan will include a new, immediate infusion of $35 million directly to campuses to offer the financial aid benefit. The plan also directs additional investment in endowments supporting financial aid to ensure a commitment for tuition relief.

In 2019, the regents established a $167 million endowment at UT Austin to completely cover tuition and mandatory fees for in-state undergraduate students from families with an income of up to $65,000. In 2022, the regents approved a second endowment of almost $300 million called “Promise Plus” to extend the program to all UT academic institutions.

“To be in a position to make sure our students can attend a UT institution without accruing more debt is very important to all of us [...]” Kevin P. Eltife, chairman of the board of regents, said.

Read the full story and watch the video at KVUE.com.

universities university of texas