Who We Are
Rey Feo Scholarship Foundation
Rey Feo merits Royalty status and is invited along with the other Fiesta Royalty, including the Feria de las Flores Queen who also raises scholarship funds, to ride in all four major Fiesta parades as part of the spectacular annual, 10-day Fiesta festival held every year in April, in honor of the memory of the heroes of the Alamo and the Battle of the San Jacinto.
Since 1984, The Rey Feo program, a 501(c)3, non-profit organization, has raised over $9 million for scholarships given to over 4,000 students in San Antonio and the surrounding area with 200+ students each receiving $2,000 for books and tuition. The foundation receives more than 600 scholarship applications yearly, and the demand continues to grow.
The Rey Feo’s principal function is to raise funds for the Rey Feo Scholarship Foundation.
Rey Feo After His Reign….
After Rey Feo’s crowning year, he becomes a former Rey Feo and enters the Consejo Real de Reyes Feos Anteriores (a.k.a. Rey Feo Consejo Educational Foundation). The Rey Feo Consejo Educational Foundation is an organization of former Rey Feo’s started in 1982 with the continued mission to support the reigning Rey Feo each year and the Rey Feo Scholarship Foundation. The Rey Feo Consejo Educational Foundation also accepts members each year through an application process. To learn more about how to become a RFCEF member visit www.reyfeoconsejo.org.
Each year, the Rey Feo Scholarship Foundation and the Consejo Real de Reyes Feos Anteriores (Rey Feo Consejo Educational Foundation) select two prominent businessmen/community leaders/members for the prestigious “Rey Feo” title. They become part of the annual Fiesta Week Royalty in San Antonio, Texas during the 3rd week of April.
Each candidate must raise a minimum of $250,000 to qualify with more than 85% of the money raised spent directly on scholarship awards benefiting San Antonio area youth.
Normally over 60 high schools participate. For the Fall 2017 awardees, 49 high schools in Region 20 had 111 awardees going to 35 different colleges/universities throughout the United States and selecting 41 different majors for their higher education. Many of the scholars are first-generation students and come from single-member low-income parents
Rey Feo Scholarship Foundation History
The story dates to Spanish medieval times, during which the King of Spain had distanced himself from his subjects choosing to fill his court with only the beautiful, rich, and aristocratic. The ordinary citizen was never invited to the palace and rarely saw the monarch except when he rode to the countryside to hunt. The common people resented the king for this, and one day a rebellious crowd gathered in the plaza and proclaimed one of their own as “The Ugly King” or The People’s King.
This celebration of the populace traveled to the New World, and it was in Aguas Calientes, Mexico during La Feria de San Marcos (The Festival of St. Mark) when the first Rey Feo ruled in North America. Later, in 1947, members of the League of United Latin American Citizens (LULAC) Council No. 2 in San Antonio, Texas were looking for a way to raise money to provide scholarships for underprivileged and deserving San Antonio youth. With their knowledge of La Feria de San Marcos, the members decided that sponsoring a Rey Feo competition of their own would not only be fun, but charitable as well. Later, through the efforts of Logan Stewart, Rey Feo XXXII, a local prominent radio personality, El Rey Feo was formally invited to be part of Fiesta in 1980 and was given his own parade called Paseo Del Rey Feo. The Parade was an integral part of Fiesta from 1980-1987.
