From once-in-a-lifetime occasions like a complete photo voltaic eclipse over a cloudy San Antonio to yearly beloved traditions like Fiesta, San Antonio Report photographers have been there in 2024. Right here’s a glance again at our favourite frames from this yr.
January
The Tower of the Americas is seen from the commentary deck on the Tower Life constructing. With new homeowners who’re intent on ushering the constructing into its subsequent century of life, and with Alamo Architects’ Irby Hightower on the workforce, the Tower Life is about to endure probably the most important transformation in its lengthy historical past. Learn extra right here. Credit score: Brenda Bazán / San Antonio ReportCompass Rose Dream college students play kickball throughout bodily schooling class. The brand new constitution faculty in San Antonio has change into a bastion of range and multiculturalism because it opened, with a mixture of location and word-of-mouth suggestions making it a most popular faculty for members of the Afghan group within the Medical Middle space, who make up half of the college’s enrollment of about 200 college students. Learn extra right here. Credit score: Brenda Bazán / San Antonio ReportChalk artist Joshua “Lakey” Hinson attracts patterns of overlapping circles in chalk on the sidewalk alongside Austin and Hays streets. Hinson makes use of his paintings as a type of activism. However in two run-ins with VIA Metropolitan Transit police, Hinson’s erasable, ornately patterned and pastel-toned chalk drawings have been equated to felony mischief and trespassing. Learn extra right here. Credit score: Scott Ball / San Antonio Report
February
President Joe Biden receives a briefing from Border Patrol officers in Brownsville, Texas on Feb. 29. Mayor Ron Nirenberg joined different South Texas mayors in a gathering with President Joe Biden in Brownsville. Like San Antonio, Brownsville operates a migrant useful resource facility meant to function a transit heart, and Nirenberg’s workplace mentioned the mayors used the 30-minute assembly to make the case for extra assets to maintain migrants shifting by their cities. Learn extra right here. Credit score: Brenda Bazán / San Antonio ReportIsabel Vasquez and Jose Ybarra embrace after the county clerk declared them formally married through the Valentine’s Day mass marriage ceremony ceremony, the place 141 {couples} grew to become spouses at precisely midnight on Valentine’s Day on the Bexar County Courthouse. Learn extra right here. Credit score: Brenda Bazán / San Antonio ReportChristopher Cullum, who has been nominated for a James Beard Basis award within the class of Texas’ greatest chef, plates a breakfast order at Cullum’s Attaboy, his restaurant in Tobin Hill. Learn extra right here. Credit score: Bria Woods / San Antonio ReportBexar County Constable for Precinct 4 Kathryn Brown dances with group members on the occasion Metropolis of San Antonio Neighborhood Coming Collectively: Working Past the March at Pittman Sullivan Park. Credit score: Brenda Bazán / San Antonio ReportRepublican presidential candidate Nikki Haley speaks at a rally at Historic Market Sq. downtown upfront of Texas’ March 5 main election. Learn extra right here. Credit score: Brenda Bazán / San Antonio ReportRafa Moreno works on the only of a customized pair of shoes inside the Little’s Boots Firm workshop. Learn extra right here. Credit score: Bria Woods / San Antonio Report
March
Vested monks worship within the sanctuary for Holy Week Chrism Mass on the Holy Spirit Church because the church marks its one hundred and fiftieth anniversary. Learn extra right here. Credit score: Brenda Bazán / San Antonio ReportKathy Valentine participates in a Dementia-Pleasant Gardening Workshop on the San Antonio Botanical Backyard, utilizing a specifically designed wheelchair-accessible raised backyard mattress. Christina Bittle began the workshop final yr for her capstone challenge as a physician of occupational remedy pupil at UT Well being San Antonio. Learn extra right here. Credit score: Brenda Bazán / San Antonio ReportThen-U.S. Rep. Matt Gaetz, (R-Florida), speaks at a rally for Brandon Herrera, Texas twenty third congressional district candidate, on the Offended Elephant. The 28-year-old YouTube character, who designs and sells his personal line of firearms, took 25% of the vote within the March main. Learn extra right here. Credit score: Brenda Bazán / San Antonio Report
April
Guests at Garner State Park await the eclipse totality on the prime of Mount Baldy on April 8. Tens of millions of residents, guests, scientists and spectators throughout the Lone Star State skilled the rarity of a complete photo voltaic eclipse — peering by heavy clouds to catch glimpses of the once-in-a-lifetime occasion. Learn extra right here. Credit score: Brenda Bazán / San Antonio ReportThe Thunderbirds, the air demonstration squadron of the U.S. Air Drive, carry out on April 6 throughout The Nice Texas Air Present at Joint Base San Antonio-Randolph. Learn extra right here. Credit score: Brenda Bazán / San Antonio ReportProfessional-Palestinian protesters name for a ceasefire in Gaza chant and protest at UTSA on April 24. Learn extra right here. Credit score: Scott Ball / San Antonio ReportKayla Miculka, proven backstage at Cornyation 2024. “Yearly for me celebrating Fiesta is Cornyation. Cornyation is life. It’s a celebration of household and associates and simply enjoyable.” Learn extra right here. Credit score: Brenda Bazán / San Antonio ReportGenise Head embraces her first youngster after a wholesome supply on April 27 on the San Antonio Nurse Midwife birthing heart. Her doula, Loreal James, celebrates. Nationwide information suggests maternal mortality charges within the U.S. are nonetheless among the many worst within the developed world, and Black moms are most affected. Learn extra right here. Credit score: Bria Woods / San Antonio ReportA parade attendee performs a toy trumpet because the Alamo Space Boy Scouts of America march through the 2024 Battle of Flowers Parade. Learn extra right here. Credit score: Scott Ball / San Antonio Report
Could
Ramona Martinez listens to Mariachi Los Parientes carry out a serenata in her front room. In San Antonio, Mom’s Day weekend is the most important weekend of the yr for mariachis apart from Fiesta, and might prolong from Thursday night to Monday morning. Learn extra right here. Credit score: Scott Ball / San Antonio ReportThe forty second annual Tejano Conjunto Competition kicks off with a Seniors Dance at VFW Publish 9186. Attendees dressed to the nines in sequins, cowboy hats and boots, festive skirts and patterned shirts strolled straight to the sleek linoleum-tiled dance flooring to take up an annual San Antonio custom, as accordion melodies and a thumping bass drum crammed the spacious corridor. Learn extra right here. Credit score: Brenda Bazán / San Antonio ReportThe pilot of the primary Condor Airways flight from Frankfurt, Germany, to San Antonio unfurls a Texas flag on Could 18 because the aircraft arrives on the gate. Just one month after the airline launched San Antonio’s first-ever nonstop flight to Europe, the service was scaled again for 2025. Learn extra right here. Credit score: Brenda Bazán / San Antonio Report
June
Margarita Rubio crosses Southwest Navy Drive whereas commuting from a physician’s appointment. As San Antonio’s South Facet booms with new companies, schooling and job alternatives, a lot of its residents consider that extra bus stops and improved wait occasions are wanted for the rising inhabitants. Learn extra right here. Credit score: Scott Ball / San Antonio ReportBottles of water are handed out on the Westwood Plaza Flats. On a sizzling summer season day, the town’s Human Companies Division distributed the water at Westwood Plaza and three different spots on the town the place San Antonio Water System shut off service, citing property managers’ long-unpaid water payments. Learn extra right here. Credit score: Brenda Bazán / San Antonio ReportMimi Lee serves conventional Korean fare to first-time prospects at Cypress Cafe on June 14, their final day within the basement of the H-E-B Cypress Tower constructing downtown. The restaurant’s homeowners acquired an eviction discover from H-E-B in Could. The San Antonio-based grocer needed to restrict entry to the constructing to H-E-B staff solely. Learn extra right here. Credit score: Bria Woods / San Antonio ReportNick Fearon, who began dancing when he was 10 years previous, performs on the Lila Cockrell Theatre, the place alumni and college students celebrated the Earle Cobb Dance Studio’s ninety fifth anniversary. Learn extra right here. Credit score: Brenda Bazán / San Antonio Report
July
Taylor Swift followers attend a listening and dance occasion for Swift’s new album. The native group <I>210 Swifties</I> that organized the occasion began off with 5 members. However since Could 2023 its social media accounts have exploded. The Instagram account amassed 200 followers in simply two months and now boasts almost 900 followers; at the moment, the group’s non-public Fb group has greater than 1,100 members. Learn extra right here. Credit score: Brenda Bazán / San Antonio ReportFourth-generation farmer and Poteet Strawberry Competition vendor Wes Stevens is proven at Stevens Farm & Ranch in Poteet. Frightened concerning the impacts that drought could have on their earnings, some farmers in rural South Texas are planting drought-tolerant cropsand have decreased the variety of acres they farm so there’s sufficient water for irrigation. Learn extra right here. Credit score: Brenda Bazán / San Antonio ReportEfficiency artist Marisela Barerra appears at wigs within the studio of Zachry Smith, the skilled make-up artist she’s labored with since 2019 to carry her characters to life. In Lechuza Information to the Lone Star State, Barrera performs the position of the legendary bird-witch creature that haunts the borderlands of northern Mexico and South Texas, preserving ne’er-do-wells in line. Learn extra right here. Credit score: Bria Woods / San Antonio ReportAn commercial exterior of The Purple Dragon Hashish Inc. on Hildebrand presents “free weed” to these 21 and older. Learn extra right here. Credit score: Scott Ball / San Antonio Report
August
Beverly Donathen pipes a birthday message on a cake inside Lucy’s Cake Store. Donathen remembers that her mom began baking desserts in 1967 when she made one for her sister. After demand for her mom’s desserts elevated her household opened the primary bakery in 1974. Lucy’s desserts celebrates their fiftieth anniversary this yr. Learn extra right here. Credit score: Bria Woods / San Antonio ReportHorse-drawn carriages go by Hemisfair on a Friday night. Later this yr, San Antonio banned horse-drawn carriages on downtown streets — the primary Texas metropolis to take action. Learn extra right here. Credit score: Brenda Bazán / San Antonio ReportA crowd yells in help of Venezuela at an illustration on the Alamo on Aug. 17. They joined tens of millions extra the world over in protest calling on the South American nation to launch voting tallies and demanding that authoritarian President Nicolás Maduro acknowledge that Edmundo Gonzalez gained the July 28 presidential election. Learn extra right here. Credit score: Brenda Bazán / San Antonio Report
September
College students of the Karen Wagner Excessive Faculty JROTC take part in a memorial honoring the victims of the 9/11 assaults together with Karen Wagner, whose legacy was honored by naming the college after her, a 1979 graduate of Judson Excessive Faculty who was among the many 125 to die when a aircraft struck the Pentagon at 9:37 a.m. on Sept. 11, 2001. Learn extra right here. Credit score: Scott Ball / San Antonio ReportUT Quarterback Arch Manning passes the ball through the first half of the soccer sport towards UTSA on Sept. 15. UTSA performed towards its highest-ranked opponent in historical past, No. 2, Texas, knocked a Heisman Trophy favourite out of the sport earlier than a nationwide tv viewers and left with a $1.6 million payout. Learn extra right here. Credit score: Scott Ball / San Antonio ReportMembers of the native and nationwide enterprise group endorse incumbent Ted Cruz for U.S. Senate, a place he has held since 2013. Learn extra right here. Credit score: Scott Ball / San Antonio ReportRobert Holliday, president of the Alamo Space Beekeepers Affiliation (AABA), reveals certainly one of his remaining beehives after shedding three in a wave of deaths in city beehives in San Antonio. Learn extra right here. Credit score: Brenda Bazán / San Antonio ReportSpurs Middle Victor Wembanyama poses for pictures throughout Spurs Media Day at The Rock at La Cantera on Sept. 30, 2024. Credit score: Bria Woods / San Antonio ReportSecond Gentleman Douglas Emhoff speaks at a rally for Kamala Harris at San Antonio School on Sept. 23. Roughly 500 folks crammed into the gymnasium to see him converse. Learn extra right here. Credit score: Bria Woods / San Antonio Report
October
Sam’s Burger Joint and Music Corridor celebrated its twenty fifth anniversary in October. The restaurant and music venue is a San Antonio establishment, its iconic neon document signal nonetheless glowing every evening. Over time it has fended off vagrants and petty crime, watched the Pearl develop right into a nationwide vacation spot for meals, drink and reside music, tussled over parking, survived a worldwide pandemic and is hanging on by seemingly infinite highway building. Learn extra right here. Credit score: Brenda Bazán / San Antonio ReportGiraffes may be seen from the balcony exterior the Spekboom Lodge on the Naylor Savanna on the San Antonio Zoo. Learn extra right here. Credit score: Bria Woods / San Antonio ReportU.S. Senator Bernie Sanders (I-Vermont) speaks on the Paper Tiger on St. Mary’s Strip. The politician was searching for to reengage potential Democratic voters within the November presidential race. Learn extra right here. Credit score: Brenda Bazán / San Antonio ReportProspects store inside Thrif-T-Mart, a grocery retailer on South Zarzamora Avenue that was later inducted into San Antonio’s Legacy Enterprise program. Right this moment, Thrif-T-Mart is owned and run by the daughter of Fermin and Ramona Rodriguez, who bought the grocery mart in 1975. Thrif-T-Mart survived the pandemic — together with an unfounded declare of price-gouging — and manages to carry its personal, regardless of an H-E-B plus! positioned proper throughout the road. Learn extra right here. Credit score: Bria Woods / San Antonio ReportBrad Wuest, president and CEO of Pure Bridge Caverns climbs as much as an attic that presumably led to the floor 1000’s of years in the past. Researchers consider it’s a risk the prehistoric cats got here into the caverns utilizing this entrance. Learn extra right here. Credit score: Scott Ball / San Antonio ReportLegislation enforcement officers examine the scene of an operational landfill for proof within the lacking individuals case of Suzanne Clark Simpson. After the actual property agent and mom of 4 went lacking from Olmos Park on Oct. 7, her husband Brad Simpson was arrested and jailed two days later. He now faces a homicide cost, regardless that she nonetheless hasn’t been discovered. Learn extra right here. Credit score: Scott Ball / San Antonio ReportDemocrats’ U.S. Senate candidate, Colin Allred, who roughly carried out on par together with his occasion’s previous standard-bearers — got here nearer than different members of his occasion in historically Republican territory in Bexar County on election evening. Learn extra right here. Credit score: Brenda Bazán / San Antonio ReportGuests stroll by Menefee Manor, a “spooky walk-through” a Westside household constructed of their yard. Every evening, Michael and Patricia Hernandez open the gates of their driveway to all comers for a stroll by their yard, to be confronted by greater than 200 ghastly figures from skeletons and rotting corpses to cackling witches and mad-eyed clowns. Learn extra right here. Credit score: Brenda Bazán / San Antonio Report
November
State Home Rep. John Lujan (R-San Antonio) hugs his mother Yolanda Lujan and pop John Lujan Jr. at his watch occasion at Missions Open Air Market on election evening. Lujan took almost 52%, to Democratic challenger Kristian Carranza’s greater than 48% within the costly Home District 118 race. This Southside seat grew to become the epicenter of Texas politics within the closing months of the election, with each events pouring in tens of millions of {dollars} to assist their candidates. Learn extra right here. Credit score: Brenda Bazán / San Antonio ReportElections workplace staffers, state screens and partisan ballot watchers are proven round midnight on election evening within the “tab room” as polling web site totals arrive electronically. Jacque Callanen, Bexar County’s elections administrator for the previous 20 years, oversaw her closing basic election earlier than retiring. Learn extra right here. Credit score: Brenda Bazán / San Antonio ReportRoca de Refugio is a nonprofit housed inside Good Shepherd Lutheran Church. Collectively they envision a “neighborhood plaza” that might have on-site housing, worship and different assets, together with language and job coaching, recreation, well being care and entrepreneurial alternatives for anybody searching for to enhance their monetary scenario in San Antonio. Learn extra right here. Credit score: Bria Woods / San Antonio ReportDr. Tarah Hadley tends to a treeshrew on the San Antonio Zoo’s clinic. She accepted the place of Senior Director of Veterinary Care on the San Antonio Zoo, making her each the primary lady and first Black particular person to take the position within the zoo’s 110-year historical past. Learn extra right here.
December
Maurine Molak has spent the years since her youngest son David’s loss of life working to guard different younger folks from on-line hurt. Earlier than her 16-year-old son died by suicide in 2016, Maurine Molak’s political exercise started and ended with voting. Now, as she gears up for her 14th journey to Washington, D.C., Molak has change into a formidable foe to the tech giants spending tens of millions to block a brand new legislation that may regulate on-line youngster security. Learn extra right here. Credit score: Brenda Bazán / San Antonio ReportAttendees take part within the procession at a posada on the Esperanza Peace and Justice Middle’s Rinconcito de Esperanza on Dec. 19. Credit score: Brenda Bazán / San Antonio ReportAna Reyes, piñata maker and co-founder of the west-side store Piñata Time, hangs piñatas exterior of her retailer. Credit score: Brenda Bazán / San Antonio ReportThe Coca-Cola Christmas Traditional expertise on the Toyota Area on a Friday evening. Credit score: Brenda Bazán / San Antonio Report
Bria Woods and Scott Ball contributed to this report.
