Decades of State Fair of Texas memorabilia surround Melanie Linnear, including her very first ticket from 1983. You would think she spent her whole life in the state with her love for the Fair, but it wasn’t until the fall of 1980 that she settled down in Oak Cliff.
Photography by Amani Sodiq
“I came from a suburban school, more like a rural suburb (in Shreveport),” she says. “And then I transfer into South Oak Cliff (SOC), where I go to a school that’s predominantly Black … it was more like a cultural transition for me.”
Entering a school system where kids grew up together for their entire lives, it took quite some time for Linnear to get acclimated. Despite the struggle, she made varsity cheer going into her junior year and has been SOC’s biggest cheerleader ever since.
As a member of the South Oak Cliff Alumni Association, Linnear says she is part of the one of the most well-known graduating classes of the school, the Class of ’83, because the group continues to be involved in our area through monthly gatherings, like the roller rink night she attended in August.
“SOC as a whole, our alumni association, we’re more. We work together, the alumni, we come together. We do things for the school, we give back,” she says.
This school year, each SOC alumni class donated $100 from their alumni fund to help students enter the new semester. In previous years, such as when the boys went to state, the ’83 grads got together to feed the band, the football team and the cheerleaders before they hit the road.
“We always say, ‘Once a golden bear, always a golden bear,’” she says.
And she lives that out every chance she can get. Since about 2011, Linnear has hosted and attended several events for SOC alums, including alumni picnics that have included up to 700 former students.
“Even though some of us no longer live in the community, we’ve learned to come together as by-products of the community,” she says.
She even passes down the tradition. Her daughter graduated from South Oak Cliff also as a varsity cheerleader. When she cheered at SOC, Linnear coached the varsity cheerleading squad even after her daughter graduated from the high school.
“For me, it was my legacy,” Linnear says.
Linnear still lives in Oak Cliff, along with her mother and her sister. Her time at South Oak Cliff gave her the opportunity to participate in INROADS, which enrolled minority students to prepare them for college with a focus in business. Through the program, she did an internship with Republic Bank, which is known as Bank of America today.
Photography by Amani Sodiq
That internship led her to be hired full time to work at Republic Bank while attending community college part time. Then, she got recruited to work for the State Fair of Texas in 1989, and has now worked with the Fair for over 35 years.
“We’ve grown, we’ve evolved, but when I started here at the State Fair of Texas, I was recruited because at the time the State Fair did not have a diverse staff. And so I came in as the first African-American woman,” she says.
The State Fair of Texas staff was about 27 people when she started and has grown to 64 today. An year-round venture, she says she’s done it all for the Fair from tape measuring and marking up concrete to calculating how rides spin. Her position today is as senior vice president of concessions for food and beverage, where she determines the menu for those coming into town throughout fair season.
“The biggest part of what I’ve done has been food and beverage,” she says. “With food and beverage, it’s just why people come to the Fair. It’s the number one reason people go to fairs … it’s all about the food.”
Linnear does more than just hold a title in the food department. She continues her education, earning a leadership certificate through the Texas Association of Fairs and Events in conjunction with the Texas Agri-Life Extension Program at Texas A&M University and implementing the Big Tex Business Masterclass, a program that educates and helps to incorporate minority vendors as participants within fairs, festivals and events.
“We are really, really proud of what we’ve accomplished, the things we have done for food and beverage, the revenue produced and everything,” she says.
A project she has been a part of includes the introduction of the Big Tex Choice Awards that honors categories of local vendors that will come to feed the Fair. Before she leaves her position to “retire,” a jump she hopes to make before turning 67 to open a local tea house, she aspires to bring in foods from all over the world to the Fair.
“I’m already working on next year, what my vision is for how to get that product here, but more international street foods,” she says. “I want to bring new, different, something that people would otherwise not eat.”
As for this year’s State Fair of Texas, Linnear says she continues to focus on not only Texas’ annual event, but the industry as a whole working with young professionals to keep the Fair season growing and growing for years to come.
