Funnel cake ‘queen’ of the State Fair of Texas, Wanda ‘Fernie’ Winter, has died - The Dallas Morning News

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It’s possible that millions of people have had a brush with Wanda Fern Locke Winter — or, at least, with her family’s famous food. After more than 50 years as a State Fair of Texas concessionaire, Winter died in Dallas on June 20, 2021 at age 95.

Winter earned the “queen” nickname not only because she is credited as the person to bring the first funnel cakes to the Fried Food Capital of Texas, but also because she was one of the oldest members of State Fair royalty and would hold court on her “throne” — a wingback chair at The Dock, one of her five concessions stands at the State Fair of Texas.

Wanda Winter was born and raised in East Dallas. She and her husband, John Winter, started working at the State Fair of Texas in 1967 and brought the funnel cake to the fair in the 1980s. Although it would be their most enduring legacy, the family didn't realize it at the time — and no one knows the exact year.(Courtesy of Christi Erpillo)

Until she was 93 years old, Winter would visit the fair regularly, ruling the room: She’d chat with guests she’d known for decades, take photos with kids and supervise the cooks to be sure they were making her food correctly, her four daughters say.

“She watched every move,” says her youngest daughter, Johnna McKee.

The 5-foot-2 Winter is described by her four daughters as a “tough businesswoman,” a “live wire” and a “firecracker.”

For more than half of her life, she was at the State Fair of Texas yearly.

When the State Fair of Texas was canceled in 2020, the news came as a relief to family members who knew their matriarch wouldn’t have wanted to miss it. She’d been ill, and 2020 would have been the first year she wouldn’t have been able to attend. Her family members say she “lived out her days” and died peacefully with family nearby.

This fall, the sisters plan to maintain her throne at The Dock, decorated with flowers.

“Mother taught us so much. So much about hospitality. So much about love,” McKee says. Their concessions company “wouldn’t be where it is without Mother and Daddy’s guidance and love.”

Although most of her friends and family called her Wanda, she took on the nickname “Fernie” when her daughters started naming State Fair dishes after her. And she loved the attention.

Winter’s daughters have won three Big Tex Choice Awards with her famous name: Fernie’s Hoppin’ John Cake (2018), Fernie’s Holy Moly Carrot Cake Roly (2015) and Fernie’s Deep Fried Peaches and Cream (2009). Several others have been finalists. The sisters plan to enter the Big Tex Choice Awards this year, as they do every year.

“We’re trying to come up with something as we speak,” says Christi Erpillo, one of her daughters. It will carry Fernie’s famous name.

Wanda "Fernie" Winter insisted that police officers eat for free at her State Fair of Texas booths. She's pictured here with members of the Dallas Police Department as two of her daughters, Johnna McKee (center left) and Christi Erpillo (center right).(Courtesy of Christi Erpillo)

Although funnel cakes will be Winter’s legacy, they arrived at the fair two decades after Winter and her late husband, John Winter, started working there. They got their first jobs at the State Fair of Texas in 1967, trying to make a little extra cash for a trip to Las Vegas. After falling in love with the once-a-year carnival, the family became concessionaires and were known for selling “nachitos,” which were cheese-covered tortilla chips topped with ground jalapeños.

Funnel cakes arrived in the 1980s, and no one knows the year.

“We didn’t know the funnel cake was going to be such a phenomenon,” Erpillo says.

As the story goes, Winter and her husband went square-dancing in Branson, Missouri, in the early ’80s and tasted their first funnel cake. Winter decided the State Fair of Texas needed this fried food made of swirled pancake dough that gets fried and topped with powdered sugar.

Fernie’s funnel cakes became an iconic State Fair of Texas food, up there with Fletcher’s corny dogs and Little Bob’s smoked bologna. They were one of many dishes the family has sold over the years.

In this 2007 file photo, Christi Erpillo (left) and her mom Wanda "Fernie" Winter hold the Fried Chili Frito Burrito, a new item sold that year at the State Fair of Texas.(LOUIS DeLUCA / 122038)

The Winters’ daughters remain involved at the State Fair of Texas. Erpillo calls herself the “mad scientist,” coming up with surprising recipes for Big Tex Choice Awards entries. McKee has a special relationship with funnel cakes, having gone into labor in 1987 while frying up a batch at the State Fair of Texas. (Little Johnathan visited the fair at 1 week old that year, because that’s where the rest of the family was: working.) Wanda’s granddaughter Ashly Esses even got married at the fairgrounds.

Erpillo was quoted in a Dallas Morning News story in 2009 as saying that the State Fair of Texas is “not something we do, it’s who we are.”

Many of the family’s major milestones happened during those 24 days. In 1989, Wanda’s husband died, and the family had to lean on other concessionaires to run their booths while they attended “Daddy’s” funeral. Another year, Winter broke her back on Texas-OU weekend after she slipped and fell near the ice machine. As she was being carted to the ambulance, she instructed two of her daughters to stay behind.

“Y’all stay here and run my business,” they remember her saying.

On the last day of the fair that year, Winter returned to the fair, in a wheelchair, in the pouring rain.

“She said, ‘That wasn’t the way I was going to leave the fair this year, in an ambulance,’ ” Erpillo recalled. All four daughters laughed at the memory.

In addition to being well-known among State Fair of Texas concessionaires, Wanda Winter and her husband, John Winter, were skilled square dancers.(Courtesy of Christi Erpillo)

Wanda and John Winter were skilled square dancers, and they are credited with bringing the National Square Dance Convention to Dallas in 1965.

“They were famous for their dancing before they were famous for the fair,” Erpillo says. They performed at Texas Gov. Preston Smith’s inauguration in the late 1960s, and they often danced in front of the Hall of State in Fair Park.

“She loved to entertain,” says her daughter Joanne Czerwinski. “Whether it was 15 people or 20 people after a square dance or millions at the fair. She loved to be there and meet people.”

She was also proud of her State Fair of Texas legacy and had no trouble bragging about it. Her daughters remember taking her to doctors’ appointments and hearing her tell the story to her nurses.

“She’d say, ‘Have you ever been to the State Fair of Texas? I brought the funnel cake to the state fair.’ ”

She was a long-time supporter of the Dallas Police Department, and officers always ate free at Fernie’s concessions stands. The family has arranged for the DPD Honor Guard to be pallbearers at Winter’s funeral.

Winter is survived by her four daughters and their families: Vicki and Ron Ingram; Joanne Czerwinski; Bert and Christi Erpillo; Dan and Johnna McKee; and six grandchildren and 14 great-grandchildren. Private funeral services are pending. The family plans to host a larger celebration on Fair Park grounds that will be open to the public.

In lieu of flowers, the family asks that donations be sent to the Youth Livestock Auction. They hope to start a scholarship fund in Wanda Fern Locke Winter’s name.

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Funnel cake ‘queen’ of the State Fair of Texas, Wanda ‘Fernie’ Winter, has died - The Dallas Morning News
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