On 7th Avenue in Corsicana, Texas sits a large two-story brick building, with most of the front large windows stretching from ground to roof. In front of the building is a landscaped area with some benches for sitting and a large white sign near the street. In a classic vintage script, it reads “Collin Street Bakery,” and below that “Original DeLuxe Fruitcake.” What started it all for this highly successful bakery business was the epitome of a classic holiday dessert, a treat that you either love or hate…fruitcake. While many of us use the word “fruitcake” to refer to some of our fellow human beings, the real fruitcakes are being made fresh every day in Corsicana at their flagship location bakery and shipped out across the world, along with many other cookies, pastries, and desserts.

Immediately inside the front doors is a staircase leading to the upstairs corporate office. Downstairs, a visitor’s lounge is to the right, decorated with memorabilia from over the years. To the left is the bakery and shop, with shelves of merchandise and fruitcakes. Assorted baked goods sit behind a long stretch of glass, displaying the freshly-baked-that-morning cookies, breads, muffins, scones, and more. A sign to the right of the glass reads, “Welcome. Est 1896. Sandwiches Made Fresh Daily. Coffee, espresso, cookies, cake.” Beneath the sign, a basket with a handwritten memo, “Day-old bread ó price.” A book sits on a counter for customers to flip through, filled with photos of decorated birthday cakes made to order. Old relics and keepsakes decorate the interior of the first floor, and shelves are stocked with cake tins, jars, and cookbooks.

For the most accurate and genuine information on the bakery, since they began in 1896, Postcards had the pleasure of speaking with the head of Collin Street Bakery’s public relations, Hayden Crawford.

So this is a huge bakery.

This is a huge bakery. We were founded in 1896, and the business at the time was on Collin Street, thus the name. This German baker namedAugust “Gus” Weidman, had migrated from Germany, and he landed somewhere on the coast coming by train. He got off in Corsicana and set up a little shop there, just a little bakery that became so successful that he moved the production into a new, bigger location. Fruitcakes were one of his specialties, but he also made breads and cakes and pies. Gus became partners with Thomas McElwee, a local entrepreneur here in Corsicana. Because the bakery was so successful, they built a hotel on top of the bakery. Thomas McElwee was connected and knew a lot of stars and celebrities around the United States. Corsicana was a big boomtown back then; oil had been discovered, so lots of people were coming in and out of town. These stars would come in and stay at the hotel, and they would give them fruitcakes to take with them. JohnRingling came through with his circus, got the cakes, took them back to Europe, and gave them to friends. Those people starting writing to us asking how they could get another cake, and that’s kind of how the mailing business began. We recognized we had one and continued to build it.

Do you like fruitcake?

I do eat it once a year. It’s a little too sweet for me, but I eat it around thanksgiving and Christmas. Pecans are a main ingredient. We have the world’s largest pecan shelling plant right outside of town, so we shell our pecans fresh almost daily. Pineapple is also a major player. We had the world’s largest organic farm in Costa Rica—3,000 acres. Fifty million pineapples were produced annually. We sold the majority of that to Dole, and we now have about 115 acres down there and are continuing to grow a pineapple. The fruitcake has cherries and raisins; papaya is also grown at our farm. It’s about15% batter, and that’s a clover honey batter, and the honey is sourced locally.

The holiday season is coming up, what does this mean for the bakery?

When we are in full production—October, November, December—our demand can go up to 20,000 pounds of pecans a day. A trailer truckload is40,000 pounds, so that only lasts for two days. With our own sheller here locally, we can guarantee quality and quantity.

Are those pecans all just for this location, or is that all of the locations combined?

The fruitcakes are all made here and shipped to the stores. The stores, we have 5 of them, bake their product for the most part, but the fruitcakes we make and bake here, then ship to the stores.

When did the bakery start offering some of the many products other than the fruitcake?

Mail order is where we do a lot of our business; we’re in all 50 states and196 foreign countries. In the seventies and early eighties, we only sold one product in three sizes, and that was the fruitcake. We began to see a decline in sales, so we started to offer a new item, which we call pecan cakes. We made an apricot pecan cake, apple cinnamon pecan cake, and strawberry pecan cake.

What’s the next move?

This year, we are introducing a caramel and sea salt pecan cake, and a cherry chocolate chip pecan cake, as well as an energy bar. The high-calorie count of fruitcakes made the more health-conscious start to wonder how many calories were in fruitcake. We have now run into a community of people—athletes, long-distance cyclers—they want calories. They want food dense in calories. They contacted us saying they use our fruitcake as an energy source for their bike races to carb up. Big game hunters started packing for weeks at a time, and they use our fruitcake. There’s a group of spelunkers who go down into Mexico every year and explore this cave, and I’ve been giving them coffee every year. This year, I thought I’d give them fruitcake as well. It turns out all these cavers preferred the fruitcake over their other types of energy bars.

To ensure the quality of the products put out every day, the kitchen will bake the products and bring a tray of samples upstairs to be taste-tested by the office before it goes for sale to customers. The products are checked every day at every location for quality and consistency, a test that they call “CookieCourt.” The bakers will wait for at least three people to taste the products and assign them a grade. If it scores a 90-100, it is put in cases and sold to customers. If it falls short of 90%, that product is pulled and not sold. The quality control manager Skypes each store every morning to visually check the products and make sure every location is selling the same baked goods, all the same, top quality.

In the 1940s, Collin Street Bakery was sold by Gus Weidman and Thomas McElwee’s widow to an investment group and has not changed hands since. Lee McNutt passed the presidency of the company to his son, L.W. McNutt. A third-generation McNutt continues working for the bakery’s corporate office, as one of the families who have been with the bakery since the beginning.

We embark on our tour, starting in the visitor’s lounge downstairs. A giant cake tin (that was used for a real, 183-pound cake) is mounted to the wall and has been transformed into a working clock. History as dense as their fruitcakes crowd the walls, with thank you notes and recognitions sent in from all over the world. A plaque is framed on the wall from Guinness Book of World Records for “The World’s Largest Fruitcake.”

Finally, it’s time to see the inside of the bakery, the workshop, the art studio—the place where the magic happens. We enter the baking warehouse,
and it almost feels and looks like we are walking around Willy Wonka’s chocolate factory, with all the giant equipment and conveyor belts. We see
the giant mixers that turn the ingredients, with the dough being mixed in
300-pound bowls.

We are shown the assembly lines where the fruitcakes get built and decorated by many individual hands before they are put onto trays and placed in ginormous ovens that can bake 1,660 cakes in each oven per hour. After baking, the cakes are cooled in a room full of air blasters at 40 degrees F. The cakes are then wrapped in cellophane and sent through an x-ray to check for any possible flaws before being dropped into tins. The bakery has converted old bookbinding machines to wrap boxes snugly around the cake tins. The cakes are placed on a pallet, then sent out for shipping for the world to enjoy.

All HEB stores in Texas will be carrying Collin Street Bakery products this upcoming year, while many locations already sell an assortment of the bakery’s cakes. You can also find their cakes at Brookshire Brothers. The bakery continues to source their pecans from growers in Texas, Georgia, and Louisiana and they only use native pecans. As opposed to paper shell pecans, natives are grown smaller and more compact, but with more flavor, making them the higher quality nut.

Visit collinstreet.com to shop online. Collin Street Bakery’s main flagship location can be reached at (903) 874-8111, and they are located at 401 W 7th Avenue, Corsicana, TX 75110.

The post Texas Treasure: Collin Street Bakery appeared first on Postcards Magazine.

Mary McCarley

Photos by Libby Rogers

“Save a child. Save a family. Save a city.” The motto for Arise2Read in Walker County sets the precedent for the mission and passion behind the program that works to improve the literacy of elementary students.

Did you know?

2 out of 3 students who do not read proficiently by the end of 4th grade will end up either on welfare or in jail. (teachforamerica.org)

However…

Children in poverty who read proficiently by the end of 3rd grade have an 89% graduation rate. (blogs.edweek.org)

What can you do about it?

You can impact the lives of children, teachers, and families and make a difference in communities by helping us focus on 2nd grade reading ability.

Brian Gedelian

How?

By becoming a volunteer and partnering with churches and our school districts in Walker County to help boost reading proficiency.

Do you need to have a background in education?

No. You need a willing heart and the ability to work with a child on a basic sight-word list. Training will be provided.

So, how do I sign up for the training?

Easy! Grab your phone, tablet, or computer and visit uhbc.net/A2R. By visiting the website, you will be able to select a training date, contact by email, or even make a donation to Arise2Read directly.

Holly and BJ McMichael

The Huntsville ISD Arise2Read program is run by husband and wife duo Holly and BJ McMichael. The pair met in University Heights Baptist Church student ministry and have been married for almost 18 years. Holly and BJ are both Hornets. Holly grew up here with her family, and BJ moved to Huntsville in the fifth grade. Holly’s great grandfather was a charter member of the church, making her and BJ’s children fifth generation members at UHBC. The couple graduated from Huntsville High School together; she went off to Baylor, and BJ went to SHSU. Holly was serving in a church in Dallas when BJ came on board there as the student minister. They began dating, and the rest is history; the dynamic couple has been back in Huntsville for almost fifteen years. They are actively involved in their school, church, and community with their son Elijah (13), who towers over the rest of his family at six feet, and daughter Trinity (10), “the dynamite that comes in a small package.”

Pamela Stanford

Holly is an education major who formerly taught. She took about 10 years off to have kids and raise her family before going back to school as a sub. She got her elementary teaching certificate and began working again in the field where she found true passion and satisfaction. When she heard about Arise2Read through networking, she was deeply moved by the mission and said to herself, “We have to bring this to Huntsville.” She visualized so many of her students who could benefit from something like this. Postcards sat down at UHBC with the McMichaels to share the program that they, the church, and schools are so rightfully passionate about. Arise2Read is perhaps one of the most crucial and productive literacy programs that has ever come to Huntsville, Texas. When it comes to being a Community Builder, this program has proven to be one of the most essential building blocks to the future of HISD and the Walker County community.

BJ: We were doing the student ministry here for about twelve years, and about three years ago, God called us into a new position of small groups and outreach. Part of this program falls into that outreach part.”

Rosie Knight

Holly: We started in January 2018 by doing a pilot program. Harvey prevented us from going to get trained for the program in Memphis, so we brought Ellen Ellis here and she trained us. She is fabulous; she’s on the board for Arise2Read in Memphis. She trained us and a small group of people; starting out, we partnered with three churches, University Heights, Covenant Fellowship, and Greater Zion to get volunteers. We started trainings in the fall, did a 13-week program, and had 47 volunteers. Each volunteer represents about two kids. We tutored every kid we could get for as many volunteers as we had. And at the end of the semester, when their progress was tested—of these 96 kids, everybody had doubled or better than when they started.”

What key points would you tell people who had never heard of this program and who are interested?

BJ: The way we would describe it is a literacy program for Walker County that allows volunteers from various churches, local businesses, and civic clubs to take an active role in the lives of children in our public schools. Volunteers tutor one hour per week, and we utilize a simple site word approach to help build accuracy and fluency. This allows all volunteers to help; they don’t have to have an educational background to come in and help with sight words.

Sight word list

Holly: We specifically focus on sight words. Fry’s sight word list is a thousand words, and the student should be able to recognize by the end of second grade about 330 words. We really want them to be able to say it with automaticity, within about 3 seconds. They don’t need to sound it out, they need to recognize it; research shows that the more words they can recognize on sight, it frees up space in their brain and helps them comprehend. So we pretest the child at the beginning with the sight word list; they go as far as they can until they’ve missed five words. So, if they made it to word 100 and that was their fifth word missed, we would subtract five from that last word, so their score would be a 95. So then to figure out where they start, if they made it past word 50, we subtract 20 from their pretest score and that would be their starting word. So, if a kid’s pretest score was 95, they would start with word 75, which will hopefully encompass some of those words they’ve missed. If they don’t make it to word 50, then we start with word one at the very beginning. As volunteers come in, they get a folder that shows them what site word the kid is going to start with.

Using a marker board

The first 100 words make up about 67% of all words that kids need to know to read, and the Fry’s sight word list is grouped in works of 100 based on grade level. The goal is not to get to 1,000 necessarily, the goal is just for them to retain these words and get as far as they can. Each session, they highlight the words they get right and they circle the words they get wrong. Once they’ve missed five words every session they stop, and they do a process where they spend time repeating the word, they write the word, they use the word in a sentence. We have games they can play that help them retain the word. BJ always says, ‘Children speak the language of play.’ Then they spend some time reading and working on fluency. The volunteers document everything and, at the end of the year, we can look at how many sessions each kid had and post-test them the same way we pre-test them. We are able to compare these scores, which gives us data to monitor how much progress they made. We do end up sending that data to Memphis, and the school uses the data for RTI (Response to Intervention) type things.

With the Race Car Game, you roll a dice and move the car through spaces where you must read the words as the car passes over them.

BJ: Its not just the educational component, it’s the social component of having a community member come in and show with their time that they care. Since you don’t have to have an educational background, everything pretty much runs like a machine once they get trained and get used to it. The faces of the kids just light up when they see their volunteer coming.

Holly: A lot of times, kids don’t get one-on-one. Even if they have small groups, there may be 4-6 other kids sitting at the small group table with them—and if they’re coming from a home where they’re not the only kid, or their parents are struggling, it’s hard for them to get that one-on-one attention. But this is 30 minutes, twice a week, where one person is showing up to meet just with them. They’re getting one-on-one time with an adult who is encouraging them, who is interested in them, who is excited about the good things they are doing—who’s just showing up faithfully and consistently for them—and that’s huge.

What are some of your short-term or long-term goals for this in Huntsville? What do you hope it looks like this upcoming year in 2019?

Holly: I would like to see us in all four elementary schools at the second grade level with enough volunteers for that group to be tutored twice a week. I’d like to see our sub list grow so people can find subs when they need to be out. I would like to have more churches partner with us in this. I am a member of University Heights, but Arise2Read is not University Heights; it is meant to bring multiple churches and civic organizations and clubs together to do what the mission says: “Save a child, save a family, save a city.”

Arise2Read is currently in the following HISD schools: Scott Johnson Elementary, Huntsville Elementary, and Huntsville Intermediate School. The following Huntsville churches currently partner with the program: University Heights Baptist Church, Greater Zion Missionary Baptist Church, Covenant Fellowship, St. Stephen’s Episcopal Church, Northside Baptist Church, Faith Lutheran, and St. Paul United Methodist. The next two training dates are scheduled to be December 17, 2018 and January 14, 2019. Please contact Holly or BJ Michael via phone or email to get involved!

Holly McMichael: Arise 2 Read Walker County Director and Head Coach. 936-577-2516. Email: Arise2Read@uhbc.net.

BJ McMichael: Head Coach. 936-577-2516. Email: billyjack@uhbc.net.

The post Community Builders: Arise2Read appeared first on Postcards Magazine.

Photos by Libby Rogers

It’s 10:00 am on a Friday morning in Willis, and the parking lot for Southern Tractor bustles with trucks coming and going. An employee works in the warehouse on the side of the building, while a couple of customers enter. Southern Tractor has left their old red barn building, but they sure haven’t left the tractor game in East Texas. Recently moving just two blocks north on the IH45 frontage road, the business has relocated into a large new building in order to expand their roots and grow with the surrounding area. The team of six employees had been settling into their new location for just two weeks at the time of meeting with Postcards, adapting to their new environment and enjoying the new space. Attesting to their strong work ethic, no one stopped working the whole time we were there. We stood at the front counter, interviewing them as they actively tended to customers who came in.

The family decided to enter the market of selling tractors as residents in the rural, farming town of Woodville, Texas. “We were trying to make a livin’,” Linda Durham says about starting Southern Tractor in 1972. Since the original location in Woodville, the company expanded into Texas, with their second location opening in Lufkin. The area had a need for what they offered, and therefore the business was able to branch out even further into Willis in 2008 and Porter in 2010. They are now one of the top tractor dealers in the southern states.

Linda’s daughter Amy has worked with her mother since 2004 and says her mom has taught her well as to the ins and outs of the business. Amy has spent all her life immersed in the business and watched Southern Tractor grow into what it is today, as the company was started four years before Amy was born.

There are currently three Southern Tractor locations with a close-knit staff at each to give customers the most personable and accessible service possible in the industry. Their Willis location has six employees, with both the Lufkin and Porter locations having a team of five each. One of the service managers has been with Linda at the business for 17 years, with another employee having stayed loyal for 35 years and counting, a testament to the amicable and team-driven environment of the company. Tommy Roberts is the salesman, and he has been with the company for over six years. Says Linda, “Tommy is very knowledgeable about the product lines we offer and loves to help people figure out what they need for the job they have.” The three mechanics have over 50 years experience combined. Amy says, “We work hard to get units out of our shop and back into yards where they need to be.”

“We don’t really talk about what we do a lot, we just do it. My employees know that I dearly appreciate everything everyone does,” says Linda.

In ’72, Southern Tractor’s first products they started with at the Woodville location were Long tractors. Since then, the business has expanded in a parallel fashion with the surrounding East Texas area that continues to grow more quickly as the years go by. When you walk in the front doors, clean and organized products of popular and reliable brands line the walls. Southern Tractor takes pride in the product lines they carry by putting their focus on quality over quantity.

Southern Tractor offers a range of products from Kioti, Hustler, Bad Boy, Cub Cadet, Stihl, and Echo. They are especially proud to carry Stihl—the top-selling brand of handheld equipment. The business is distinctive from box stores because they offer what others don’t by being a “servicing dealer”—meaning they offer parts, sales, and service at all three of their locations. You can have your new piece of machinery serviced, registered, and covered with a warranty in one visit with the team at your local Southern Tractor. In addition, they also sell a wide variety of implements—basically anything that attaches to a tractor. With additional space offered by the new showroom, Southern Tractor is able to carry the full line of Stihl equipment—and they have gold and silver certified Stihl mechanics on staff.

The business pushes on toward defending their reputable success as a dealer in Texas, the biggest tractor selling state in the country. “Willis is growing, and we are growing with them.” Linda says definitively. “I’d build another one if I had the people to work it.” At the rate they’ve been moving, it wouldn’t be surprising for the family to one day open more locations in more rural Texas towns with a demand for farm and tractor equipment. Linda lives in Willis and is at the store’s beck and call when she is not there herself, which is rare. If you stop by the Willis store, chances are you’ll catch her.

12770 IH45 N
Willis, TX 77378
(936) 856-6161

The post Business Focus: Southern Tractor appeared first on Postcards Magazine.

Photos by Libby Rogers

Off 7th Avenue in Corsicana, Texas sits a large two-story brick building, with most of the front large windows stretching from ground to roof. In front of the building is a landscaped area with some benches for sitting and a large white sign near the street. In classic vintage script, it reads “Collin Street Bakery,” and below that “Original DeLuxe Fruitcake.” What started it all for this largely successful bakery business was the epitome of a classic holiday dessert, a treat that you either love or hate…fruitcake. While many of us use the word “fruitcake” to refer to some of our fellow human beings, the real fruitcakes are being made fresh every day in Corsicana at their flagship location bakery and shipped out across the world, along with many other cookies, pastries, and desserts.

Immediately inside the front doors is a staircase leading to the upstairs corporate office. Downstairs, a visitor’s lounge is to the right, decorated with memorabilia from over the years. To the left is the bakery and shop, with shelves of merchandise and fruitcakes. Assorted baked goods sit behind a long stretch of glass, displaying the freshly-baked-that-morning cookies, breads, muffins, scones, and more. A sign to the right of the glass reads, “Welcome. Est 1896. Sandwiches Made Fresh Daily. Coffee, espresso, cookies, cake.” Beneath the sign, a basket with a handwritten memo, “Day old bread ½ price.” A book sits on a counter for customers to flip through, filled with photos of decorated birthday cakes made to order. Old relics and keepsakes decorate the interior of the first floor, and shelves are stocked with cake tins, jars, and cookbooks.

For the most accurate and genuine information on the bakery since they began in 1896, Postcards had the pleasure of speaking with the head of Collin Street Bakery’s public relations, Hayden Crawford.

So this is a huge bakery.

This is a huuuge bakery. We were founded in 1896, and the business at the time was on Collin Street, thus the name. This German baker named August “Gus” Weidman, had migrated from Germany, and he landed somewhere on the coast coming by train. He got off in Corsicana and set up a little shop there, just a little bakery that became so successful that he moved the production into a new, bigger location. Fruitcakes were one of his specialties, but he also made breads and cakes and pies. Gus became partners with Thomas McElwee, a local entrepreneur here in Corsicana. Because the bakery was so successful, they built a hotel on top of the bakery. Thomas McElwee was connected and knew a lot of stars and celebrities around the United States. Corsicana was a big boomtown back then; oil had been discovered, so lots of people were coming in and out of town. These stars would come in and stay at the hotel, and they would give them fruitcakes to take with them. John Ringling came through with his circus, got the cakes, took them back to Europe, and gave them to friends. Those people starting writing us asking how they could get another cake, and that’s kind of how the mailing business began. We recognized we had one and continued to build it.

Do you like the fruitcake?

I do eat it once a year. It’s a little too sweet for me, but I eat it around Thanksgiving and Christmas. Pecans are a main ingredient. We have the world’s largest pecan shelling plant right outside of town, so we shell our pecans fresh almost daily. Pineapple is also a major player. We had the world’s largest organic farm in Costa Rica—3,000 acres. Fifty million pineapples were produced annually. We sold the majority of that to Dole, and we now have about 115 acres down there and are continuing to grow pineapple. The fruitcake has cherries and raisins; papaya is also grown at our farm. It’s about 15% batter; and that’s a clover honey batter, and the honey is sourced locally.

The holiday season is coming up, what does this mean for the bakery?

When we are in full production—October, November, December—our demand can go up to 20,000 pounds of pecans a day. A trailer truckload is 40,000 pounds, so that only lasts us for two days. With our own sheller here locally, we can guarantee quality and quantity.

Are those pecans all just for this location, or is that all of the locations combined?

The fruitcakes are all made here and shipped to the stores. The stores, we have 5 of them, bake their product for the most part, but the fruitcakes we make and bake here, then ship to the stores.

When did the bakery start offering some of the many products other than the fruitcake?

Mail order is where we do a lot of our business; we’re in all 50 states and 196 foreign countries. In the seventies and early eighties, we only sold one product in three sizes, and that was the fruitcake. We began to see a decline in sales, so we started to offer a new item, which we call pecan cakes. We made an apricot pecan cake, apple cinnamon pecan cake, and strawberry pecan cake.

What’s the next move?

This year, we are introducing a caramel and sea salt pecan cake, and a cherry chocolate chip pecan cake, as well as an energy bar. The high calorie count of fruitcakes made the more health conscious start to wonder how many calories were in fruitcake. We have now run into a community of people—athletes, long-distance cyclers—they want calories. They want food dense in calories. They contacted us saying they use our fruitcake as an energy source for their bike races to carb up. Big game hunters started packing for weeks at a time, and they use our fruitcake. There’s a group of spelunkers who go down into Mexico every year and explore this cave, and I’ve been giving them coffee every year. This year, I thought I’d give them fruitcake as well. It turns out all these cavers preferred the fruitcake over their other types of energy bars.

To ensure the quality of the products put out every day, the kitchen will bake the products and bring a tray of samples upstairs to be taste-tested by the office before it goes for sale to customers. The products are checked every day at every location for quality and consistency, a test that they call “Cookie Court.” The bakers will wait for at least three people to taste the products and assign them a grade. If it scores a 90-100, it is put in cases and sold to customers. If it falls short of 90%, that product is pulled and not sold. The quality control manager Skypes each store every morning to visually check the products and make sure every location is selling the same baked goods, all the same top quality.

In the 1940s, Collin Street Bakery was sold by Gus Weidman and Thomas McElwee’s widow to an investment group and has not changed hands since. Lee McNutt passed the presidency of the company to his son, L.W. McNutt. A third generation McNutt continues working for the bakery’s corporate office, as one of the families who have been with the bakery since the beginning.

We embark on our tour, starting in the visitor’s lounge downstairs. A giant cake tin (that was used for a real, 183-pound cake) is mounted to the wall and has been transformed into a working clock. History as dense as their fruitcakes crowds the walls, with thank you notes and recognitions sent in from all over the world. A plaque is framed on the wall from Guiness Book of World Records for “The World’s Largest Fruitcake.”

Finally, it’s time to see the inside of the bakery, the workshop, the art studio—the place where the magic happens. We enter the baking warehouse, and it almost feels and looks like we are walking around Willy Wonka’s chocolate factory, with all the giant equipment and conveyor belts. We see the giant mixers that turn the ingredients, with the dough being mixed in 300-pound bowls.

We are shown the assembly lines where the fruitcakes get built and decorated by many individual hands, before they are put onto trays and placed in ginormous ovens that can bake 1,660 cakes in each oven per hour. After baking, the cakes are cooled in a room full of air blasters at 40 degrees F. The cakes are then wrapped in cellophane and sent through an x-ray to check for any possible flaws before being dropped into tins. The bakery has converted old bookbinding machines to wrap boxes snugly around the cake tins. The cakes are placed on a pallet, then sent out for shipping for the world to enjoy.

All HEB stores in Texas will be carrying Collin Street Bakery products this upcoming year, while many locations already sell an assortment of the bakery’s cakes. You can also find their cakes at Brookshire Brothers. The bakery continues to source their pecans from growers in Texas, Georgia, and Louisiana, and they only use native pecans. As opposed to paper shell pecans, natives are grown smaller and more compact, but with more flavor, making them the higher quality nut.

Visit collinstreet.com to shop online. Collin Street Bakery’s main flagship location can be reached at (903) 874-8111, and they are located at 401 W 7th Avenue, Corsicana, TX 75110.

The post Texas Treasures: Collin Street Bakery appeared first on Postcards Magazine.

Photos by Julie Knight

“This is a quilt that was made for us. For Joanne and myself. This just depicts the different parts of our life,” Sonny says, gesturing toward a quilt laid atop the neat bed, with different memorabilia in each square. We leave the front room, following him through his home as he bashfully tells us about his life, and shows us the array of achievements that line his walls and stretch throughout a few rooms of the house. “An example of what has been done, or said, or whatever about me,” Sonny says as he waves his arm toward of wall of plaques at his home in Huntsville, Texas. The photographer and I giggle at his funny and disengaged humility. You can tell he has had to talk about himself a handful of times before, and he is not one to enjoy talking about himself. Although he could have declined our offer and saved himself the trouble of dragging out all of his prize belt buckles, he accepted to be interviewed and was as sweet and gracious as they come.

A pioneer of rodeo in Texas, L.N. “Sonny” Sikes is also a Sam Houston State rodeo legend. At 18 years old, he was the first person to compete in a collegiate rodeo for Sam Houston State. While there, he won the first national title, wowing onlookers while making a glorious first impression for the Sam Houston State University Rodeo Team. He went on to compete in roping and steer wrestling throughout his college years, setting the precedent for many successful years afterward. The rodeo program started off strong and has stayed that way, defending their reputable success. Years later, Sonny would be inducted into the Texas Cowboy Hall of Fame. When asked if he had any idea his career would turn into what it did, Sonny shrugs and responds, “I was just doin’ what I love to do.” He started roping when he was only 2 or 3 years old, taught by his father, L.N. Sikes, Sr., a gifted cowboy and founder of The Paint Horse Association.

Sikes graduated with his B.S. in Agriculture in 1955, going on to obtain his M.A. of Education in Agriculture in 1957. After college, Sonny did some post-grad work at Texas A&M and taught some in Mexia, at the high school he had himself graduated from years before. He returned to SHSU, dedicating 38 years of service to the Department of Agricultural Sciences as a faculty member and rodeo team coach. He was named a Distinguished SHSU Alumni after retiring, one of his life’s proudest achievements.

Sonny Sikes comes from a family of cowboys, having been taught by his father during his childhood years and later going on to learn and practice alongside his father, brother, son, nephew, and son-in-law. Sonny’s brother went on to join the Cutting Horse Hall of Fame and further expand the Sikes’ rodeo legacy. Sonny’s wife Joanne was a huge part of his life and his best friend before she passed in December of 2017. “She was a great little lady. I had her for 65 years; we were married 62 years,” he says fondly of his late wife, voice thick with emotion. Joanne started faculty programs on campus and served on the board of the Methodist church. He credits much of his success and involvement in the National Intercollegiate Rodeo Association (NIRA) to his wife’s innate ability to keep the show on the road, as she managed the behind-the-scenes in their home office while Sonny served as commissioner of the NIRA. Sonny became involved with them in 1951 while he was a senior in high school, just two years after the association started in ’49. Having won his last saddle when he was 75 years old, Sonny still regularly attends rodeos. The Sikes family’s rodeo legacy is perhaps one of the most distinguished and recognizable in the rodeo world of East Texas. We learn more about this rodeo dynasty in our interview with him.

What rodeo events did you compete in?

Roping and bulldoggin’…steer wrestlin’…whatever you wanna call it. I started roping when I was 2 or 3 years old.

You still go to rodeos every now and then?

Oh, yeah. I’ll take y’all to the barn in a minute; the last saddle I won I was 75 years old (to which we responded, “No wayyyyy!”). The first one I was 18. I went to the first high school rodeo in Halletsville, Texas in 1947—they have them all over the country now. I’ll show you a picture. I got a picture of me roping at the prison rodeo in 1944. You can do the math.

He points to some artwork given to him by a former student, saying its one of his favorites. He then gestures toward a large frame with multiple photos.

This’ll kind of give you an idea of how this started. That’s my mother and daddy….

He continues pointing to different photos in the frame…

My brother…my daddy…that was taken in Boston Garden. My son…my nephew…there’s his daddy, my brother-in-law.

He moves his finger slowly across the glass, above photos of both vintage and recent rodeo scenes in which his family members are shown. Sonny speaks admirably about his parents and family, especially his father, L.N. Sikes, who had a very strong and positive impact on Sonny’s life. His father was a professional horse trainer and a close friend of “the horse whisperer.”

He had a gift that not many people had. He was a great, great horseman. Here’s a deal over here that I was proud of.

We lean in closer to the plaque, reading that the board of regents of the university system signed a resolution on November 20, 1996 to create “Sonny Sikes Day.”

Sonny tells us he used to win a new buckle almost every weekend in rodeos, earning the nickname “Buckles” by acquaintances on campus. Our photographer asks with a laugh, “You probably have a box of belt buckles don’t you?”

Yeah, I do. I got a box of ‘em back there.

This buckle right here [pointing to the one he’s wearing], I won this 65 years ago; I wear it every day. It was the first national title in the NIRA.

We sit down at his kitchen table as he delicately opens an old photo album, different colored faded edges of photos peeking from the sides. He begins sharing the stories and moments behind the photos, offering snippets of the rich history of his rodeo involvement over the years.

Sonny delves into a cabinet and pulls out multiple boxes holding big, shiny belt buckles. He hands us a velvet interior box holding a buckle and says it is his favorite that he’s won over the years. The metallic letters read “1956 National Champion Team,” decorated with gold flowers and rubies, a truly beautiful piece of craftsmanship.

After about 5 minutes, Sonny had pulled out nearly 50 belt buckles from different cabinets and drawers. He told us some of the memories behind winning some of them, and commented that traveling was the hardest part of being a rodeo cowboy before saying, “I’ll stop there.” Some of the buckles we saw read: Texas Rodeo Cowboy Hall of Fame, Cowboys for Christ, 1988 Team Roping Champion, Rodeo Club Coach, Sam Houston State University Rodeo Team, and many, many more.

From here we move to Sonny’s garage, where he shows us a wall full of tack that he braided himself in his free time. He sells the homemade halters and tack when he attends senior pro rodeos, saying, “It buys a little horse feed.” He shows us some different pieces and explains how a cowboy snap is different from a mechanical snap before taking us over to see his barn.

We walk past three horses grazing, two of which are Sonny’s (one is his nephew’s mare that he is “feeding and boarding” for him, like a sweet grandpa would). Sonny opens up a door leading to his tack room and we follow him in to see saddles, bridles, halters, and every cowboy necessity lining the walls.

He beams talking about his grandkids and tells us about an upcoming Sikes family reunion at his home in Huntsville, where he’s expecting 75-100 of his descendants. “There will be so many people they’ll have to wear nametags,” he says with a slight laugh, almost unable to believe that his patriarchy grew into what it is today. Sonny currently drinks coffee every Monday morning with other SHSU retired Ag faculty. The most rewarding part of his life as a teacher and coach at SHSU was watching his students grow up for the 4-5 years that he had them. Sonny Sikes has created a legacy in the hearts of Sam Houston State University, the National Intercollegiate Rodeo Association, and rodeo lovers all over Texas.

Our favorite Sonny Sikes quotes from our interview:

“I like to compete. I like to win.”

“Braggers… I don’t like them. If you can do somethin’, don’t tell me about it, show me.”

“Joanne ran it… I just signed the checks.”

“I can train three horses while you train one kid.”

“A horse will remember the good and the bad.”

“I have lived a great life. No one is luckier than I am.”

The post Do You Know? Sonny Sikes appeared first on Postcards Magazine.

Photos by Kelly Sue Photography

“It’s not personal; it’s just business.” We’ve all heard this popular saying before…but business IS personal, especially to Keith McLeod of Conroe, Texas. “I love meeting customers,” Keith tells Postcards when we discuss Highlander Roofing and Renovations. Servicing the Conroe/Montgomery/Woodlands area, Keith has been building his customer base with the goal of being that “home-town” guy clients and community trust. Integrity is what fuels his passion for helping others achieve exactly what they want in their homes—at both a fair price and with quality work well done.

We meet in his family’s home of nine years in Conroe and visit with his wife and daughter while he hurriedly cleans off after a busy day laying tile. His wife Erica and daughter Daire travel often to L.A. and New York, as 10-year-old Daire pursues acting and singing roles in film and theatre. She is currently an active member at the Creighton Theatre in Conroe.

Erica is a consultant and “momager” with a warm smile and an upbeat manor, which is matched by her daughter’s animated and precocious personality. Erica talks about her husband with admiration on her face. With a strong sense of family and strong ties to his Scottish heritage, honesty and ingenuity are the pillars on which he builds his work ethic and reputation. “His mindset is ‘hold fast.’ ‘Hold fast’ to your family, your beliefs…and he has that same mindset toward his customers. He has this very personable, innate ability to connect with people.”

She turns to her daughter, who is at the kitchen sink. “Hey dear, I’ll ask you this. How would you describe your daddy’s business? What does he do for people?’ Daire comes to join us with a grin on her face, happy to be included in the interview. “How I would describe his business is he does do tile, he does do roofing, but I also think that my dad likes to help people; he talks to me and really connects to what I’m saying. He doesn’t act like, ‘I’m just here to do a job.’ He actually has a physical conversation with you, and you can connect with what he’s saying. And for some reason, he’s got this weird charm, and I think it rubs off on you,” she replies (yes, she is 10!), sending her mother into a burst of laughter at her mature and quick answer.

Keith walks in wearing a kilt, hat, and a clean “Highlander Roofing and Renovations” T-shirt. On the front of Keith’s kilt is a sporran, a rabbit fur pouch from Scotland. Keith and Erica married at Dunvegan castle in Scotland, the castle his clan lived in for centuries. He asks his wife and daughter, “How did it go?” as today Erica and Daire attended an audition for a part in Broadway’s The Sound of Music, an endeavor that would land young Daire with the big dogs, after being serious about theatre since February. Their family loves the thrill, travel, and adventure that come with doing this together.

While we continue our visit with Keith, Erica and Daire leave us to go film an audition tape across the house in a room they have transformed into a studio. In the background while we talk, a gentle ballad from The Sound of Music is sung in a clear, young, angelic voice.

One of Keith’s favorite aspects of his work is the opportunity to help people make their home better as honestly and personably as he can. Highlander Roofing and Renovations can help with all your basic home needs, whether it be decks, fences, roofs, remodeling, painting, or a project you’ve been waiting for the right time to start. He really does a little bit of everything! The differing challenges keep him interested, and his love for people is embodied in his visits and interactions with customers.

He began working in construction during high school, and has since traveled all over the world to places like Africa and Siberia to build crew quarters and work in instrumentation on oil rigs. He began Highlander Roofing about 3 years ago, starting out only doing roofing, and has since added the renovations expertise. His many years of experience have allowed him to develop an eye for flaws and potential problems, even if they are unrelated to the work he is doing for the client. If he sees something that needs fixing, for example a broken pipe, he wants to ensure all the issues are taken care of, even when it means hiring someone else to do a different job. He keeps his customers’ best interests at heart and treats them like he would his own. Keith will always take photos to show customers exactly what the problem is, therefore giving them a “before and after” reference to show progress, and to have an end result to compare to the beginning of the project. He uses photos in order to best inform the customer on work that needs to be done; it’s his way of guaranteeing a noticeable and comparable difference, laid out honestly. “I think of everyone as part of my family. I’ll do whatever I can at a fair price. When I go to a house, I’m going to tell them what I see, what I don’t see, and what I can do for you. I want them to be comfortable knowing, ‘Hey, this guy is gonna be here.’” Keith prides himself on building a rapport with clients and keeping himself accessible and involved.

Ultimately, the goal is to grow his business to a point where he will handle all the personal aspects of the business, while hiring project managers and contractors for the hands-on. Keith justifies his all-in attitude toward work and community with the line, “You only have one ride on the merry-go-round.”

(281) 513-6263
onlyonehighlander.com

The post Business Focus: Highlander Roofing and Renovations appeared first on Postcards Magazine.

Photos by Libby Rogers

Carriage House Farm and Vineyard invited Postcards to their 2018 harvest day on a balmy morning in August to witness the harvesting of nearly 500 grape vines. Carriage House is home to two different types of grapes that thrive in our Texas climate.The Blanc du Bois grape produces a white wine, and the Lenior (Black Spanish) produces a red. The farm is owned and operated by John and Judi Benestante, a former prison and public school administrator and former prison official who now personally manage and work their East Texas boutique vineyard in Coldspring.

I greet both John and Judi upon arrival. It is 7:30 am; John is driving a tractor that will be used to take freshly picked grapes to a refrigerated truck, where they will be delivered immediately to a winery close by. Judi is walking the vineyard (clipboard in hand, bandana tied around her neck) welcoming the volunteers, family, and friends who came to help harvest their beautiful and hard-earned crop. Tables are set up with donuts, kolaches, juice, and coffee for all who came to help. Lunch will be provided later, in addition to some entertainment and grape stomping. A large speaker plays country music in the background as people begin to make their way through the first couple rows of winding green leaves, clippers in hand, cutting from the vine and dropping great bunches of grapes into the buckets below. I pick Judi’s brain for a few minutes before she begins making rounds to visit and manage the production this morning (we’ll do this again later, stay tuned).

Judi worked for many years in education and earned her PhD before later deciding to attend a viticulture program co-offered by Texas A&M/Texas Tech for two years, in hopes of learning everything she needed to know to grow grapes. She didn’t just want to do it, she wanted to do it well and learn as much as she could about the versatile crop.

“You know they’re ready when the mockingbirds show up,” Judi says. Right then, a woman asks Judi where she should snip on the plant. Judi shows her the best spot, telling her that you cut as close to the cluster as you can. As soon as a bucket becomes full of grapes, some teenage boys do the heavy lifting and take the full buckets to the tractor. On the tractor’s forklift sits a large “lug” (think ginormous Yeti cooler). The buckets of grapes are emptied into the lugs and taken to a truck, and dry ice is poured into the lugs with the grapes to keep them cool. From here, the grapes are taken directly to the winery for the winery to start production immediately. Judi explains the main process once the grapes are in the hands of the vintners, before introducing me to one of them. After arriving at the winery, the red grapes will be immediately crushed and de-stemmed before being put into vats to start the fermentation process. The Blanc du Bois (white) and Lenoir (red) grapes are harvested at different times due to their ripening dates and are processed differently as they will produce different wines.

Carriage House Vineyard has partnered with H-Wines, a local winery also located in Coldspring, to produce both a red and white wine using their locally-grown grapes. Two highly experienced vintners and Frenchmen, Steve Hari and Philippe Legrand, are the head winemakers at H-Wines. This morning, Postcards had the pleasure of talking to Philippe, as he was present for today’s harvest and mingling with the volunteers who came to help. Philippe gives some backstory on the partnership between H-Wines and Carriage House Vineyard, explaining (in an enthralling and thick French accent) how he and fellow vintner Steve came from France to be making wine in Coldspring, Texas.

Philippe and Steve have known Judi and John for 7 or 8 months and decided to combine forces and work together. Since then, the vintners have consulted in the pruning, maintenance, and fertilization processes at the vineyard. Steve and Philippe’s dream is to eventually add a wine tasting sector to their business. As professional winemakers, the men share their knowledge with growers in the area, using their 23 years of experience. Before the two men opened H-Wines in Coldspring, Steve had an estate in Burgundy, France of about 12,000 vines; he lost his supervisor 2 years ago, one month before the harvest. This was a serious blow to his production, as the supervisor is over the organization of harvesting, maintaining equipment, pruning, and fertilizing the grapes. Steve could not find a trustworthy supervisor after he successfully made it through his harvest, so he and his family decided to sell the estate. They came to Texas when Steve’s wife was offered work here as a geologist, and so began his endeavors with Texas grapes. He was discouraged, as he had just left behind his livelihood of 20+ years. Soon after moving to Texas, Steve would meet Philippe (also from France) at a Christmas party in Houston. After becoming friends about 4 years ago, they decided over a bottle of wine to start a winery together.

The process of growing grapes for wine making is a delicate one that involves special and frequent attention; it is more of an art than anything else. Philippe says it’s really about what God gives you: the rain and the weather. These heavily affect the flavor outcome of the grapes. One year the flavor may be astounding, and the next it may be kind of “blah.” The seemingly small actions taken during production make the biggest difference at the end when it is time to harvest. For example, it is important not to trim away stray or unsightly branches within a close time frame of harvesting, as the plant would put its energy into healing the wound, as opposed to using its resources to produce sweet berries. About a week before harvest, irrigation is stopped. Halting the water supply to the vines causes the plant to send sugar up to the grapes, loading them up with flavor. Watering too close to harvest time or getting a heavy rain can destroy a crop or change the flavor of the whole crop come harvest day.

We have the chance to talk with Judi again about the many factors that affect the outcome of the crop. When dealing with grapes, one is concerned with slope, water, sun, and wind direction. “Successful vineyards are placed on an approximate 15 degree slope (to help shed water), where they get 8-12 hours of full sun. They can require, in a drought, up to 2 gallons of water a day, per vine. So, we have a real deep well here, about 570 feet deep. We use a drip irrigation system and zones that we can turn on one at a time. Most of the time you turn off the water the last 4-5 days before harvest, ‘cause that vine is gonna say, ‘Oh my gosh, I’m starving,’ and it’s gonna put sugar in the berries tryin’ to survive, which sweetens up that berry,” she says with a Texas twang. “Growing grapes in the Gulf Coast with the humidity, the grapes will often grow a fungus in the vine. If you have one rotten berry, you’ve lost the whole cluster.” Disease is prevented and treated by frequently checking on all the vines, paying close attention to detail.

Judi explains the parts of the vine, starting with the top where two vines branch out from the main vine, also called the trunk; these are the bilateral arms. Above these arms is the “fruiting zone” where the grapes hang. Grapevines are prolific growers, and the shoots can grow up to a foot a day. “When I started calling people who were experts, they told me I could grow these two types of grapes well here in the Gulf coast. So far, you can’t grow varietals well here, so you have to find what grows well in your area. In February, there won’t be anything left but long, brown shoots. All of the leaves will have fallen off. We will prune everything off the trunk except these spurs. See this spur here, how it comes off of the main trunk? Normally you only want two shoots off a spur, with two buds on each shoot,” she says, pointing to a place at the top of the trunk between the two arms. “There will be nothing out here, and that’s called a heavy pruning. So, in February when we have a pruning party, it’ll just be these brown shoots; we’ll cut them down to two buds. People will come and clip, clip each vine. Then we will go behind them to clean them up, and that is the art of pruning. If you don’t prune well, you won’t get any grapes.”

The road to a successful harvest is full of trial and error. Carriage House put in their first grapes on 3/4 acre in February 2010, 1.5 rows of Blanc du Bois and 1.5 rows of the Lenoir, with the rows 12 feet wide and 6 feet between vines. For Phase II of extending their vineyard, in February of 2011 John and Judi planted 1/4 acre more by adding 2.5 rows of Lenoir and 1.5 rows of Blanc du Bois. Each year, vines have been added, and today there are over two acres with over 500 vines. “Our little ‘boutique vineyard’ produced over 8,100 pounds of grapes for the 2018 season,” says Judi proudly.

“When you come to my pruning party and cut the shoots off, there’s about 10,000 of them just laying on the ground. You can take it home, and John and I will teach you how to plant your own vineyard,” she says, reaching over to pick a grape from a cluster. “Can you eat these grapes? Sure, but don’t eat the seeds. Just squeeze it in your mouth and bite around the seeds.” We do, and the inside flesh is even sweeter than we’d expected. “When the seeds are dark chestnut brown, the grapes are ready, which they are.” She pinches the peeling of the Black Spanish grape and dark red bursts out. “See the juice, how pretty it is?”

Early afternoon approaches as harvesting wraps up, and the crowd slowly gathers near the tables for lunch and entertainment. Harvesters move through the line for fried fish, lemonade, and sides, while some ladies start stomping grapes and transferring their red, juiced-stained feet to a white t-shirt. Judi gives a thank you to everyone who came to help, says a prayer over the food, and Old-time Country Music Hall of Fame member Margie LeBlanc sings some classic songs for the crowd.

During Judi’s prayer, she said something beautiful, giving credit for the harvest to someone else. Aside from the hard work that she, John, and the vintners had put into this harvest, she said, “It is by Your hand that this is made, we’re only Your workers.”

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The post A Day in the Life: Vineyard Harvest appeared first on Postcards Magazine.

Photos by Kelly Sue Photography

The business idea stemmed from a dreamy thought floating in Nancy Harenza’s mind on a cold, blustery snow day in Indiana. While the white snow swirled outside her house that she fought to keep warm, she fantasized of sitting on a warm beach, palms swinging in the breeze…as opposed to the freezing cold air whistling through the trees. Images of fruity, frozen drinks with little umbrellas hanging over the side danced in her mind as she imagined the warm sun on her face and sea breeze in her hair. “The last winter I was in Indiana, I opened up the garage door, and the snow was up to my knees. I was so done,” she says with a laugh.

With no more longing to brave another cold northern winter, Nancy made up her mind to finally move south in 2015, and that she did. Nancy (along with her two dogs, two cats, and two ducks) drove south until they hit the promise of a warm climate in humble Willis, Texas. Nancy made the adjustment to her new home with ease, welcoming the sun like a cold lizard sunbathing on a rock.

After settling into her new home, Nancy made the decision to bring her beachy business south as well, by catering to a crowd not at all far from the coast. Participating in monthly vendor shows, Nancy has embarked on spreading her roots and hopefully becoming established doing something she enjoys. She hopes that, by creating beach decor, she is playing her part in bringing a piece of the beach to everyone. “Everyone is happier at the beach; walls come down. People are friendly. Nothing else really matters when you’re at the beach,” she says with a grin.

Nancy and her pets settled nicely into Willis, not too far away from her family in Montgomery. The promise of warmer days and frequent visitations with her granddaughter made the transition a much easier one, giving her something to look forward to on weekends. Nancy realized her fondness of making crafts while still living in Indiana, and she embarked on an endeavor to create her own business. Her primary fascination with beach-themed decor stems from her admiration for the peaceful setting. Nothing puts her at ease like the scene of a hammock against a blue ocean backdrop, or the contrast of white sand against the vivid green palm trees. She wishes to share this joy with others, providing visually pleasing scenes printed on an acrylic canvas, roughly 1/4” thick, to bring the serenity of the beach into people’s homes. Being only a hop, skip, and a jump away from the Texas coast, she came with the hope of catering her pieces to an area of people who are no stranger to the beach. Nancy adores the simplicity of the beach and the wonderful distraction it provides from the hustle and bustle of everyday life.

Nancy has traveled to vendor shows in Livingston, Canton, and Liberty, and sold her décor around the piney woods area at shows like Livingston Trade Days and Huntsville Bacon and Brew. After a small break, she plans to begin attending shows regularly again come September/October with an array of new pieces. With the recent addition of putting her items in an online Etsy shop, Nancy plans to continue making décor and crafts, the good Lord willing. A future endeavor she hopes to embark on soon is the introduction of wooden signs, featuring scripture and Christian themes. She is especially excited to add some Texas themed décor in there as well; I assured her that endeavor would prove fruitful, since we native Texans have a little bit of pride for our state. Nancy was a delight to visit with, and the encapsulation of the beach in a personality. To browse Nancy’s decor, visit her online Etsy shop at the following link: www.etsy.com/shop/PalmTreeHammockBound

The post Business Focus: Palm Trees & Hammock Bound appeared first on Postcards Magazine.

Photos by Marshall Altom

For this month’s Business Focus article, we drew from the list of advertisers a special artist whose work has been documented before as a “Do You Know” feature in the debut issue of Postcards Magazine. Jeff Sullivan, a metal artist out of Anderson, Texas sat down with Postcards in his home to talk about his business, A Little Bit Western, and the steps he has taken with it since our last visit with him years ago.

Jeff Sullivan’s ventures with metal art began circa 1995, when he started working with metal at his coal-mining job during the graveyard shift, drawing a picture by hand and cutting it out with a torch. He had always enjoyed drawing, he says, but couldn’t have imagined where he would one day end up by applying that talent to metal. After college, he went to work at the coal mine in Anderson, where he had access to scrap metal to experiment with. Before starting out on his own, he began working and cutting his first pieces out of a friend’s roping shop in New Waverly. He began to display and sell some of his earliest work at the local roping, and it all went from there. It started out as a hobby, making pieces for himself and as gifts for friends, but it didn’t take long for the orders to start coming in. It was a slow process starting his own business and acquiring the shop full of materials needed for the work, but with time, custom orders started trickling in and brought him to where he is today.

On a 50 acre ranch sets his Austin stone house, adorned with cedar posts and western-themed décor. In the front yard of their home of 12 years are his 16 dogs—literally. One of his additional pastimes is raising dogs, an acquired passion he has been doing most of his life. On their little piece of Texas heaven surrounded by a lake, he is accompanied by Carol, his wife of 19 years, and his daughter Claye. Carol has worked at Community Service Credit Union in Huntsville for over 30 years, and their daughter Claye has added her own décor to their home with her many shiny rodeo buckles. She plans to attend Sam Houston State (like both her parents did) and has wanted to be a Bearkat for as long as she can remember (Eat ‘Em Up!).

His entire life, Jeff has spent much of his time working cows, riding horses, and doing cowpoke work for hire; and due to this lifestyle, most of Jeff’s pieces are influenced by the western world. After selling some of his work in a friend’s booth at HLSR, and entering the NFR vendor world, connections were made and word spread. His metal art career was especially jump-started at his booth at the National Finals Rodeos, with people casually coming by his booth, like Tom Selleck and Jeff Foxworthy. His western-themed artwork was in the right crowd to say the least, and his name started to spread like wildfire. His first year as a vendor went great, and after 7 or 8 years of setting up a booth at the NFR, he had earned plausible name recognition and was shipping to customers outside of the country.

Present day, Jeff works making custom pieces by order. His attention to detail is just as important in a 16 foot wildlife-themed gate as it is in a bucking horse lamp stand—and his range is incredibly unlimited. Per customer requests, Jeff has created bar stools, wine racks, fire screens, cattle brands, lampstands, staircases, balconies, horseshoe artwork, and coatracks. But among all his ventures, his favorite piece to create is a centerpiece for a gate. He loves the challenge of receiving a customer request, especially when it is something unique or special to the customer. He rises to the occasion every time, creating a scene that comes alive and looks so real you can’t believe it’s metal.

He gives us a peek in his shop by request, and the process is even more of a doozy than you’d imagine. Jeff’s primary metal of choice is 3/16” plate carbon steel and is hand cut by Jeff with a handheld plasma torch (which is not the equivalent of drawing with a pencil, in case you didn’t know). He draws a scene in soapstone onto the metal before cutting it out slowly and steadily, creating clean lines with compressed air. Each piece can be customized further by being powder-coated in any color and sealed to last. Some of his famous customers include Chuck Norris and Lance Berkman of the Astros, whom he crafted a large entrance for.

Jeff and his daughter drive us around in his pickup to show us some of his gate work in front of a few of the neighboring homes. We move alongside green pasture, every few minutes or so stopping to see one of the front gates, some western scenes, some serene pictures of cattle, and a few with brooding whitetail deer, their antlers beautifully detailed. While riding in the back of the pickup, I flip through a portfolio album of photographs taken since he began the craft in the 90s. Hundreds of pieces, countless hours of work, and an incredible legacy all are represented within the red leather bounds of the photo album.

A special piece to him from the past is a gravestone he made for a passed husband, with a scene of the man that turned out so beautiful it brought the widowed woman to tears. For his daughter, he made a buckle rack to display her plentiful hard-earned rodeo memorabilia. Another favorite of his is a 3D nativity scene he created by a customer’s suggestion. It was a challenging feat, but the result sits proudly in their front room as a display of their faith. One of the more memorable requests over the years was the order to make a custom branding iron for California Chrome, a star horse running for the Triple Crown at the time.

For more information or to get a bid on a custom gate, Jeff can be contacted at (936) 581-2218 or jwsull31@gmail.com.

The post Business Focus: A Little Bit Western appeared first on Postcards Magazine.

Photos by Libby Rogers

Although an old-fashioned form of entertainment, the art of clowning is still alive and well. Small clowning clubs thrive on the energy and dedication of many longtime members. Postcards received an invite to a recent convention of the Texas Clown Association, which was held in Montgomery. Upon arriving, we were greeted warmly and discovered the hobby is composed of some of the kindest, happiest people you would ever have the pleasure of meeting. Upon entering the convention, I had the pleasure in the lobby of meeting a clown named Heart (Theresa Stokes by day) who was not in costume, but in jeans and a T-shirt, with a pass on a lanyard around her neck. Some who came for entertainment are in character, along with those performing in tonight’s skits—red noses pressed onto dramatically painted faces, accompanied by a bright and whacky ensemble of different colors and patterns. When asked how her love for clowning began, Heart said her grandfather would bring her Blue Magic magazine when she was a young girl, and ever since, she fell in love with clowning and aspired to be one. Heart inadvertently made a wonderful first impression for the involved lot, and we did not meet an unfriendly or dull soul for the remainder of the night.

Mary Whipple, who goes by “Charmin,” invited Postcards to the event. Along with the others who greeted us upon arrival, she was immediately welcoming and spoke with us as if we were old friends seeing each other again. Friendliness radiated from these people in every way, and there was a hint of animation in their faces that is rare to come by in a crowd of regular John Does. The crowd tonight is predominantly middle-aged folks, with a sprinkle of younger and older in there, with many of the people present having been regulars of the convention and other events for 20-30 years. The evening begins after an introduction, and many skits are in store for the night; stretching over the next few hours, the walls of the large room will have heard many laughs and absorbed a lot of purely innocent happiness. The crowd seated around the stage is a sight to be seen, many purveyors clad in their own clown personality and in full costume—wild hats, glasses, hair, and face paint. The first skit drew a big laugh from the crowd, and during the short recess of time it took for the judges to score the performer, a man with a microphone tells a few jokes to keep the spirits high. During the following skit, a female clown changes a blank coloring book to one full of color while wearing a spin top hat. A woman sitting to my left laughs heartily at every probe, and upon observing her joy (and a pair of beaded clown earrings hanging from her earlobes), I can’t help but smile at her; the joy is contagious. One of the jokes during this intermission is “Dear Algebra, stop looking for your X. She’s not coming back and you’ll never know Y.”

During the intermission, Postcards has the pleasure of talking to Trinity resident Tiffani Goodin, who goes by “Fanci” in the clowning world. While in junior high, she did a clown skit in a production; this experience stuck with her, and she always enjoyed it. By day, Tiffani works for TDCJ in Huntsville and enjoys clowning at local events like Walker County Fair and Fair on the Square. She went to clown school in Houston in 2013, a process of a few weeks that teaches you the need-to-knows of the art. Since then, Fanci has become an active member in Cheerful Clown Alley. This group in particular’s main passion is dedicating their time to philanthropic events as well as hosting a local clown school for those aspiring to join their ranks. As professional clowns, they aim to bring laughter, love, and smiles to many people who are in hospitals, or at local nonprofit events and approved fundraisers. When asked what being a clown means to her, she responds that their efforts are driven by the desire to volunteer and spread joy to others. The unique crowd drawn to the event center tonight is linked by many close friendships that have been formed and nurtured for many years, with some of them claiming to be like family to one another and meeting lifelong friends. Tiffani tells us that the main goal of everyone who clowns is to help people through tough times by providing some comedic relief and bringing about some laughter. Tiffani admits to getting the title of “class clown” in high school, but hey, if the shoe fits!

Postcards sits with two more ladies who are many years apart in age, but close in friendship and heart. The oldest member of the Texas Clown Association, June “Cricket” Hinkle, is 89 years young and has been clowning for almost 30 years. While her husband was going through cancer, a couple of men in his support group were members of Clown Alley, which is how Cricket got introduced to the clowning world. In January 1989, her husband died, and she enrolled in clown school that same year. She says that, after all of these years being involved, the friendships made are by far the best part, this year’s convention being her 30th to attend. One of her favorite efforts of the club is monthly visits to Texas Children’s Hospital, dressed up and ready to entertain children with balloon making, skits, and silliness.

On the opposite end of the scale we have 13-year-old “Nannah Banana,” the youngest clown in the TCA, who enjoys involvement in her school theatre group and clowning in her spare time, as well as participating in local parades. Seemingly reserved and quiet at first meeting, she sits in her glasses and waits for questions with a blanket draped around her shoulders. She would probably be one of the last kids you’d guess would wear a bright red nose and perform humorously, because of her reserved and mature demeanor. Wearing a sweet smile, she explains how she got her police officer father involved, and he is now clowning himself. Aside from clowning, she’s your average gal who enjoys playing sports like track, basketball, and swimming.

The intermission is followed by more skits and a conversation with Judy “Peep” Cornett (wearing a bright bowler hat), President of the Texas Clown Association, member of the local club Clown Alley, and member of Clown of America International. A clown for 19 years, her favorite things to do are volunteer activities like hospital clowning. She knew she wanted to be a clown when she realize her insatiable desire and satisfaction of making people smile. Clowning has taken Judy as far as Italy; she plans to finish her term as president and remain involved and committed to the cause. “A good clown performs from the heart,” she adds.

To learn more, visit www.texasclownassociation.com.

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