Posts by: Kathy Floyd
Blues guitarist Kirby Kelley was down to his last guitar, a custom-made Paul Reed Smith. “Think about it,” said Kelly’s friend at the North Dallas Guitar Center when the musician laid the instrument, which was worth enough to help his family out of a deep financial hole, on the counter and said he wanted to sell it. “Think it over.”
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Dolls of all types imaginable wait in glass cases to catch your eye. Then, out of all the painted faces, you spy a certain doll, one just like a favorite you played with as a child, or one you desperately wanted but did not have, and memories long buried deep come flooding back.
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Dorothy Hayes’ home is a one-woman doll factory. Hayes shares her house with grandchildren, great-grandchildren and at least 250 dolls.
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Building the smaller homes was not an afterthought for Barton and Lund. When they started Cupid Homes, they made the decision to build houses for what they called a “forgotten segment” of people—those looking for a nice new home, but in a price range that is closer to $70,000 than to $90,000. “We wanted to come up with a product that was a great alternative for people who lived in urban areas,” Barton said.
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Elinor Glen, the early 20th-century British novelist considered to be the mother of mass-market erotic fiction, once said, “Romance is the glamour which turns the dust of everyday life into a golden haze.”
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Diana Cosby could be a heroine in one of her best-selling romance novels. She looks the part, long hair the color of single malt Scotch, bright eyes and an easy smile.
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Bob Lusk of Gordonville wears two hats. One hat transforms him into the publisher/editor of a successful little magazine called Pond Boss. When he puts on the other hat he really is a pond boss, traveling the country designing and overseeing the construction, stocking and management of private lakes and recreational ponds. No matter which hat is on his head, Lusk’s passion for fish has brought him national recognition.
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Texoma is deep in the heart of the Red Dirt music scene. Taking their names from the iron- oxide-rich soil that colors the Red River, Red Dirt trailblazers such as Cross Canadian Ragweed and Stoney LaRue blurred the line between country and rock in Oklahoma and let the winds carry the grit south to Texas, where artists such as Texoma’s Spur 503 have put their own spin on the dirt.
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For someone who failed fourth grade art because he flunked a sewing project, Michael Winegarden has come a long way. Honors for his accomplishments in art today are numerous. His fourth-grade art teacher might not believe it, but Winegarden now teaches drawing and art appreciation at Grayson County College.
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The creativity in Janet Karam’s paintings is undeniable. Her contemporary, colorful takes on saxophones, jazz musicians, buildings, blues singers and ballerinas vibrate with life. “I think I had a spark from a young age,” Karam said about her creative streak. “It was lying dormant, but my mother helped light it, and now in my older years she nurtures it.”
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The Mayor of Cookie Town
Ray Bledsoe doesn’t believe in day-old cookies. They have to be fresh to be good in his estimation, which is why he mixes his dry ingredients the night before and puts them into zipped plastic bags, three batches at a time. In the morning all he has to do is add the eggs and liquid or oil and whatever other ingredients are called for, and he is in business.
Light Starch, High Tech
One. It’s the number of stars in the Texas flag. It’s the number of U.S. Presidents who have conducted the OU-Texas pre-game coin toss. And it’s the number of shirts lost by Texas Laundry in the last six months. For a business that handles upwards of 1,000 garments per day, the statistic is unbelievable.
Four Rivers Outreach
The weekly Tuesday evening gathering at Four Rivers Outreach is a combination camp meeting, pep rally, Alcoholics Anonymous session, gospel song fest, and tent revival—sans the tent—with a leavening of motivational self-help positive thinking thrown in for measure. It starts with introductions. “Who’s here for the first time?” says the woman with the microphone. “Stand up and tell us who you are and how you got here.”
