People

As the owner of Mr. B Fireworks and a licensed pyrotechnician, Tom Bargas colors the black velvet of a Texas night sky. “I've never thought of myself as being an artist, but I suppose I am,” Bargas said.  “I paint the sky with…

Mary Lou Marks has created a menagerie of Southern Beasts. “I make them with personality, life and spark,” said Marks, who has lived and worked near Round Top full-time since 2011 and been a regular in the area since the early 1960s.…

As owner and bladesmith at Phenix Knives in Bellville, Cowboy Szymanski has forged his own life. “Life is how you live it—and as extreme as you want it to be,” said Cowboy, who is the sole proprietor in a blacksmith shop that has been…

Lorie and I caught up with Derrill Osborn, former globe-trotting fashion exec for Neiman Marcus, and Benny Hinkle III, owner of Dallas-based Benny Jack’s Antiques, on the first day of Big Red Barn's show in the spring. We pulled up red…

Glenwood Vernon: A Temporary Caretaker Glenwood Vernon and I met at Vernons’ Antique Shop, the antiques destination he owns and operates with Martha, his wife of 57 years. The couple lives and works on Antiques Lane located a few miles…

Wiley Boehnke's winemaking skills aren’t a generational legacy passed from Boehnke to Boehnke. In fact, neither Wiley nor his wife Angeline, who make their home in Flatonia, drink wine. Wiley knows how to make wine because he likes to “know…

John and Wendy Rohan are busy as bees operating Blissful Folly Farm, home to their honey-based winery Rohan Meadery—and their family. “We both have full-time jobs that we enjoy, but Blissful Folly Farm is our full-time passion,” said…

I expected Wiley Boehnke of Flatonia to be a skilled homemade winemaker, which he is. As such, I didn’t expect him to immediately hand me a business card, but he did. It read:  “Wiley Boehnke—Jack of All Trades and Master of Some” The…

My ancestors are Anglo-Saxon with some Viking of the Danish variety thrown in. The latter’s presence in my genome explains my propensity for third-degree sunburns and horned headgear as well my bent toward marauding. My genes made me a…

Junk Gypsies: Small Town. Big Dreams. Janie Sikes taught her daughters, Amie and Jolie, that population signs just designate city limits; they don’t dictate the size of dreams. “You don’t have to live in a big city to have a big dream,”…