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Find more information and events: www.unt.edu/calendar

Discover fresh perspectives and cultural illumination at UNT.UNT enriches the community with distinguished lectures that encourage critical thinking, unique exhibitions that reflect the joy of expression and performances that celebrate the richness of music.

Distinguished Lecture Series: John Legend Grammy Award-winning artist, philanthropist and one of Time’s 100 Most Influential People

7 p.m. Feb. 7UNT Coliseum

studentaffairs.unt.edu

Nick Cave: Herd2011-12 artist-in-residence for UNT’s Institute for the Advancement of the Arts

ExhibitionFeb. 24-March 24UNT on the Square — 109 N. Elm St. in Dentonuntonthesquare.unt.edu

Performance5:30 p.m. March 12 and 12:30 p.m. March 13— Willis Library north lawn

Fine Arts Series: Henry RollinsGrammy Award-winning spoken word artist, musician, author and actor8 p.m. March 3Winspear Performance Hall — Murchison Performing Arts Centerwww.unt.edu/fas

James Prinz, courtesy of the artist and Jack Shainman Gallery

AA/EOE/ADA ©2011 UNT URCM 11/11 (12-099)

UNT Showcase Stage at the Denton Arts & Jazz Festival

Three days of the best in UNT music, including a special appearance by the internationally acclaimed One O’Clock Lab Band

April 27-29Quakertown Park in Denton

dentonjazzfest.com

www.dentonlive.com 1

14 PROUVOST’S PEDICAB denton’s wildest ride - and free!

22 MONSTER CARTOONIST kerry gammill’s goblins come out to play

24 COOkBOOk COLLECTION let’s get cooking at twu

26 STORYTELLING FESTIVAL 27 years of sharing folklore and fibs

28 LITTLE CHAPEL-IN-THE-WOODS a bridal tradition for seven decades

YOUREVENTSOURCE

3 FrOm ThE mayOr

7 cINcO DE mayO

18 CALENDAR OF EVENTS

30 MAP AND LISTINGS

32 DATE NIGHT OUT

35 MISS JUNETEENTH

36 uNIquELy DENTON

2012 January - June

WHAT’SINSIDE

HORSE COUNTRY giddy-up at the mccutcheon ranch DENTON AIRSHOW vintage & modern take flight20

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84

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1235 DENTON indie music festival enters year four THIN LINE FILM FEST a 10-day film fest for thinkers

ARTS & JAzz come together in a brave combo DOG DAYS CELEBRATION when dogs fly!

TheA. Affordable passes for students train.

B. Always bike friendly train.

C. Avoid traffic during peak commuting times train

D. Abolish paying costly parking fees train

E. All of the above train

DCTA’s new A-train in Denton County might have you asking

yourself “What does the ‘A’ mean to me, my commute and the

environment?” Well, that’s up to you. So when you head out the

door, just remember this train stands for possibilities. Like saving

money, stress and our air. Visit DCTA.net for more information.

dcta.net

TheA. Affordable passes for students train.

B. Always bike friendly train.

C. Avoid traffic during peak commuting times train

D. Abolish paying costly parking fees train

E. All of the above train

DCTA’s new A-train in Denton County might have you asking

yourself “What does the ‘A’ mean to me, my commute and the

environment?” Well, that’s up to you. So when you head out the

door, just remember this train stands for possibilities. Like saving

money, stress and our air. Visit DCTA.net for more information.

dcta.net

3www.dentonlive.com

PUBLISHER Roy Busby, PhD

Interim Dean, Mayborn School of Journalism

Director, Mayborn Graduate

Institute of Journalism

University of North Texas

EDITOR Cathy Booth Thomas

DESIGN DIRECTOR Wendy Moore

Magazine production students in the Mayborn

Graduate Institute of Journalism wrote the

articles and designed the layout of Denton Live:

Sarah Calams, Ashley-Crystal Firstley, Kate Grable,

Conner Howell, Corissa Jackson, A.J. Jones, Guill-

ermo LaGreca, Amber Mullins, Christina Mylinski,

J.K. Nickell, Katherine Pettigrew, Stacy Powers,

Berenice Quirino, Shannon Raymond, Jessica

St.Ama. Teaching assistant: Christina Childs.

EDITORIAL ADVISORY BOARD

MAYOR Mark Burroughs

MAYOR PRO TEM Pete Kamp

DENTON CITY COUNCIL James King

DENTON CITY COUNCIL Kevin Roden

PRESIDENT, DENTON CHAMBER

OF COMMERCE Chuck Carpenter

VICE PRESIDENT, DENTON

CONVENTION & VISITOR BUREAU Kim Phillips

414 Parkway, Denton, TX 76201

(940) 382-7895, (888) 381-1818

elcome to Denton Live, our official guide to everything entertainment in our city.

Spring in Denton is beautiful! Every sense

awakens from winter as music and art bloom right along with Denton’s famous Redbud trees, hallmarks of our “Tree City USA” designation. And, while downtown is always vibrant with local musicians and artists, some of our most celebrated regional events – the Denton Arts & Jazz Festival, the Thin Line Film Festival and the 35 Denton Music Festival – spotlight the city’s raw creativity at its best.

Music is a major theme in Denton year round, but several great spring and summer happenings highlight our city’s other attributes. Cinco de Mayo and Juneteenth focus food and fun around important cultural and historical commemorations. The Dog Days of Denton Celebration honors man’s best friend in two days of doggone good times. And, the Denton Airshow boasts aerial daredevils and stunt pilots on our newly expanded 7,000-foot Denton Airport taxiway.

This is also the perfect season to try out the A-train, our new commuter rail connecting visitors between Denton and the rest of the

DFW Metroplex. Big city entertainment, theater and dining opportunities cluster together within blocks of each other in Denton thanks to the recent Industrial Street expansion! Our galleries offer world-class art in every medium and our internationally award-winning live theater productions are unparalleled.

Education is an irreplaceable asset and in Denton we reap the benefits of two of Texas’ top universities. The pool of creative scholars between the University of North Texas and Texas Woman’s University fuels a perpetual stream of new talent to the city. That is part of what attracts so many students to Denton in the first place. And while we are the 13th fastest growing city in the U.S. over the past decade, we cherish our small-town character that says, “We’re still small enough to be people friendly with that ‘care-about-your-

neighbor’ attitude.” Entertainment venues and parks are close enough to classify Denton as a truly walkable city.

While other cities try to replicate old town charm, Denton’s famous Courthouse Square offers unique elements of history, art and music setting it apart from Anytown, U.S.A. It has character. And it has characters. But it’s not as much the personalities of this place as it is the personality of Denton that hooks you. This is a wonderful place. I love it here. We all do. And I believe you will too.

Now, relax and kick back. Then come on out and find out for yourself why it’s hip to be right here in Denton.

W “We’re still small enough to be people friendly with that ‘care-about-your-neighbor’ attitude. ”

Mayor of Denton

Photo by Samantha Guzman

MEET THE MAYOR

Mark Burroughs, Mayor of Denton

Mark Burroughs

Denton Live is published by the Frank W. Mayborn

Graduate Institute of Journalism at the

University of North Texas in partnership with

the Denton Convention & Visitor Bureau

© 2012 by Mayborn • 1155 Union Circle, #311460 •

Denton, TX 76203-5017 • (940) 565-4564.

All rights reserved.

Comments on stories go to Mayborn

while distribution queries go to the Denton CVB.

Printed by: Eagle Press, Denton, Texas

For additional information, visit our website

www.dentonlive.com.

4 www.dentonlive.com

baby mannequin swaddled in multicolored Mardi Gras beads peers out from behind the storefront window of Brave Combo’s office. The

band’s headquarters and rehearsal studio just off Denton’s historic Downtown Square is shuttered. Where is the pink-top-hat-wearing mad scientist of a musician who’s famous for herding people onstage to perform the Chicken Dance? Just then, Carl Finch’s baby blue Mercedes convertible cruises into view and Brave Combo’s co-founder steps out dressed

totally in black, his shoulder-length silver locks billowing in the wind.

The guys in Brave Combo specialize in making entrances – and exits, for that matter. Over the past three decades, the Denton band with the polkasonic rock sound that incorporates salsa, samba, two-step, foxtrot and waltz (not to mention traditional Japanese music) has won two Grammys, toured Europe and Asia and starred on “The Simpsons” TV show. Bob Dylan recently covered their song, “Must Be Santa,” and Drew Carey wants them for a trio of shows in Las Vegas. But Carl is unequivocal

about his favorite show: the Denton Arts & Jazz Festival, where the band plays the final night, closing out three days of raucous rock, jazz, and rhythm and blues every April. “There’s not another gig that we do in the country that’s like that,” he says. “The kids are waiting on a signal from us to go berserk. … It’s like a polka mosh pit.”

The festival began in the 1980s as a one-day Spring Fling concert, but has morphed into the town’s largest celebration, attracting more than 200,000 people annually. In the heart of Denton, Quakertown Park’s 20 acres

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ARTS & JAzz:

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Brave Combo

Photos courtesy of the bands

overflow with seven performance stages, six food courts, artists, craft vendors, and a children’s percussion tent. The festival’s mashup of music and arts embraces the heartbeat of the city itself, where Ph.D.s mix with horse breeders, and Grammy winners harmonize with garage bands. “It’s a great gig, great production, great promotion, great crowd. I always look at the Sunday afternoon and evening as the Denton homecoming and it seems that our set is the culmination of that,” says Carl.

Friday night is a tribute to the festival’s jazz roots, kicking off with guitar virtuoso Lee

Ritenour, who’s jammed alongside legends B.B. King, Ray Charles and Aretha Franklin during his prolific 40-year career. His latest record, “6 String Theory,” was named the 2010 Guitar Album of the Year by Guitar International – just another accolade to hang next to his 17 Grammy nominations. Lou Marini, Tom Malone, Marvin Stamm and the Chick Corea Trio filled this slot in past years.

But Denton’s big festival is not all about jazz. Saturday night’s show this year rocks with the Chicano sounds of Los Lonely Boys, known for combining rock ’n roll, blues, soul, country

and Tejano. Los Lonely Boys rocketed to the forefront of the music scene in 2004 with their self-titled double-platinum debut album and Grammy-winning single, “Heaven.” The Garzas, the band’s trio of brothers, haven’t slowed down: Their Texas roots reverberate through their latest effort. “Let’s cut right to the chase – ‘Rockpango,’ the first album of original material by Los Lonely Boys in three years – is superb,” raved American Songwriter.

The festival, in its 32nd year, is not just a local tradition anymore. The American Bus Association, which represents touring motor

a brave combo

5www.dentonlive.com

Brave Combo

Los Lonely Boys

Lee Ritenour

[ BY J.k. NICkELL ]

coach companies, named the Denton Arts & Jazz Festival one of the Top 100 Events in North America for 2012 while the Denton Festival Foundation picked up a Texas Woman’s University Founders’ Award for the “leadership in and dedication to the Denton community.”

None of this would be possible if not for the festival’s 200-plus sponsors, who continue to send volunteers and shell out financial help in the midst of a struggling economy to make the festival a hit – and keep it free, something that’s a must for the Denton Festival Foundation and its executive director, Carol Short. “Some people have never seen these professional headliners at a live performance. If you had to buy a ticket to see some of the groups we’ve had, it would cost a lot of money. That’s what we’re proud of. That’s our legacy. Equally important are the 350 members of the Denton Festival Foundation who volunteer their time at the event,” she says.

Wells Fargo, a key supporter, is sponsoring the festival for the 12th time this year and dispatching dozens of volunteers to the festival grounds to man booths and help vendors. “The festival serves the community. It celebrates so much of what is unique about Denton,” says Meleia Waschka, district manager for Wells Fargo in Denton. “It’s so much fun to get out and enjoy the music, see the art, visit with members of the community and others that come from outside the community.”

The one constant year to year, besides Carol’s guiding hand, is Brave Combo. “Really what Arts & Jazz means to me – it’s not just another gig – it really is this kind of homecoming. We play all the Brave Combo hits everybody wants to hear,” Carl says. “There’s a lot of back and

forth with the audience. Everybody knows it, so it’s just kind of a time that everybody comes back to town – ‘Oh yeah, we’re here at the park.’ That’s familiar. ‘Oh, Brave Combo’s on stage.’ That’s familiar. ‘Oh good, they’re playing the songs that we want to hear.’ It’s unique in that respect.”

Professionals star on the three main stages while four stages show off local talent: university musicians, community groups, dance troupes and elementary choirs. “They’re all treated like professionals on our stages,” says Carol, who spends much of the year inviting local favorites and securing headliners from the festival’s wish list. “Every stage has professional technicians and sound. These young people have as much exposure or more than they’ve ever had.” This egalitarian ethos is a part of what makes the festival unique, she notes. “There are no barriers. The diversity makes the Denton Arts & Jazz Festival special.”

Though music drives the festival, the art scene harbors no slackers. The festival hosts a juried competition to select 175 finalists that represent some of the best work in the country, offering everything from beaded trinkets to sculpture and jewelry as well as oil paintings, pottery and photography. “Usually if somebody is a real music lover, then to have fine art there too is just icing on the cake,” Carol says. “Music and the arts fill your soul. They feed it. When you’re at the festival, all of this takes you on a wonderful journey.”

After showcasing his work at the Denton Arts & Jazz Festival for the past eight years, Brad Foster still anticipates his journey to Denton every spring. He crisscrosses the country selling his one-of-a-kind ink drawings, which capture

ultra-realist portraits as well as fantasy creatures and cartoons. “There’s a joke I have with other artists,” Brad says. “We always ask each other, ‘If you won the lottery and you didn’t have to worry about selling [your art], which shows would you still do?’ The Denton Arts & Jazz Festival I would still do.”

Robert Hale, who creates sculpture jewelry with raw metals and gemstones, says he spends hours at the festival gazing at the two-dimensional work inside the art tent, but he prefers to be outside where the art and music mingle. “The variety of artwork is fantastic. You can’t get bored. It’s really hard to cover in one day. And then the music: There are so many stages and such a variety.” Both Robert and Brad look forward to the weekend finale when Brave Combo takes the stage.

One Sunday evening a year, Brave Combo brings together their diehard fans of 31 years with high school students barely half that age, uniting polka traditionalists with hard rock enthusiasts. Carl bursts onto stage and wastes little time in rousing the crowd of 15,000, who leap to their feet and surge forward to hear the band’s familiar tunes cranked out by their beloved accordions. He starts belting out the “Beer Barrel Polka.” Everybody knows what to expect of the closing act …

Roll out the barrel, we’ll have a barrel of fun Roll out the barrel, we’ve got the blues on the run Zing boom terrera, Join in a glass of good cheer. Now it’s time to roll the barrel, For the gang’s all here!


[ just the facts ]

What: Denton Arts & Jazz Festival

When: April 27-29, 2012

Where: Quakertown Park, 321 E. McKinney St.

Hours: Friday 5-11 p.m., Saturday 10 a.m.-11 p.m., Sunday 11 a.m.-9 p.m.

Admission: Free for all seven stages, six food courts, the art galleries, the children’s art tent and percussion tent

Featuring: 2,700 performers and 300 vendors

Headliners on the Wells Fargo/Budweiser Jazz Stage: Friday: Lee RitenourSaturday: Los Lonely BoysSunday: Brave Combo

Budweiser Courtyard Stage: Professional R&B musicians

kNTU-FM 88.1 Radio Roving Stage: Professional musicians perform culturally diverse and acoustic music

Wells Fargo Celebration Stage: Community, school and university bands/orchestras

Denton Record-Chronicle Festival Stage: Community, school and university dance and performance groups

Target Center Stage: Community and school choral groups and bands

UNT Showcase Stage: UNT College of Music performance groups

Concessions: Corndogs to vegetarian, Greek to Cajun

Parking: Anywhere near park grounds

Leave at home: Coolers and pets


7www.dentonlive.com

[ BY GUILLERMO LAGRECA ]

A DATE TO CELEBRATE mexican heritage

sleepy Simon Osorio stumbles into his living room, stepping over the remains of last night’s band practice. Cables snake out from the music

soundboard in the middle of the room, bypassing Simon’s favorite brown chair to hook up with speakers in front of his TV. He plops down into the chair, ignoring the cables crawling over his feet, and starts talking about his 10-man band, Sabor Kolombia, and how they came to play the Cinco de Mayo Celebration in Denton.

Simon, who was born in Guerrero, Mexico, arrived in the United States with his parents when he was 10, but his dad died three years later. By 15, he had dropped out of school and gone to work to help his mom. Music was always a big thing for Simon so he started working night shifts as a DJ, just for fun. But his real passion was making music and he decided to form a band. It was tough at first – his music didn’t sell. But after 13 years, he began playing on Hispanic radio stations and getting invites for Sabor Kolombia and its saucy cumbia sound to headline festivals.

Cinco de Mayo, he says, is special – his chance to celebrate his heritage with food and music. “It’s our roots, where we came from,” he says. “Even though I came here as a little boy, I’m still Mexican, 100 percent Mexican.” Cinco de Mayo commemorates not Mexican independence day, but the Battle of Puebla in 1862 when 4,500 Mexicans defeated a much larger French invasion force, bringing the country together during a dark period. For Simon, the annual get-together is an opportunity to feel a special connection with his countrymen while for Simon Jr., a

member of his dad’s band, it’s a good excuse for celebrating. “It’s a happy day,” he yells from another room.

Indeed it is. Each May, traditional floats with kids in costume parade through Denton’s downtown Square along with trucks blasting reggaeton, a form of Hispanic techno music. Locals march toward Denton Civic Center, waving flags and cheering to set the mood for the party to come. At Quakertown Park, two stages are ready to entertain a crowd of 6,000 who come for music ranging from Colombiana and Ranchera to Norteña and Merengue. On the sidelines, Mexican dishes such as tacos, enchiladas and fajitas sizzle for the hungry. “It’s not just for fun,” says coordinator Julia Losoya. “It’s to bring cultures together and have a day of friendship, a day celebrating together.” The night winds down with a dance to Latino music inside the civic center.

The cultural mix appeals to both Simon and Julia. “It’s nice to see Americans and American cities like Denton celebrating a Mexican holiday,” he says. Julia has noticed an increasing diversification of the crowd and even in the volunteer corps. “This past year we had all kinds of people: Chinese, African-American, Caucasian and different Hispanic cultures such as Mexicans, Colombians and Puerto Ricans,” she says.

Julia, who’s been involved with the event since 1991, called long-time friend Simon to play at the festival’s main stage in 2012. On the Fiesta Stage nearby, girls 3 and 4 years old perform, hoping to become the next Little Miss Princesa. Kids are Julia’s favorite part of the festival. “When you see how happy they are, the laughter ... You know how they get excited about decorating and the costumes,”

she says. After the Princesa is picked, the girls 16 to 21 take over, competing for the queen of Cinco de Mayo, La Reina. Winners, who must submit an essay on immigration, take home scholarships and cash prizes.

Simon says events like Cinco remind him of his struggle and how it’s paid off for him and the band. “I never imagined that we’d get so far,” he says. He makes a promise to this year’s Cinco audience: “When we play, we will do our best for them to appreciate it, because that’s how we made it here.”

A

[ just the facts ]

What: Denton’s 25th annual Cinco de Mayo Celebration

When: May 5, 2012, 10 a.m.-6 p.m.

Where: Parade starts at 10 a.m. at Oakland and Locust streets, loops past the Courthouse-on-the-Square, and ends at the festival grounds in Quakertown Park and the Denton Civic Center. Parking in the Civic Center lot, 321 E. McKinney St.

Free at the festival: Listen to Ranchera, Norteña, Merengue and Salsa sounds; Sabor Kolombia ends the evening with some fast-paced Cumbia. On the Fiesta Stage, watch 3- and 4-year-olds vie for the Little Miss Princesa title. Or, new this year, stop by the car show outside the Denton Civic Center.

Photo courtesy of Sabor Kolombia

WHEN DOGS Fly!

hey’re at their mark. They’re breathing heavy. Their eyes are locked on the finish line. They’re ready to run as fast as they can. No, they’re not

professional athletes lining up for an Olympic race. These are the dogs of the Texas Heat Flyball team. Ego, Gimmick, Quick, and Logo meet every Sunday, rain or shine, to compete and train for the Dog Days of Denton Celebration in Quakertown Park each June. The dogs bark with excitement as soon as their trainers start pulling out training mats, bright green hurdles and, finally, the

long, colorful ropes called “tugs.” The dogs go crazy for the tugs. It’s their motivation to finish a practice race so they can get in a quick game of tug-of-rope with their owners.

But first, there’s work. While handlers sit at each end of the mats, holding the dogs’ back legs in place, the trainers smack the ropes on the mats and call out their names to get them excited. “Let’s go, Egooooo!” “Mark! Set! Go!” Just like human athletes, the dogs take off down the full length of the mats. Dogs new to the sport might tumble over the hurdles and hit their shins, but the veterans in the game fly over each 9-inch

hurdle with grace and ease. There’s just a little slimy drool dripping from their mouths to prove they’ve been working hard. After each practice race, the Texas Heat handlers shower them with affection. “We try to make it one big game for the dogs, and it is,” member Roger Forsythe says while patting one of the dogs on the stomach. “They just love it.”

The dogs aren’t the only ones who love flyball. Texas Heat has been performing demonstrations at the Dog Days of Denton for five years and they’re a hit every spring. “Some people come out just to watch the demos,” says Christine Gossett, director

T


Dog Daysof Denton

Photo by Conner Howell

9www.dentonlive.com

[ BY kATHARINE PETTIGREW ]of Dog Days. “They don’t always bring their dogs. Sometimes they bring their kids just to watch.” Dog Days is more than just flyball, however. The event, which turns 19 this year, attracts a crowd of 8,000. What started as a community outing for Denton residents now pulls in dog lovers from all over North Texas and beyond. Everything’s geared to the animals: from agility courses to test their skill, to the annual Spokesdog contest, even “Glamfur” photos where the dogs play dress up and show off their inner model.

“A lot of people think ‘I don’t have a dog so I can’t go to Dog Days,’ but really it’s a celebration of our canine friends,” Christine says. “We focus on entertainment, demos and contests. We’ll have an acoustic musician playing between sets and a lot of booths where people can get advice for pet care and pet training or just fun treats and apparel. They’re really interactive. It’s what makes our event and our vendors stand out.” But there’s a serious side, too, says Kevin Lechler, co-director of Dog Days. “We wouldn’t be true to our mission if we didn’t slip in some informative, educational tips on responsible pet ownership, training tips, encouraging adoptions and the like. We have been very fortunate to have found a formula to do this in a way that is fun for all the pooches and their people, too.”

The Spokesdog Pageant draws the biggest crowd, with precious pooches and hunky hounds competing to represent Dog Days. (The contest is such a tradition with local families that dogs – like May Day, the 2012 winner – compete year after year.) Festivities start off with the Canine Couture Fashion Parade. The Heinz 57 contest offers prizes for the dog with the longest ears, the Fido with fluffiest hair, and the worldly canine who’s traveled farthest. For the talented pet, there are Pet Tricks and Dog Singing contests.

“People from all over come to the event because it’s so unique and different. It’s centered around dogs and pet care as well as having fun,” says Christine. Vendors sell everything from jewelry (for the humans) to bandanas (for the doggies) and offer tips on responsible pet care and adoption. Vendors return because of the connections they make. “Loyalty for the vendors is like a dog’s loyalty for its owners,” Christine adds with a laugh.

Flyball, the only team sport for dogs, has been a Dog Days’ mainstay since 2007. Invented in California in the ’70s, it’s a relay race with four dogs on a team. The dogs must jump four hurdles set 10 feet apart, catch a tennis ball that shoots out of a spring-loaded box, and then jump the four hurdles again on the way back. The first team to have all four dogs run without errors wins the heat. Even though legally the dogs can’t compete until they’re at least a year

old, it takes up to two years to be ready. “For us, it’s a lot more than a competition,” says Beth Futch, another member of Texas Heat. “It’s about what you want from your dogs. It’s a bonded relationship with your dogs.”

Flyball is a sport for true dog lovers. “They’re not like golf clubs, you don’t put them in the closet when you’re done playing for the day,” says Mary Fairbairn, a member of Texas Heat. “People get a lot of dogs, older ones that don’t run anymore, current runners, 1- and 2-year-olds to train – and sometimes puppies – but we love it.” As crazed as the dogs may seem, when it’s their turn to race, something changes in them. Nothing can distract them from crossing the finish line. “Dog Days is also another way dog owners can find new ways to interact with their dogs and form new relationships through groups like these,” Christine notes.

Dallas Dog & Disc Club runs demonstrations at Dog Days, too. “Flyball is about quick speed and catching the tennis ball,” Christine says. “With Dog & Disc, they’re jumping and

catching the disc. They’re amazing to watch.” Dallas Dog & Disc started in 1985 and has grown into a popular sport for humans and dogs alike. Kelly Miller, president of Dallas Dog & Disc, got involved 12 years ago when she had a misbehaving dog, Toby, that she didn’t quite know how to handle. “I actually ran into a Dallas Dog & Disc member while I was doing agility with him (Toby),” says Kelly. “He was very ADD and they said, ‘Hey, why don’t you take him and play Frisbee with him?’” Kelly now trains her own dogs Rockstar, Rio and Joey for disc dog demos and exhibitions. In an open field, she works with her dogs on various tricks: They charge after a Frisbee flying 30 feet in the air, or jump off her back and catch one of the bright discs in mid-air.

Although disc dog and flyball might have high goals for the dogs, even energetic pooches like their downtime at home. “They’re couch potatoes and they’re right beside me the whole time,” says Kelly, amused. Maybe, just maybe, they’re dreaming about their next competition.

[ just the facts ]

What: Dog Days of Denton Celebration

When: June 1-2, 2012

Where: Quakertown Park

Hours: Friday 5-8:30 p.m. Saturday 8:30 a.m.-2 p.m. Take in the evening shade with food, fun and interactive booths for you and your pooch. Cool off at the Cool zone stations with misters, fans and water for the dogs.

Admission: Free for friendly dogs (who must be on a leash) and their best friends

More info: www.dogdaysdenton.com

Dog-gone fun: “Heinz 57” Dog Show offers prizes for dogs with longest ears, oldest, fluffiest hair and much more. Make your dog even more adorable by dressing them up in costumes for “Glamfur” shots, $10 per photo.

May Day, the 2012 Spokesdog for Dog Days of Denton/Photo courtesy of Carl Oberman


ike Seman changes out a battered pair of New Balance sneakers for cleaner ones. Then he pulls out a pair of black-framed shades, replacing his

scholarly glasses. But as Mike leaves Hickory Hall to grab a cup of joe from Big Mike’s Coffee across the street from the University of North Texas, he makes the biggest transformation yet – from cultural geographer and economics professor to musician and behind-the-scenes orchestrator at 35 Denton, the city’s love fest with the indie music scene. “I’m the reversed Mister Rogers,” he says, shrugging off his zipped-up university demeanor for the cheekier attitude of a musician.

Music is why he left Los Angeles and came to Denton, Mike explains as he opens the door to Big Mike’s, its concrete walls loaded with oil paintings by local artists, its customers crammed around tiny tables with laptops open and fingers clicking away. Mike and his wife, Jen, formed their brooding experimental band, Shiny Around the Edges, out in the City of Angels 10 years ago. Two years later, though, they ditched the West Coast for Denton because

they longed for a music city with soul. “In LA, it’s about the music industry. In Denton, it’s about the music scene. It hasn’t been tainted by corporations,” says Mike, an adjunct economics professor at UNT as well as a musician. He’s hooked up with 35 Denton, the 4-year-old music festival that’s grabbing attention in Texas and beyond for its imaginative mix of new and established bands.

Every March, in the weeks before Austin’s South by Southwest (SXSW), 35 Denton lures hundreds of bands (200 last year) and thousands of music lovers (6,000 and growing) to North Texas for four nights of music at nine indoor venues and three outdoor stages – all within walking distance of Denton’s historic downtown. Bands for the 2012 show, which runs March 8-11, range from Thee Oh Sees (garage rock) to Bun B (Southern rap) to Wet Hair (psychedelic noise). But the atmosphere at 35 Denton is as important as the thrill of discovering bands on the brink of breaking out. Known for its intimacy and energy, it’s the kind of festival where patrons discover a new best friend in line. “It’s the closest you’re ever

going to get to organic Southern hospitality at its finest,” says Mike, who plays the festival and coordinates daytime panel discussions. “We’re not trying to be the biggest. We’re trying to be the most memorable.”

Mike isn’t the only one noticing Denton’s passion for music. The New York Times, Paste Magazine and HM Magazine have praised the city for its independent approach to music. The festival’s organizers packed up their guitars and amps in 2008 and left Austin to return to their roots in Denton. The first show, in 2009, was dubbed NX35 to capitalize on its location along Interstate 35. As word spread about the Denton scene, touring bands would stop by to perform, giving them added exposure and boosting the city’s reputation.

Musical variety is a key component of today’s 35 Denton show. Performances last year included Sarah Jaffe singing folk, electronic musician Dan Deacon, The Civil Wars playing progressive bluegrass and indie rockers Colour Revolt. “We’re the festival that cares,” says 35 Denton founder Chris Flemmons, slapping a black Moleskine journal against his palm during a break from planning for 2012.

M

35 DENTON: fourth time’s the charm

11www.dentonlive.com

[ BY CHRISTINA MLYNSkI ]Don’t be fooled by the badly lit bar where the

35 Denton team meets to plan what promises to be their biggest festival yet, with prestigious touring bands lining up to perform alongside locals. Despite the laidback attitude and the Coors and Miller Lite bottles scattered around the table, this meeting, six months before the festival, is critical. With attendance expected to hit 8,000 and 250 volunteers arriving from across the state, 35 Denton is growing.

Local businessman Chris Hawley, co-founder of Little Guys Movers, came on board as an organizer because of his business expertise as well as his love of the local music scene. “We’d take Denton bands down there to SXSW and try to have a face for Denton, so even from the very get-go, it’s always been about Denton and the viability and sustainability of … the music scene,” says Chris. With proposals shipped off to big-name bands and blind pre-sale passes sold out, new venues are vying with established ones for a slot in 35 Denton.

Denton is a city in love with music and that’s what Chris Hawley wants festival-goers to experience: globally recognized music in a city that’s home to just 120,000. “Music festivals, from the beginning of time, just pull people together,” says Chris. The windows at Hailey’s Club literally shake from the music while girls in acid-washed Daisy Dukes sway their hips to the beat next to guys in fitted pastel V-necks. But it’s not surprising to see toddlers on top of Dad’s shoulders dancing at the festival, too, or an older couple standing outside a venue, reminiscing about that one time they saw the Eagles perform live.

Chris and coworker Marcus Watson joke about their collaborations (Little Guys Movers and now 35 Denton), but they turn serious and professional as they discuss improving the festival experience as it keeps growing. “You gotta make all of your decisions based

on ‘Are we really helping our customers to the best of our abilities?’” says Marcus. “We don’t have it down pat, but we’ve got some really good ideas.”

Gone are the Thursday day shows, cramming more music into Thursday, Friday, Saturday and Sunday nights. For the first time, organizers are working with the city on street closures to avoid conflicts. “I’m really happy with everything,” says Chris Flemmons, who’s joined the planners for an update and a cold one. “We’ve still got a lot of work to do, but I’m really pleased with our new relationships and the work environment.”

Mike Seman is signed up as daytime programming coordinator, creating panel discussions – from feminist theory in music to production engineering – that feed off the nighttime band performances. “We’re talking about well-rounded people who have lots of interests,” not just music, says Mike, popping grapes from a brown-bag lunch. “I love music and all of the parts of it. I’m just as excited to put a show together as I am to play a show.”

His gaze is fixed on a wall – he’s somewhere else, back at last year’s festival in Andy’s Basement Bar & Grill, with Shiny Around the Edges about to step out on stage and perform their most memorable show.

The bar lights kick in simultaneously with his guitar and Jen’s vocals as a sea of people, packed in tightly next to each other, start to sing along with the band. “It was definitely, ah, what would you say … ? Off the hook! If kids still say that,” says Mike, immediately laughing. “It was fun to have people singing along and the interaction was great. It was just very high energy.” 35 Denton reflects the city, he says. “It’s eclectic. … It’s a little corporate, but it’s a lot organic and done from the heart of this community.”

[ just the facts ]

What: 35 Denton music fest

When: March 8-11, 2012

Featuring: 200+ bands and musical

acts playing nonstop on three outdoor

stages and multiple indoor venues, plus

daytime panel discussions, mobile food

trucks, and more.

Where: Andy’s Basement Bar & Grill

122 N. Locust St.

(940) 565-5400

myspace.com/andysbar

Banter

219 W. Oak St.

(940) 565-1638

dentonbanter.com

Dan’s Silver Leaf

103 N. Industrial St.

(940) 320-2000

dandssilverleaf.com

Hailey’s Club

122 W. Mulberry St.

(940) 323-1160

haileysclub.com

Hickory Street Lounge

212 E. Hickory St.

(940) 387-2222

hickorystreetlounge.com

J&J’s Pizza (Old Dirty Basement)

118 W. Oak St.

(940) 382-7769

jandjpizzadenton.com

Rubber Gloves Rehearsal Studios

411 E. Sycamore St.

(940) 387-7781

rubberglovesdentontx.com

Sweetwater Grill & Tavern

115 S. Elm St.

(940) 484-2888

facebook.com/sweetwatergrilltavern

The Labb

218 W. Oak St.

(940) 293-4240

thelabbdenton.com

For more info: www.35denton.com

(left) Photo of organizers by Conner Howell

Opening photo courtesy of Kyle LaValley


oshua Butler navigates the red carpet ropes of a local coffeehouse with a swagger, then plops himself down to discuss a “hobby” that’s become

his passion: documentary film. Choosing the venue with a movie theater twist seems conscious, or maybe not. With Joshua, nothing is ever as it seems, which is the concept behind his startup – the Thin Line Film Fest. The documentary film festival, now in its fifth year, invites its audience to explore the “thin line” between reality and fiction in film. His question: Can a documentary ever be real?

As a student filmmaker at the University of North Texas and founder of the nonprofit Texas Filmmakers, Joshua started brainstorming about ways to serve local filmmakers and bring new arts programs to Denton. Thin Line, with its thought-provoking angle, is at the top of the list. Its clever approach – keep the audience guessing – is Joshua’s way of inspiring film-goers to think about and dissect

the true nature of documentary film, whether it’s the Emmy Award-winning documentary “GasLand,” the Tribeca Film Festival favorite “Searching for the Wrong-Eyed Jesus,” or “Atomic Mom,” last year’s documentary film winner by M.T. Silvia.

Joshua plays maverick-in-chief, orchestrating the 10-day documentary festival in February – the only one in Texas – bringing in an array of films meant to test the audience’s conception of what makes a documentary a documentary. It isn’t bad exposure for the filmmakers either, with awards (and money) for Best Documentary Feature, Best Documentary Short and Denton Docs, a new award category this year. The 2012 festival, set for Feb. 10-19, hopes to attract 50 films – up from 36 last year.

Documentary filmmakers come to Thin Line because the Dallas/Fort Worth area is the fourth largest video market in the U.S., providing maximum exposure for a group of filmmakers that are often overlooked. Unlike other festivals, documentaries and their directors

are the stars of Thin Line. “Most of the time, the big premieres are the narrative movies, the big parties are after narrative movies, the big buzz is about narrative movies, the big money is thrown at narrative movies,” says Joshua. “We want to elevate documentary to the same level as narrative film.” The closeness of the venues in Denton – their “walkability” and intimacy – is a bonus, and Thin Line delivers on high-definition projection, state-of-the-art screens and projectors, and all-digital sound.

M.T. Silvia, who was last year’s winner of the “Best Documentary Feature” award for her film about two mothers and their opposing experiences with the atom bomb, remembers the hospitality and professionalism. It was only her third festival (she went on to win 11 awards for “Atomic Mom”), but she was eager to take off time from her day job at Pixar to travel to Denton after hearing about it from other filmmakers who had attended in the past. “The festival scene is all over the map. There’s a lot of ‘garage band’ festivals out there. Thin

J

FICTIONor reality?

Thin Line makes you think

Photo courtesy of Joshua Butler


[ BY AMBER MULLINS ]

Line is really professional, top notch, and it’s truly a filmmakers’ festival.” She rates Thin Line in the Top 5 of the 25 plus festivals where she’s shown her film. “I was so grateful for the generous Texas hospitality that came my way. I felt so welcomed and well cared for. Everyone was so friendly, down to earth, and interesting!”

That’s exactly how Joshua wants them to feel. He sits, one leg crossed over the other, and stirs his coffee while talking about the trouble he stirs up with Thin Line’s concept. “No movie is real. I don’t care how cinema verité you are. Even if there’s no interaction with the subject and no setting up anything, that movie is still fake. Because you’re still choosing which scenes to show, you’re still choosing when to cut, you’re still choosing when to fade out, you’re still choosing what music to add,” he says. He knows from his own experience in making a documentary about the effects of Hurricane Katrina – “One-Eyed Girl,” which was shown at Thin Line in 2007. “As a filmmaker, you’re still adding things that

aren’t real, cutting life into sections and only showing certain things in a certain sequence over an hour and a half. There’s nothing real about that. That is a story.”

It’s an interesting notion, exploring what’s fake in a documentary. The festival screens all kinds of documentaries ranging from “cinema verité” (the filmmaker supposedly as “fly on the wall”) and “docu-fiction” (completely staged and made to look like a documentary) to “mockumentaries” (docu-fiction in the form of a parody). Thin Line does it without giving the audience a clue as to which is which. Joshua says the idea isn’t to trick or tease the audience, but rather to showcase the complexity and range in documentary films and to make them think: What separates a documentary from a narrative film?

“That is a question we want our audience to have, and engage in, during the festival,” says Joshua. “What is the difference between it being a documentary – or a fictional film that is based on a true story? Because ‘based

on a true story,’ it’s still real people. These are just complex concepts, you know. And I’m not sure there is an answer for it. I mean, that’s why there is a thin line between fact and fiction. That’s why there is a thin line between documentary and narrative.”

Joshua spends his falls hunting down the best documentaries, trying to snare Oscar nominees and films invited to Sundance, using Denton’s reputation for the arts to lure them in. “We pursue the best ones. Sundance announces their lineup early November. We pursue every single one of those movies. We pursue films that are on the short list for the Oscars that year,” says Joshua. “We want the best submissions.” It’s his dream to grow Thin Line into a festival with 100-plus films over 10 days around Valentine’s Day each year. One thing won’t change: The documentaries at Thin Line must entertain. “I don’t care if it’s an important film. If it’s not entertaining, it’s not going to be in the festival,” he says. “That’s the number one. It cannot be boring.”

[ just the facts ]

What: Thin Line Film Festival, the only documentary film fest in Texas

When: Feb. 10-19, 2012

Where: Denton Campus Theatre, 214 W. Hickory St.

Tickets and info: $8 with a $2 discount for students/military/seniors. For advance tickets, visit www.thinlinefilmfest.com.


‘DANS TON’ pedicabOne Frenchman’s crazy dream to

pedal his way into the hearts and

pockets of Denton’s travelers.


[ BY CONNER HOWELL ]

aurent Prouvost pedals his green pedicab down Bolivar Street with drivers, Marshall and Chris, trailing. The three pedicabs are on their way to pick up

a birthday boy and his friends for a night out on the Denton Square. Chris can feel his heart pounding from the smokestack of a cigar he’s been smoking since they left Laurent’s house, but he keeps pace in the back. Marshall stays just ahead of him, his right leg shining from the cocoa butter smeared over the new tattoo Laurent gave him. They pull up and see six young men waiting by the curb in front of an old white house, and somebody yells out, “Happy birthday, Cary!” Birthday boy laughs. “This is so much better than a limo,” he says and hops into Laurent’s pedicab for the mile trip.

Two to a cab, the boys coast through the streets with neon green lights glowing beneath them as they head toward The Abbey Underground, an English tavern known for its lagers, ciders and stouts. The drivers switch between gear ratios for the uphill ride, the passengers joke and talk with each other, and the pedicabs tremble over rough patches of pavement. They catch the attention of some beautiful girls walking on the sidewalk, and one of the boys in Chris’ cab shouts, “Come to Abbey’s at midnight!” But the girls just laugh. So does his friend who pats him on the back for trying.

As they pull up, Zach Scoggins jumps out and gives each driver a $10 tip. A limo would have cost $500 easy, but the pedicabs are free. Everyone shakes hands and the drivers turn around and steer toward Fry Street, a college bar and club scene by the University of North Texas, to begin their routine of ferrying inebriated crowds home until 3 a.m. They don’t have to go far before someone shouts, “Hey you ridin’?” Chris cuts the wheel for a 90-degree turn and rides over to pick up his new clients.

And that’s how Laurent’s business plan works. Drivers pedal four 180-pound pedicabs throughout downtown Denton – and two miles in every direction from there – giving free rides in hope of tips. The tattooed Frenchman got the idea while he was apprenticing at Fry Street Ink, a tattoo parlor now long gone from downtown. In Europe where Laurent grew up and in his world travels, he’d used pedicabs and rickshaws to get around. Denton just seemed to be the perfect place to transplant them. Everything was in reach of a pedal. “It’s funny because the word ‘denton’ – you would read it in French ‘dans ton’ – and ‘dans ton pedicab’ means ‘in your pedicab,’” says Laurent.

Love, not pedicabs, brought Laurent to Denton. He met his second wife “under a coconut tree” in the Maldives and followed her to Denton at

least a decade ago – at least he thinks that’s when it happened. The 36-year-old former diving instructor pulls out his passports, thick with ink like the skin on his arms, to reconstruct his journey piecemeal through the dates stamped on the pages. He first moved to Denton in 2002 and worked mowing lawns, moving furniture, crawling around in AC ducts and other jobs until he finished his apprenticeship a year later. He thumbs through a few more pages and finds the stamp for November 2009, the date he closed his tattoo shop in France and moved back to Denton for the second and last time. A month later he bought his first of three Broadway-model pedicabs and created DentonPedicab LLC.

Now, nearly two years later, Laurent owns five pedicabs. Growth is slow, but the plan is to double his retinue each year come January. “The future of the pedicab in Denton is more than just a few pedicabs here and there,” he says grandly, tossing around the idea of 50 pedicabs plying the streets in a pedicab valley stretching from the city’s close-knit bar scene to the new Apogee Stadium at UNT across town, and back again downtown to Denton’s new A-train station.

One little issue: Each pedicab costs $3,800, and Laurent pays for each one out of his own pocket. That’s why he keeps them in a small lean-to garage next to his backyard and uses

the Peugeot bicycle he’s had for 30 years to get around town. His fridge is empty so he takes his 5-year-old daughter, Kaya, out to breakfast. “She’s my little pearl,” he says. If he leased the pedicabs for $40 bucks a shift like companies in Austin, he’d make more money, but then his college-kid workforce couldn’t afford to drive. So he leases his pedicabs for $1 an hour, and drivers work an average shift of six hours – or $6. That’s why they can give free rides.

Once they lease the pedicabs, the drivers take over. “Laurent wants you to be your own boss,” says Chris Taylor, the cigar smoker. He once threw up when he started driving – the result of eating fast food right before pedaling three consecutive fares to Lucky Lou’s Bar & Grill, the downtown Square and Texas Woman’s University. But a year later he’s toughened up enough to work a double shift on game day between the UNT Mean Green football team and the Indiana

Hoosiers. He keeps gallon jugs of water in the storage space underneath his cab’s seat and wears a camouflage CamelBak from his Army days to sip while he works. He pedals back and forth between the old Fouts Field and UNT’s new Apogee Stadium – a repetitive uphill-downhill ride – ferrying couples, families, and anyone else he can across the bridge over I-35 for eight hours. “When you’ve made $20-$40 in tips in just an hour, then you want as many rides as you can get,” he says. He’ll bank $400 for the day.

Yet he’s only paid $8 to lease his pedicab. Another driver made $11,000 in eight months and only paid $900 in leasing. Laurent, the boss, has to find the money another way – through advertising. Stickers all over Chris’ pedicab – front, back and side – advertise three popular college bars on Fry Street. The wrap’s worth $7,500 and Laurent’s won another yearly contract with the bars. Every pedicab, in fact, is wrapped in stickers and posters, advertising local businesses and even public services. Each full wrap means enough money for a down payment on at least another two pedicabs.

Tough times don’t stop Laurent from dreaming: of billboard bikes, pedibuses, green car shuttle services and even rental bikes. He runs everything now from his two-bedroom house,

scheduling drivers on a whiteboard nailed to a wall, coordinating their shifts by text message. But he sees the future. He wants the city to legitimize his company as city transportation and, yes, to regulate the business. He wants to partner with UNT and house his pedicabs in a larger warehouse. He could sell the pedicabs and go back to tattooing or diving, but Laurent is here to stay, for his family and his business. “It’s a commitment,” he says from his backyard sucking on a Camel cigarette and a Dr. Pepper. “It’s a really big thing for me and my kids. I love Denton. I’ve been traveling the world, but I’m good here.”

Catch a pedicab in downtown Denton and on Fry Street Thursday to Saturday or at UNT home games in the new Apogee Stadium next fall. Rides are free, but tips are appreciated.

Photo by Conner Howell

“I love Denton. I’ve been traveling the world, but I’m good here.”

Laurent Prouvost

L


utside the glass window o f h i s o f f i c e , To m McCutcheon is galloping on his Quarter Horse stallion, Gunners Special

Nite. Really galloping – galloping so hard the stallion’s feet pounce across the ground, leaving a trail of dirt in the air. With slight movements barely noticeable to the eye, Tom controls and steers the stallion. They are in tune with one another as Tom gallops straight toward the glass. He gets closer and closer, but Tom doesn’t flinch. Then, moments before it’s too late, moments before they crash into the glass, man and horse come to a stop. That’s the art of horse reining, where the horse responds to the rider’s almost invisible command while performing a set pattern of circles, spins and stops.

Minutes later, Tom, slightly sweaty and out of breath, walks into his office. His boots are dirty, his jeans mud-stained, his T-shirt old

and faded. He doesn’t head for his large oak desk or stop to show off his wall of trophies – not even the two gold medals he won at the 2010 World Equestrian Games, the only American to do so. Tom doesn’t seem to care about any of that. Most of the credit, he says, goes to the horses, not himself. Instead, he goes immediately to the window, looking out proudly at his state-of-the-art facility.

“My favorite part of the ranch is the arena. That’s my office really,” says Tom. “I have an indoor office, but that’s where I make my money getting horses trained.” Tom was born to ride. He got in the saddle for the first time at age 4 and he hasn’t stopped riding since. His father, a professional horse trainer in Wisconsin, shared his passion with Tom and his three brothers and they’ve all followed in his footsteps.

Gunners Special Nite may be Tom’s proudest achievement. The stallion was named Horse of the Year in 2010 by the United States Equestrian

Federation and soon after, Tom was crowned Equestrian of the Year, the first reiner ever to nab the award. The love of Tom’s life, wife Mandy, is an avid rider and competitor, too. Mandy is the only woman and non-pro to surpass $1 million in earnings for reining. In 2011, the National Reining Horse Association inducted her into its Hall of Fame.

It’s no wonder that Tom and Mandy want to introduce new people to horses and share their ranch in Aubrey, just north of Denton, where they train, breed and rehabilitate horses. Tom’s ranch usually has 60 horses in training at any one time, including two-time gold medalist Gunners Special Nite. They open their home six times a year to the North Texas Horse Country Tours, an initiative by the Denton Convention and Visitor Bureau (DCVB) to show off some of the 450 breeding and training facilities in the North Texas area. Denton County alone is home to 25,000 horses. “It’s an area like

REINING IN horse lovers

Horse Country USA attracts world-class equestrians and trainers

O


[ BY BERENICE QUIRINO ]

[ just the facts ]

What: North Texas Horse Country Tours

2012 dates: March 3, April 7, May 5, Sept. 8, Oct. 6 and Nov. 3

Time: 9 a.m.-3 p.m.

Price: $40 for advance tickets, lunch included. Day-of-tour tickets are standby, $45 cash

Departure: Tour departs from the Denton Historical Park, 317 W. Mulberry St.

To purchase tour tickets: Contact the Denton Convention and Visitor Bureau at (940) 382-7895 or (888) 381-1818.

For more information: Visit www.horsecountrytours.com.

Photos by Berenice Quirino

no other,” says Dana Lodge, the DCVB’s director of sales. “We actually have an area here in North Texas that is completely unique.”

Each behind-the-scenes tour stops at two or three facilities, with the experience varying throughout the seasons: In the fall, tour-goers admire the horse facilities surrounded by trees with orange, yellow and red leaves. In the spring, chances are there’s a foal born just days or even the night before. “We have every breed that you can imagine,” from Quarter Horses, Arabians, Thoroughbreds, Paints to Andalusians, says Dana. “All of the ranches focus on a different discipline.” While Tom’s discipline is reining, other ranches feature hunter/jumpers, halter horses or Western Pleasure competitors, for example. “Ranch managers bring out horses for our visitors to see, providing an up close and personal tour,” says Dana. Because of rising demand, there are now six tours a year instead of just four. There is also a self-guided driving tour,

she notes. “Visitors can stay in their cars and enjoy the beautiful countryside, seeing all the facilities and horses, but from the main roads.”

Tom’s arena is always busy with trainers working with Quarter Horses for reining competitions, both professional and non-professional at the national and international level. “I moved here just because this is Horse Country USA. If you want to be someone in the horse community, this is where you move,” says Tom as he peers out his office window to the arena. “Everybody has a great understanding for the horses, so it really makes it a lot easier for somebody that grows up in the horse business and goes to lunch with their spurs on.”

Tom, who moved to Denton County in 1988, has become one of the biggest names in the equestrian community, with lifetime earnings of more than $1 million and various championships under his shiny Western belt, including two National Reining Horse Association Derby Reserve Championships

and the Tradition Open Futurity. Reining is an international sport that in recent years has been recognized as a world-class sport, thanks in part to Tom, who was the first horseman ever to win USEF Equestrian of the Year in a Western discipline, shining the spotlight on reining. It will become an official Olympic event beginning in 2012.

Tom has been active for years in solidifying the sport’s presence in the industry as well: He is a co-founder and board chairman of the National Reining Breeders Classic, the largest added-money reining event and stallion incentive program in history. “This sport’s been great to me and I always enjoy giving back,” he says. He’s proud of his spread, which includes a spa for horses on the mend from injuries. “We are fortunate to have one of the nicest facilities in the country and I think it’s a special opportunity to let people come in,” he says. Just look for him out in his real office, the arena.


SPORTSJanuary

4: TWU Basketbal l vs . Cameron at Kitty Magee Arena

11: TWU Basketball vs. Texas A&M Kingsville at the Arena

11-12: UNT Basketball vs. Western Kentucky at Super Pit

14: TWU Gymnastics vs. Air Force at Kitty Magee Arena

18: UNT Basketball vs. Huston Tillotson at Super Pit

21: TWU Gymnastics vs. Oklahoma, Utah State and Centenary at Magee Arena

21: UNT Basketball vs. Denver at Super Pit

25: TWU Basketball vs. Angelo State at Magee Arena

28: UNT Basketbal l vs. Arkansas State at Super Pit

February

2: UNT Basketball vs. Middle Tennessee at Super Pit

3: TWU Gymnastics vs. Arizona at Magee Arena

4: TWU Basketball vs. West A&M at Magee Arena

8: TWU Basketball vs. Tarleton State at Magee Arena

11: TWU Gymnastics vs. Centenary at Magee Arena

15 - 16: UNT Basketball vs. ULM at Super Pit

18: UNT Basketbal l vs. Louisiana-Lafayette at the Pit

25: TWU Basketbal l vs. Incarnate Word at the Arena

March

1-3: Texas World Dirt Track Championship at Texas Motor Speedway (TMS)

3: TWU Gymnastics vs. BYU, Iowa and Southeast Missouri at Magee Arena

16-18: Goodguys Spring Lonestar Nationals at TMS

March 31: Paddle, Pound, Pedal Challenge at Denton Greenbelt

April

6-7: North Texas Track and Field Invitational at Fouts Field

12-14: Samsung Mobile 500 Weekend at Texas Motor Speedway

19-22: Tennis Sun Belt Conference Championships at Waranch Tennis Complex

May

19: Mud Volleyball Tour-nament at North Lakes Park

June

7-9: Firestone Twin 275s Weekend at TMS

Jan.1-15: Wizards of Pop: Sabuda & Reinhart at Center for the Visual Arts (CVA)

Jan. 17-Feb.15: Susan Burnstine, Kelli Connell, Mary Virginia Swanson Exhibition at TWU Fine Arts Building, East & West Galleries

Jan. 20 - Feb. 24: VAST Gala 2012 Exhibition at CVA

Feb. 3-March 30: Materials Hard & Soft at CVA

Feb. 21- March 28: Joyce Elaine Grant Juried Photography Exhibition at TWU Fine Arts Building, East & West Galleries

Feb. 24-March 24: Nick Cave’s Soundsuits exhibition and performance piece, UNT on the Square

FESTIVALSJan. 14: Martin Luther King, Jr. Celebration Parade and Concert at MLK Jr. Recreation Center

Jan. 16: Martin Luther King, Jr. Day Rally and March at UNT and MLK Jr. Recreation Center

Feb. 10-19: Thin Line Film Festival, Campus Theatre. See story on page 12-13.

Feb. 24: 17th Annual Black History Month Celebration at MLK Jr. Recreation Center

March 8-11: 35 Denton music fest , downtown Denton venues. Page 10-11.

March 8-11: Texas Storytelling Festival, Denton Civic Center. Page 26-27.

April 21: Denton Redbud Festival with Home & Garden Show at Civic Center

April 27-29: Denton Arts & Jazz Festival, Quakertown Park. Page 4-6.

May 5: C inco de Mayo Celebration, Quakertown Park & Denton Civic Center. Page 7.

June 1-2: Dog Days of Denton Celebration, Quakertown Park. Page 8-9.

June 15-16: Juneteenth Celebration, Fred Moore Park. See page 35 for story on pageant.

June 16: Denton Airshow, Denton Airport. -21.

CALENDAR

MARkETS & OTHER EVENTS

First Fridays of the Month: Music, art and fun at the Courthouse-on-the-Square

May-June: Twilight Tunes every Thursday

May-Oct: Community Market, every Saturday, Carroll Blvd. & Mulberry St.

June-Sept: Farmers’ Market, Tuesdays, Thursdays and Saturdays, Carroll Blvd. & Mulberry St.

Denton Poets’ Assembly: Every 3rd Saturday, Central Library

Jan. 7: “Natural Selection” show at the UNT Sky Theater

Feb. 9: My Little Valentine Family Dance at Civic Center

Feb.10-11: Denton County Proper Block Party featuring Akron/Family I Low at Downtown Denton Square

March 2, April 7 & May 5: North Texas Horse Country Tours. Call (888) 381-1818 for info. See story page 16.

March 3: Great American Cleanup at Denton Civic Center

April 2: “Are We Alone?” show at UNT Sky Theater

April 7: Easter Eggstravaganza at Denton Civic Center

Barrel Racing Jackpots: Tuesday night at Hopper Ranch in Aubrey

FINE ARTS


ON STAGE

MUSICCALENDAR JANUARY - JUNE 2012

UNT Murchison Performing Arts Center

Jan. 24: Ascolti Korean Chamber Orchestra

Feb. 16: Wind Symphony

Feb. 17: Concert Orchestra: Student conductors concert

Feb. 23: Handel’s oratorio Theodora, directed by Graeme Jenkins

March 2 & 9: UNT Concert Orchestra/Chamber at the Lyric Theater

March 13: Concert Choir

April 21: UNT Opera Without Elephants at the Lyric Theatre

April 25: World Premiere of Ahab’s Symphony by Jake Heggie

UNT Voertman Hall

Jan 27: Trombone Studio Showcase

April 20: Spring Concert Center for Chamber Music Studies

Other Venues

April 28: 64th Annual “Lab

Band Madness” Spring Concert, Quakertown Park

Clubs

Jan 21: Charlie Hunter with Chris Cortez at Dan’s Silver Leaf

March 3: Johann Wagner at Banter

Abbey Underground: Dubstep every Wednesday

Banter: Open mic night Thursdays, jazz Fridays; Doug Raney and Jazz 1st and 3rd Saturdays.

The Garage: Open mic night every Monday

GreenHouse: Live jazz and cover bands Mondays and Thursdays

Hailey’s: All the Best Hits from the ’90s on Tuesdays, hits from the ’80s on Thursdays

The Campus Theatre

Jan. 27-29 & Feb. 3-5: Laughter on the 23th Floor

April 6-8 & 13-15: Little Women – The Musical

June 8-10 & 15-17: All My Sons

Black Box Theatre

Jan. 20-22: Lady Day at Emerson’s Bar and Grill

March 30-April 1: Dog Sees God: Confessions of a Teenage Blockhead

Musical Theatre

March 2-4 & 9-10: Avenue Q

May 4-6 & 11-13: Fiddler on the Roof

Texas Woman’s University

Feb 23-March 4: BrideZilla and Mark 1, Redbud Theatre Rehearsal Hall

April 12-14: DanceMakers Concert Series, Margo Jones Performance Hall

April 19-22: The Robber Bridegroom, Redbud Theatre, Main Stage

April 26-28: Dance UpClose Concert Series, Dance Studio Theatre


Feb. 24-26: The Devil’s Sonata, Studio Theatre

March 29-April 1: Reefer Madness, University Theatre


Feb. 7: Distinguished Speaker Series: John Legend, UNT Coliseum

March 3: Punk rock icon Henry Ro l l ins , UNT Murchison Performing Arts Center

Bayless-Selby House Museum

Jan.18 & Feb.23: Victorian Denton

Jan. 28: Quilting Workshop

Feb. 11: Victorian Etiquette

March 22: Victorian Décor

April 4: Victorian Celebrations

April 14: The Victorian Woman

May 10: Victorian Culture

June 9: Readings from Dickens, Denton Dickens Fellowship

June 23: Victorian Love Affair with Dishes

Courthouse-on-the-Square Museum

Jan. 20: John S. Ford by Dr. Rick McCaslin

March 23: Sanger by Tona Payne

April 13: Our American Cousin by Joe Holl

June 15: Captain John R. Hughes by Tom Reedy

African American Museum

February: Lectures throughout Black History Month

April 7: Speaking with Families

June 14: How does your garden grow? Then and Now

For other music venues

dentonlive.commydentonmusic.comdentonlivemusic.comntxshowlist.com

SPEAkERS/LECTURES


ooking down from the air traffic control tower, Brigadier General Tommy Williams sees a sea of people filling the grounds of Denton Airport.

They’re looking down the runway, waiting for a first in Denton – the first U.S. Air Force F-16 Viper to take off from the airport. The general has the best seat in the house high up in the air-conditioned tower, but Tommy Williams knows there’s an even better seat. He wants to feel the F-16 engine rippling his skin as it zips across the sky at 575 miles per hour.

Minutes later, at the general’s suggestion, everyone in the tower is piling out onto the metal catwalk. The F-16 appears on the horizon, at the end of Denton’s newly extended 7,000-foot runway. There is a roar as Captain Garrett “Mace” Dover starts up

the engine of his Viper. The crowd whips around to watch takeoff as the F-16 rips into the sky and executes a jaw-dropping 360-degree turn. Heads whip back and forth as the plane shoots by them at low altitude in a high-speed pass. Then the captain wows the crowd with a simulated attack in his combat fighter. When the general looks around, he sees big grins on the faces of Congressman Michael Burgess, who won the runway extension for Denton, and Mayor Mark Burroughs.

Displays of military might are just one highlight of the annual Denton Airshow, which attracts nearly 10,000 on Father’s Day weekend in June. The show – coordinated by the Denton Airshow Committee, Denton Airport and David Schultz Airshows L.L.C. – offers a festival atmosphere with food vendors, rides in helicopters and historic

planes, as well as a showcase of modern and vintage aircraft. “When these air shows first began, basically everybody came out, sat around on the grass, socialized and oohed and aahed at the planes,” says Quentin Hix, Denton Airport’s manager. “Now they come out and it’s really a weekend festival atmosphere.”

Families bring children of all ages out for the aerial acrobatics and Kid Zone activities. Adults looking to indulge their inner child and see Denton from the sky can sign up for helicopter rides at Longhorn Helicopters or discovery flights at US Aviation. (Some even walk away with a new dream: to be a pilot.) For Amanda Addington, marketing director for the Denton Airshow, the best part is watching the children. Last year, Air Force A-10 pilots even visited city day camps to give the kids a taste of the airshow

Denton Airshow thrills

with flights at 575 mph

and vintage planes

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[ BY STACY POWERS ]

beforehand. “It’s a wow moment for those kids and even some of the adults,” she says. “It’s really funny to see some of the adults all of the sudden become kids again.”

For General Williams, airshows like Denton’s are a way of showing off the capabilities of today’s frontline Air Force fighters to those who foot the bill. “These airplanes are not the Air Force’s airplanes. They’re ultimately all of ours,” he says. The F-16 was the first of its kind in the ’80s to boast a computer that operates the flight control system. To see the Viper in action at the airshow – with its tremendous speed, noise, turn rate and climb capability – is to understand both the capabilities of the plane as well as the skill required of today’s pilots, he says.

General Williams brought in the F-16 Viper West Demo Team last year for the first time, capitalizing on the city’s new longer

runway. The Viper’s aerial show taps into our current fascination with the workhorses of the Air Force in Iraq, Afghanistan and, more recently, Libya. But there’s a nostalgic aspect to the airshow, too, with veterans climbing into vintage planes they flew in wars past and sharing their stories with the young. “It’s helping preserve the history of aviation,” says Quentin. The Navy show included a vintage Corsair plane as well as a modern FA-18 Hornet fighter jet.

Williams, a 30-year veteran of the Air Force with 200 combat hours in the air, loves talking with veterans at the shows and displaying the new technology to them. His first military airplane was an F-15 Eagle, a tactical fighter that he flew in Japan in the ’80s. He didn’t fly his first F-16 Viper until he was off active duty in the Air Force Reserves. “It’s one of the great joys that I’ve had in my Air Force career, to spend time with those veterans of World War II, especially the aviators who flew the P-51s, the P-38s, and the P-47s and explain to them our capabilities today and what we can do in our airplanes today. They just can’t imagine.”

The general stops at the Denton Airport often when flying his personal plane. With the help of its fixed base operators, Business Air Center and US Aviation, Denton has become one of the busiest general aviation airports in Texas in terms of operations, with dozens of hangars and a flight academy attracting students from as far away as China. The airport continues to grow with the recent runway extension to 7,000 feet, allowing larger charter aircraft and corporate jets to fly in. Business Air, an airshow sponsor, charters King Air prop planes and Citation

jets and provides jet fueling services. Another airport tenant, Jet Works Air Center, repairs planes ranging from smaller corporate jets to the Boeing behemoths. “It’s a first-class operation,” says the general.

Damon Ward, Business Air’s president, hosts a pre-show breakfast with civilian and military pilots, with proceeds going to the airshow’s charity of choice, Cumberland Presbyterian Children’s Home. At the breakfast, the performing pilots mingle with festival-goers while chowing down on breakfast from Fuzzy’s Taco Shop. The pilots pose for pictures, whip out their pens for autographs, answer questions and tell stories of their exploits.

Sharing stories, especially with the seasoned vets, seems to be a recurring theme at the airshow. It’s important to General Williams. His great-grandfather was an infantryman in World War I and his grandfather was a radio operator on a B-24 bomber in World II. In his job at Air Combat Command, overseeing the Air Force demonstration flight program, the general brings in the modern flyboys to perform daring feats at 9 Gs, barely off the ground. He’s got a soft spot for the old planes. “Our current-day airplanes are a little bit more businesslike, whereas the earlier ones are a little bit more art,” he admits.

But that won’t keep him from his perch on the tower catwalk as his F-16 team makes its final high-speed pass and ends with a sky-high climb into the clear blue sky over Denton. The crowd will erupt with cheers and applause. The kids will gape. “Who knows?” says Quentin. “We may have the next flying aces out here.”

[ just the facts ]

When: June 16, 2012

Where: Denton Airport, 5000 Airport Road

Admission: Advance tickets at any Point Bank branch, Denton Airport Terminal office, Business Air or US Aviation. $10 at the gate. Children under 6 free.

Hours: Gates open at 8:30 a.m. for the breakfast with the pilots. Show starts at 11:30.

Parking: General parking free. Preferred parking benefits Cumberland Presbyterian Children’s Home.

Concessions: Barbecue, corn dogs, turkey legs. Beer garden provided by North Texas State Fair and Rodeo.

Don’t forget: Chairs, blankets, umbrellas for shade, sunscreen and, of course, cameras.

Leave at home: Pets, coolers, alcohol, firearms, knives, or large backpacks. Bags are subject to search.

Beat the heat: For a great view while staying out of the sun, reserve a “chalet” package.

For the children: Kid zone, all-day play area, provided by Giggly Kids.

For tickets and info: (940) 484-1603 or denton.schultzairshows.com

Photo by Mike Mezuel II

ike bloodthirsty zombies fixated on their victims, Kerry Gammill and his older brother sit in their parents’ living room and eyeball the TV. It’s Saturday night and the boys are waiting for Gorgon to rise from his creaky coffin and introduce the next

monster movie on Nightmare Theater in his Transylvanian voice. “When the night falls, when the shadows become deep and black,

the silent pall of evil settles upon the earth,” Gorgon says ominously. “Welcome to Nightmare.” The boys, enthralled, absorb every detail of

the night’s movie and when it’s over, they leap to their feet and run to their parents. There, in the kitchen den, they act out the scenes – summoning

their inner monsters, jumping, screaming, attacking. Mom and Dad clearly missed the greatest movie ever.

The Sixties were heady times – the Beatles invaded U.S. shores, the U.S. landed a man on the moon, the Packers won the first

Super Bowl – but Kerry was in the sinister hands of classic horror films and their misunderstood monsters. He still

is. “Bride of Frankenstein” remains his favorite movie of all time. “The makeup was so classic. It’s never really been copied, the flat head, the bolts bulging out of

the neck,” he says smiling, as he reminisces. “I just ate all that up and just somehow never got it out of my system. I just love that time, and today I think that’s why I do what I do.”

Kerry stops to dive into a plate of cheesy hash browns, sausage, eggs and toast at a Denny’s in Fort Worth. He’s still groggy from babysitting his grandchild the night before and a series of late-night work sessions. The worn-out grandpa across the table is comic book artist and creator Kerry Gammill. Over the past 30 years, he’s penciled pages for DC Comic’s “Superman” as well as Marvel Comic’s “Powerman and Iron Fist,” starring Spider-Man. He’s designed aliens for the

KERRY

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[ BY ASHLEY-CRYSTAL FIRSTLEY ]

www.dentonlive.com22

Be afraid. Be very afraid.

kerry Gammill brings monsters to life.

movies (“Virus”) and TV shows (“The Outer Limits” and “Tremors”), created storyboards for the big screen (“Species II”), and even helped dream up a new species (the Zeltons!) for the “Star Wars” comic books. He depicted comic book characters on the page for 18 years, and then turned to special effects and storyboarding, creating aliens and monsters on the screen. Just last year, he launched a monster comic book company called Monsterverse. “He’s somebody that other artists admire because they know his craftsmanship and his ability to start scenes,” says Harry Knowles, the arbiter of all things cool in movieland and comics at Ain’t It Cool News online.

It’s no wonder Kerry grew up to be famous for his monsters and superheroes. The monster craze of the early ’60s seeped into his blood like a vampire’s poison. He was monster crazy. He assembled monster model kits. He traded monster cards. He watched “Lone Ranger” and “Superman” on TV like other kids his age, but his favorite was always “Nightmare” and later, “The Munsters” and “The Addams Family.” He devoured every edition of Famous Monsters of Filmland magazine. He couldn’t stay away from monsters. There was something magical about them: the electric thrill of witnessing a guy transform into Frankenstein or Wolf Man, the classic makeup that dramatized the characters, the creepy music and frightening scenes.

Kerry Gammill unleashed his first 20-page superhero comic book while attending the University of North Texas in 1974, but he never graduated and dropped out to marry his high school sweetheart at 21. To be honest, he says, the only class he found useful was a figure drawing class and even then, his mind kept wandering: He wanted to sketch the live models with huge muscles like superheroes. “It was nice to have something like the monsters and the comics that give you an identity of some sort -- something that you’re so interested in and knowledgeable about,” he says. “I was never good at sports or real popular but I liked being Kerry the monster guy. So at least it gave me something to wrap my identity around.”

He pauses to cut a piece of sausage, stabs it and eats. He started drawing at age 4, or maybe it was 5. In high school, he realized that people actually drew comics for a living. His idols were Marvel artists Jack Kirby, known for drawing Captain America, and Steve Ditko, co-creator of Spider-Man. Kerry set his sights on the comic book lifestyle and with his portfolio in

hand, he haunted the comic book conventions looking for advice and work. His luck shifted when he met Marvel’s legendary writer Stan Lee at a Houston convention in 1978. Stan, impressed, promised to show Kerry’s drawings to his editors back in N.Y.

For 10 years, working from home in Fort Worth, Kerry penciled pages for “Spider-

Man,” “Fantastic Four” and “X-Men: Fallen Angels.” At comic book conventions, Harry

Knowles says Kerry was so talented he could nail a sketch of anyone in 15 minutes. For 18 years, he drifted back and forth from Marvel, to DC Comics, then back to Marvel again. But the spark was gone. He was assigned to

illustrate “The Punisher,” a comic book he’d never

read. “Things had changed so much at that time,” he says with a hint of sorrow. “I was just really not feeling like I was able to relate as much to

the audience at that time. The characters had changed … and the styles had changed a lot in just a few years.” He says Superman’s Lois and Clark wedding was the last official comic he drew for DC.

He was casting about for work when a few friends told him about a job in California as a special effects conceptual artist. At the time, he was helping with a short-lived local TV show that aired old monster films. Gobbling monster movies all his life, Kerry has always been interested in the technical side of effects. He tried his hand at makeup and submitted a bunch of his monster samples, which landed him a job in Hollywood. At first, he faxed his work out to Los Angeles, but then they lured him out West to work on a little movie called “Virus” that starred Jamie Lee Curtis. Like Superman, he flew to the rescue, helping create the movie’s aliens and storyboarding. He ended up staying almost two years, working on the TV shows “Outer Limits” and “Tremors” as well as the movie “Species II.”

For Kerry, drawing comics is a natural talent. He hated drawing cars and buildings and fire hydrants. He was drawn to the personalities. He’s credited for co-creating characters such as Don the Lobster of “Fallen Angels,” Rose and Victor Palermo of “Spider-Man,” and Frog Man of “Marvel Team-Up.” But by the late ’90s, he realized he was resorting to stock positions and struggling to invent new hand gestures. “You want to use body language to get across whatever feelings the characters have at the time, but it was just hard to come up with

different ways to express the same feelings,” he says. “I was getting stale as far as that goes.” He positions his hands in a typical superhero form, like a balled-up fist, to express what he’s talking about. Like every artist, he’s had his ups and downs. At one point, flipping burgers at McDonald’s seemed like an easier way to make a living than sitting in front of a blank page, wracking his brain for inspiration.

As editor-in-chief of Monsterverse – a project that spawned Kerry’s own monster comic with the former art director of DC comics, Keith “Kez” Wilson – he recently made a decision to mainly edit and do some cover art. But for the first bone-chilling issue in 2010, “Bela Lugosi’s Tales from the Grave,” he did it all: the writing, the penciling, the coloring, the inking and the cover – the 43rd of his career. “We’re hoping that we build it into some actual successful business thing, but we really just started it because it felt like the right thing to do – something I’ve always wanted to do,” says Kerry.

The idea of Monsterverse, he says, is to preserve the comic book tradition of EC Comics (famous for “Tales from the Crypt”) and Warren’s Monster World. Horror film star Bela Lugosi is its host for eternity. But what it’s really about is putting Kerry back on his parents’ sofa, waiting for Gorgon to intone his creepy good nights: “Now it’s getting close to dawn and I must say to you, nighty night and beddy bye.”

Illustrations by Kerry Gammill

[ BY ASHLEY-CRYSTAL FIRSTLEY ]

www.dentonlive.com 23


imberly Johnson opens a thick metal door, and a blast of cold air rushes out of the vault. The library outside is quiet, but in the vault, the air is alive with

the constant churning of an air conditioning unit and a humidity monitor. Crates and folders full of letters, photographs and clothes dating back before World War II line the walls, leaving just a small pathway to the bookshelves that house the crumbling pages of America’s culinary history. On the bottom shelf, stuffed in an acid-free envelope, is the 18th century tome to saving money in the kitchen, The Frugal Housewife, its binding and cover missing, its pages brown and flakey with age. Someone has added a handwritten recipe for apple jelly. Stored nearby is Cookery and Pastry, its stained pages offering recipes for those with the money to afford roasted pig and black currant pie.

The most valuable books in the Cookbook Collection at Texas Woman’s University can be found here in the vault on the second floor of the Blagg-Huey Library. The refrigerated room

slows the ravages of time and keeps the oldest and rarest cookbooks – some more than three centuries old – in the best condition possible. The remainder of the 15,000-volume collection sits on shelves in the lobby surrounded by tables where students cram for tomorrow’s Chemistry test. Their laptops and cell phones contrast with the collection’s faded pages and crumbling covers, each book holding a key piece of America’s past. “We always say that food is the one thing we all have in common,” says Kimberly, who is coordinator of Special Collections and TWU’s resident cookbook connoisseur. “We all have a connection to cookbooks. They’re not just about food. So many of them tell stories about the people within a community or an organization. There’s history contained within those cookbooks.”

Inside the vault, Kimberly carefully sifts through row after row of ancient books on baking, roasting, broiling and barbecuing, some dating as far back as the late 1600s. She picks up books that detail everything from Grandma’s gingerbread to the intracacies of stuffing a wild

pheasant. Want to make Chou Farci, a stuffed cabbage dish favored by 18th century French royals? Or Broiled Chicken Livers, the height of American cuisine in the late 1800s? No? Well, there are plenty of cookbooks with King Ranch Chicken Casserole, a timeless Texas tradition.

Arms piled high with dusty tomes, Kimberly makes her way to the Reading Room, where visitors are allowed to examine the cookbooks under the watchful eye of the library staff. Upon entering the room, guests must surrender any purses, food, drinks and even pens (only pencils are allowed around the cookbooks) before donning a pair of white gloves to avoid leaving oil and smudges on the already heavily stained pages. Kimberly leads the way to a table in the middle of the room, laying out the books with reverence. “Be careful with these,” she says seriously, then smiles. “They’re kind of old.”

Six years ago, Kimberly was a library assistant working with TWU’s military artifact collection. After transferring to University Archives, she began working with the cookbooks, cataloging new entries and organizing donations, which

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[ BY JESSICA ST.AMA ]

make up a large portion of the collection. In addition to the eight shelves of cookbooks in the vault, the stacks in the lobby – 324 shelves in all – hold the bulk of the collection, including donations by former Dallas Morning News food editor Julie Benell and TWU alum Neil Morris, who helped create recipes in the Frito-Lay kitchens (including Frito Chili Pie). Before Kimberly leaves for another tour of the vault, she shares her favorite recipe – a chocolate torte. “It’s chocolate cake crumbled up, with Cool Whip and toffee and pudding,” she explains. “It’s become my dish. Anywhere I go that I have to take a dessert, I take it. There are more cookbooks in here than I’ll ever be able to get through, but I’m going to give it my best shot!”

Each cookbook has a story to tell about our changing tastes and lifestyle. In Old Southern Recipes, Confederate women share the easiest way to make Sweet Pickle Peaches (make sure to pack them carefully and patiently) and Molasses Taffy (New Orleans molasses works – because it’s the best). The once-blue cover of

The Household Cyclopedia, published in 1874, is no larger than the palm of a woman’s hand. Its miniscule print urges ladies to “be gentle and affable, and never seek to win by any other weapons than simplicity, honesty, dignity and gentleness.” A Pinch of This and a Handful of That offers cooks advice on how to keep pork sweet for an entire year. (The secret? Bring the brine to a full boil before packing it.)

With the start of World War II, time in the kitchen became extremely limited as women began taking jobs outside the home. Tastes & Tales from Texas leaves quick and simple instructions for a mean Sweet Potato Bake, as well as Aunt Jessie’s Ice Box Cookies, cookies that can be prepared oven-free. Chez James, published in the 1930s shortly before the war began, with its hand-painted cover and once-brightly colored pages, gives some advice for the men: “Girls are romantic at heart – so a little sentiment does not come amiss. If Antony had addressed Cleopatra as ‘old bean,’ he, and not Augustus, might have been the first of the Roman Emperors.”

A few rows over, and the covers become cleaner, crisper, alive with bright colors, reflecting the 21st century modern recipes inside. Microwaving America’s Favorites tells readers how to cook entire dishes using only a microwave, even chocolate cake and apple pie. Quick Bytes: the Computer Lover’s Cookbook boasts tech-savvy recipes such as Link-guine Stroganoff and Floppy Flapjacks. Need advice on hosting parties with drinks and dishes popular in the ‘90s and today? No Texas collection would be complete without The Dallas Cowboys Family Cookbook, which includes the football team’s signature dishes, such as Emmitt Smith’s Eggs con Migas and Troy Aikman’s Chicken Breast Alfredo.

Turn the corner for the international section. Browse book after book on classic Greek cooking, with recipes for Mom’s Pastitso, the Greek version of lasagna, and Baklava, a pastry made with cinnamon and pistachios. Italian cookbooks spill mamma’s secrets behind recipes like Sparigi Parmigiana, an asparagus dish with parmesan cheese, and Zuppa Inglese, a rum cake covered with custard. The next few books offer authentic Armenian dishes such as classic Shish Kebabs, chunks of meat and vegetables grilled on a skewer – a recipe that’s found its way into modern American cuisine. The largest section is easily the French cookbooks, with instructions for traditional French foods, ranging from Blanquette de Veau, a veal stew, to Barquettes aux Fraises, a strawberry pastry.

With books spanning five centuries, TWU’s collection pulls in an eclectic following. Dietitians research books on food measurements and healthy alternatives, while scholars study how

the paper, binding and ink has changed in printing. Anthropologists use the books to get a look at American home life over the years. Bill and Cheryl Jamison, four-time James Beard award-winning cookbook authors from New Mexico, have made the 600-mile journey to the collection several times over the last 20 years. “In terms of American cookbooks, TWU is among one of the very best libraries in the country,” says Bill. “I would argue vociferously that it’s been one of, if not the best place to track what’s going on with women in the home and outside the home over the decades. It’s a fascinating collection.”

Kimberly keeps two copies of the Jamisons’ most famous work, American Home Cooking, in the library – one tucked away in the vault and another available to the public in the stacks. The book offers a comprehensive look at the way Americans have cooked throughout the years (yes, Americans used to regularly eat pie for breakfast), and the Jamisons stress that much of their research was done in the TWU library. “One of the best experiences you can have is to enjoy a meal with your family and friends around your table,” says Cheryl. “Food traditions are something that people really remember. There are so many wonderful memories to be made, and food is really the basis of that.”

You don’t have to be a professional cookbook author to appreciate the collection. While cooks can search offerings online (at twu.edu/library), it doesn’t quite compare to sitting in the Cookbook Collection and sifting through stained pages of recipe after recipe with a cook’s adjustments in the margins.

[ just the facts ]

What: Cookbook Collection at Texas Woman’s University

Where: Blagg-Huey Library, 304 Administration Drive

Hours: Monday-Friday, 8 a.m.-5 p.m.

Features: 15,000 cookbooks, etiquette manuals, recipe leaflets and menus from around the world dating back to 1624

Parking: Visitor parking passes available at the Information Booth

More info: www.twu.edu/library

Photo by Berenice Quirino

STORIES are the threads that connect us


class of second graders scurries around the forest one sunny afternoon, the children eager to learn about nature and the trees surrounding them. Suddenly a

little girl hollers for her teacher. “Ms. Latham! Ms. Latham! Zane killed a spider.” The kids applaud Zane. But Ms. Latham is not cheering. She gathers the children around. “Children, we are not out here to play, or to hurt anything,” she says. “We are here to observe. Everything out here has a purpose, and if you take that out, it doesn’t work as well.”

Well, a little bit later, the kids find a huge garden spider, black and yellow with long pointy legs, in a thick white web in a tree. “What about this spider? Is it a bad spider?” the children ask. Ms. Latham chuckles. “Let me tell you something,” she says. “This spider sits in the middle of its web and moves up and down to make the web pulse. Because of this, the web glistens in the sun and attracts bugs. The bugs get stuck, and the spider comes down and eats them.”

Later that day, when the kids are back at school, a huge thunderstorm comes along. It is lightning and thundering ferociously when a teacher rushes into Janet Latham’s room with news that the kids are worried – about the spider. “The kids,” she says, “want to put an umbrella up the tree so the spider web won’t get ruined.” Ms. Latham only smiles. In the space of a day, her class had gone from idolizing a spider killer to worrying about whether the spider would live. A simple story had changed their perspective.

After telling her spider story, Janet is quiet, lost in thought. Papers, posters and books – travel books as well as books on folklore and mythology – are piled everywhere in her office. An educator for more than 35 years, she says she originally used storytelling as a learning tool for children. “You can … get the point across through a story. It changes everything.” Over the years, she’s created an organization that published her students’ stories, gathered stories while traveling to places like the Middle East and Africa, and shared a growing repertoire of her own stories about history and nature. It was only after she retired, however, that she found herself back in Denton, hosting workshops at the Texas Storytelling Festival. After years of traveling, she had finally found her storytelling home. “The real truth is we are all storytellers,” says Janet. “You tell stories, I tell stories, your grandma tells stories.”

Every March, hundreds of storytellers like Janet gather in Denton for the Texas Storytelling Festival, which is celebrating its 27th anniversary in 2012. Guest speakers for 2012 range from Irish harpist Patrick Ball to Mary Ann Blue,

who tells stories about Hispanic culture. Kevin Kling, a national radio commentator, is well known for delivering hilarious stories about his life while Kim Lehman’s stories usually have a spiritual theme. There are stories of every kind: ghost tales, nature stories, traditional folklores, narratives, and even a liars’ contest for those who love to hear a good fib. Storytelling workshops offer small groups a chance to mold their own story and learn how to communicate it effectively to an audience.

Dalton Gregory’s been going to the festival for 26 years and has even performed there himself. He rubs the sides of his mouth as he reminiscences about the first time he took his older brother to the festival. They heard a woman tell an amazing story, then – in an untrained voice – she sang “Amazing Grace.” “There was not a dry eye in the house, including my brother’s. There was this silent pause almost to capture the sacredness of the moment,” says Dalton. “So afterwards my brother pokes me in the arm, and pretty hard. I said, ‘What’s that for?’ And he says, ‘That’s for not telling me about the festival.’ And of course, I’m telling him that I’ve told him about this festival about a thousand times.” Then his brother pokes him again and when Dalton asks why, his brother replies, “That’s for not making me go sooner.”

For Elizabeth Ellis, president of the Tejas Storytelling Association and a storyteller herself, the festival is evidence that the art of a good tale has not died. She is known for her Appalachian tales and stories of brave American women. “It’s living proof that people are still hungry for good stories,” she says. “It’s the basis of all human communication, grandmother of all the arts, maybe the grandmother of all we know. What it means to me is that stories have stayed in power.”

Elizabeth clears her throat and straightens up in her chair, eager to share her passion. “Anyone who thinks storytelling is dead has not been to a bar lately,” she says. “Storytelling is alive and well. Yes, the majority of the stories we hear don’t begin as ‘Once upon a time,’ and ‘They lived happily ever after.’ They are most likely to begin ‘Did I ever tell you that time my mother … ?’ But it’s a beginning of a story as much as ‘Once upon a time’ will ever be.” Even dating is a process of swapping

stories, she argues. “Think about it,” she says. “If their best stories make them sound like a jerk, then you don’t go out with them again.”

Janet chuckles when she hears Elizabeth’s comments later. “There are over 200 versions of the Cinderella story. Every culture has one,” she says. “There is a reason people tell those stories. It’s the common thread that ties cultures together. We may have different languages, cultures and customs but we are all human beings. Stories are threads that tie us all together.” One of her favorite portraits is “The Starry Crown” by John Biggers. “They have a thread that runs between them,” she says. “If you look closely, the women are holding the thread in their mouths because it represents words, and the thread in their hands represents weaving. They are weaving a story together.”

Like the threads that connect the three women in the Starry Crown portrait, storytellers like Janet, Elizabeth and Dalton use stories to connect friends, family, people and cultures as well as to teach valuable lessons to a new generation. “No, it’s not going to go away. It can’t. We talk about what we did today. It’s all storytelling,” says Janet. “We are all connected by it!” Even kids get it.

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[ BY AMBER JONES ]

“There is a reason people tell those stories. It’s the common thread that ties cultures together. ”

Janet Latham

[ just the facts ]

What: 27th annual Texas Storytelling Festival

Telling stories: Patrick Ball, MaryAnn Blue, Kim Lehman and Kevin Kling

When: March 8-11, 2012

Where: Denton Civic Center, 321 E. McKinney St.

From boo to you: Scary stories and ghost stories, tall tales and a liars’ competition, plus workshops for those who want to polish their storytelling skills.

Ticket prices and more info: www.tejasstorytelling.com

Photo by Cristy Angulo


ver since Megan Montgomery Whobrey was a little girl she knew where she wanted to get married – in the Little Chapel-in-the-Woods. She didn’t choose

it for its history, its famous architect, or even its beauty. The chapel holds special meaning for her and her family. Megan’s grandparents, parents, two aunts and one uncle all married at the chapel located on the campus of Texas Woman’s University. “When I was preparing for the wedding, I thought I was going to be completely overwhelmed by the chapel, the music and everything that was going on,” says Megan. “But once they opened those doors, all of that disappeared and I couldn’t hear or see anything other than my husband Zane.”

Walking through the doors of the 72-year-old chapel today is a step back in time – and not just for Megan and the Montgomery family. The chapel, dedicated by First Lady Eleanor Roosevelt in 1939, was built during the Depression with $28,000 from the National Youth Administration.

Its 11 stained glass windows remind visitors of the active roles women played in the ’30s as they took care of a world facing war: nurses and teachers, social workers and scientists, dancers and dramatists. Three hundred undergrads and faculty – all women – worked on the chapel, designing and executing its ceiling beams, stone vestibule floor, copper light fixtures, wooden pews and metal trim on the chapel doors. Despite a renovation, nothing has changed, not even the candelabras used for weddings, says Megan’s mom, Anne Montgomery.

The Little Chapel, considered one of the nation’s outstanding amateur art projects, is recognized as one of 20 exceptional architectural projects in Texas because of its clean modern lines and enduring influence on other designers. Admirers call the chapel’s doors of Honduran mahogany “The Little Jewel.” It’s become a place not just for private meditation and prayer, but also for weddings – 150 a year, seven a weekend sometimes. Architects O’Neil Ford and A.B. Swank would marvel at how the

chapel is now not only a venue for weddings, baptisms and funerals but also for music recitals and homecoming events.

The Montgomery family tradition of getting married in the chapel began with Megan’s grandparents saying “I do” in the ’50s. An uncle decided to walk down the aisle there, too, sparking two decades of family weddings in the Little Chapel. Megan’s mom, who grew up across from TWU and used to roam the woods as a child, married there in 1984. “Megan always wanted to get married there. She insisted on it. It’s a generational tradition,” Anne says. Megan’s dad Robert noted how the chapel had not changed except for one thing – his own perception of it. “We were talking after the wedding and he said it was really weird being on the other side,” Megan says. “You know, all he can remember about the chapel was watching my mom walk down toward him and it was a strange feeling coming from the other way with me.”

Megan may have not been paying close

E

LITTLE CHAPEL

big traditionOne family, five weddings and all say “I do” at TWU


attention to the detail on the pews or inscriptions on the lintels, but she was struck by the beauty of the stained glass windows. “It was the first thing I noticed when I saw the chapel. The windows, specifically the big one overlooking the altar, are just gorgeous,” Megan says. The “big one,” otherwise known as the motherhood window, is one of 11 windows in the chapel that tell a story of women ministering to others. The motherhood window, the most prominent, symbolizes women as wives, mothers and nurturers. The four windows to the right depict women’s roles and contributions made in nursing, teaching, science and social service. The windows on the left represent women’s contributions to the aesthetic needs of the world through the arts of speech, literature, dance and music.

Chancellor Louis Hubbard, who dreamed up the idea for the chapel during the Depression, appears in the signature window in the vestibule along with the donors, decorators and builders, including Dorothy A. LaSelle, the associate professor in the Department of Visual Arts who supervised the project. The rose window, seen above the pews in the balcony, reflects woman’s joy in the physical world and represents the color of Texas wild flowers.

The chapel’s oldest tradition is the Bride’s Book, which lists every couple married there along with their wedding date – entered by hand in ink calligraphy. Well, almost all. The first Bride’s Book, covering four decades, ends abruptly in October 1979. “For some reason, nobody kept track of the brides from 1980 to 2000,” says Deborah Gillespie, the chapel’s coordinator for 10 years. When TWU decided to put a virtual bridal book on the Internet, couples heard by word of mouth about the missing 20 years of names and rushed to get themselves listed, calling, emailing and faxing their info to the Office of Conference Services.

With the old Bride’s Book filling up, Chancellor and President Ann Stuart commissioned a new Bride’s Book for TWU’s 100th birthday to chronicle brides from 2000 to the present. Artist and TWU alum Lucia Smith handcrafted it in sterling silver that would develop a patina, symbolizing how marriage deepens relationships over time. The rose window – the first thing couples witness as they leave the chapel to begin their new life – is on the cover of the book while the interior pages contain a single stained glass window for each month. Tony Schraufnagel, a TWU School of the Arts adjunct, built the case for the book out of Honduran

mahogany. Like the mahogany on the chapel doors, it both protects the book and opens to reveal the beauty inside.

When Megan started researching the history of the chapel and the Bride’s Book, her dad was quick to point out her parents’ names were not listed. Megan’s mom, Anne, laughs about the mix up. Her mom, who had studied at TWU, was making all the arrangements, but when Anne showed up a week before her wedding to discuss the rehearsal dinner, she found out the wedding party had never been booked officially. Although the listing in the Bride’s Book was never made, Anne got her dream wedding in the chapel. “I was very familiar with the chapel. I grew up across from TWU on Texas Street. I was in the chapel a lot as a kid,” she says. “I saw my siblings get married there and it’s just a really special place for all of us.”

When Deborah Gillespie gives tours, she always ends on a positive and inspirational note. Her voice softening, she recites Eleanor Roosevelt’s last sentence in the dedication speech: “May the use of this Chapel-in-the-Woods be a blessing to you all.” Somehow, before everyone else, Eleanor Roosevelt knew the chapel would be a special place for the Montgomerys and generations to come.

[ BY SARAH CALAMS ]

[ just the facts ]

What: Little Chapel-in-the-Woods

Where: Texas Woman’s University, 415 Chapel Drive

Open: Monday-Friday, 9 a.m.-8 p.m. unless an event is going on.

Chapel: Accommodates 110 and is non-denominational.

Booking a wedding: Call (940) 898-3644 or fax (940) 898-3556.

Rates: Monday-Thursday, $300 for two hours plus $75 for a rehearsal. Friday-Sunday, $650 for wedding (2 hours) and rehearsal (one hour).

For more information: twu.edu/conference-services/little-chapel.asp

Photos courtesy of Amanda Cook

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ACCOMMODATIONS 1 AMERICAS BEST VALUE INN & SUITES

820 S. I-35E

(940) 387-0591

americasbestvalueinn.com

2 BEST WESTERN INN & SUITES

2910 W. University Drive

(940) 591-7726

bestwesterntexas.com/denton

3 BEST WESTERN PREMIER

2450 Brinker Road

(940) 387-1000

bestwesterntexas.com/premiercrownchase

4 BUFFALO VALLEY EVENT CENTER AND HOTEL

2946 Ganzer Road W.

(940) 482-3409

buffalovalleyeventcenter.com

5 cOmFOrT INN

4050 Mesa Drive

(940) 320-5150

comfortinndenton.com

6 COMFORT SUITES

1100 N. I-35E

(940) 898-8510

csdentontx.com

7 COURTYARD BY MARRIOTT

2800 Colorado Blvd.

(940) 382-4600

mariott.com/dfwde

8 DAYS INN

4211 N. I-35

(940) 383-1471

daysinn.com/23887

9 FAIRFIELD INN & SUITES

2900 W. University Drive

(940) 384-1700

marriott.com/DFWDN

10 HAMPTON INN & SUITES

1513 Centre Place Drive

(940) 891-4900

dentonsuites.hamptoninn.com

11 THE HERITAGE INNS

(bed and breakfast cluster)

815 N. Locust St.

(940) 565-6414

theheritageinns.com

12 HILTON GARDEN INN

3110 Colorado Blvd.

(940) 891-4700

denton.hgi.com

13 HOLIDAY INN EXPRESS & SUITES

4485 N. I-35

(940) 808-0600

hiedenton.com

14 HOLIDAY INN & CONFERENCE CENTER

1434 Centre Place Drive

(940) 383-4100

holidayinn.com/dentontx

15 HOMEWOOD SUITES BY HILTON

2907 Shoreline Drive

(940) 382-0420

denton.homewoodsuites.com

16 hOwarD JOHNSON EXPRESS INN

3116 Bandera St.

(940) 383-1681

hojo.com

17 kNIGHTS INN

601 N. I-35E

(940) 566-1990

knightsinn.com

18 La quINTa INN

700 Fort Worth Drive

(940) 387-5840

laquintadentontx.com

19 LA QUINTA INN & SUITES

4465 N. I-35

(940) 808-0444

laquinta.com

20 mOTEL 6

4125 N. I-35E

(940) 566-4798

motel6.com

21 quaLITy INN aND SUITES

1500 Dallas Drive

(940) 387-3511

choicehotels.com/hotel/tx836

22 rOyaL INN & SUITES

1210 N. I-35E

(940) 383-2007

royalinnsuitesdenton.com

23 SUPER 8 mOTEL

620 S. I-35E

(940) 380-8888

super8.com

24 VaLuE pLacE

4505 N. I-35

(940) 387-3400

valueplace.com

25 ThE wILDwOOD INN

2602 Lillian Miller Parkway

(940) 243-4919

denton-wildwoodinn.com

IMPORTANT CONTACTS

26 DENTON CHAMBER OF COMMERCE

DENTON cONVENTION & VISITOR BUREAU

414 Parkway

(940) 382-7895 (888) 381-1818

discoverdenton.com

27 EMILY FOWLER CENTRAL LIBRARY

502 Oakland St.

(940) 349-8752

28 NORTH BRANCH

CENTRAL LIBRARY

3020 N. Locust St.

(940) 349-8752

29 SOUTH BRANCH LIBRARY

3228 Teasley Lane

(940) 349-8752

30 cITy haLL

215 E. McKinney St.

(940) 349-8200

cityofdenton.com

MUSEUMS & ATTRACTIONS

31 APOGEE STADIUM1251 S. Bonnie Brae(940) 565-2527stadium.meangreensports.com

32 CENTER FOR THE VISUAL ARTS 400 E. Hickory St.(940) 382-2787dentonarts.com

33 COURTHOUSE-ON-THE-SQUARE MUSEUM110 W. Hickory St.(940) 349-2850dentoncounty.com/chos

34 DENTON FIREFIGHTERS MUSEUM 332 E. Hickory St. (940) 349-8840

35 GREENBELT TRAILLocated off US 380 and FM 428(940) 349-8202

36 HANGAR 10 FLYING MUSEUMDenton Airport1945 Matt Wright Lane(940) 565-1945

37 HISTORICAL PARk OF DENTON: AFRICAN AMERICAN MUSEUM AND BAYLESS-SELBY HOUSE MUSEUM317 W. Mulberry St.(940) 349-2865dentoncounty.com

38 OXIDE GALLERY501 W. Hickory St.(940) 483-8900oxidegallery.com

39 SkATE WORkS PARk2400 Long Road(940) 349-8523cityofdenton.com (skate works)

40 TEXAS FIRST LADIES HISTORIC COSTUME COLLECTIONTexas Woman’s University(940) 898-3644twu.edu/gown-collection

41 UNT ON THE SQUARE109 N. Elm St.(940) 369 8257untonthesquare.unt.edu

42 UNT SkY THEATER PLANETARIUM UNT Campus, EESAT Building1704 W. Mulberry St. (940) 369-8213skytheater.unt.edu

43 WATER WORkS PARkLoop 288 at Sherman Drive(940) 349-8810

cityofdenton.com (aquatics)

PERFORMING ARTS

44 THE CAMPUS THEATRE 214 W. Hickory St.(940) 382-1915campustheatre.com

45 DENTON BLACk BOX THEATRE318 E. Hickory St.(940) 383-1356dentoncommunitytheatre.com 46 MARGO JONES PERFORMANCE HALL Texas Woman’s University(940) 898-2500twu.edu/music/margo-jones-hall.asp

47 MURCHISON PERFORMING ARTS CENTERUniversity of North Texas(940) 369-7802music.unt.edu/mpac

48 REDBUD THEATERTexas Woman’s University(940) 898-2020twu.edu/redbud-theater

49 UNT DEPARTMENT OF DANCE & THEATREUniversity of North Texas(940) 565-2211danceandtheatre.unt.edu


uick: Name one ingredient of a successful date night out. A romantic dinner? A gourmet feast? A flight of new wines to sample?

Making a good impression is critical. So where to go in Denton to find edible amore and a nice glass of Merlot? Will it be the wine cellar run by the couple who ditched the real estate biz for Beaujolais? The cozy restaurant opened by the Italian immigrant who came to Denton for love? The place where you can learn about wine without putting on a tux or dress in sequins (and even light up a cigar)? Or maybe you’re looking for shrimp and grits, rib-eye, or gourmet hot dogs? These restaurants cater to the wine lover, the gourmet foodie and those simply looking for a new place to eat in Denton.

Hannah’s Off The Square111 W. Mulberry St. (940) 566-1110

Phil Shirley is constantly collaborating with his head chef, Sheena Croft, to come up with gourmet meals for Hannah’s Off The Square, which offers a romantic candlelit experience in a turn-of-the-century blacksmith’s building. The restaurant’s “upscale comfort” food – inspired by the chef’s Southern roots – includes dishes such as Shrimp-and-Grits with a pecan-smoked bacon gravy and pickled prawns. Couples on a date night might choose the Cedar-Planked Salmon with a smoky lemon marinade or a Za’atar Crusted Rack of Lamb with Mediterranean spices. Hannah’s international wine selection earned them a spot in Wine Spectator’s 2011 Award of Excellence wine list.

Phil says one of the best things about Hannah’s is seeing what new and creative

dish Sheena – a graduate of the First Coast School of Culinary Arts in Florida – dreams up. “You can come in and be served a meal that she may have thought of and created just this afternoon,” Phil says. She even blogs about her ideas, sharing menus and pictures of the cooks at work. Chef Sheena rotates specials by the season so a meal in October (steak with blue cheese sauce) is different from a meal in February (roast duck with short ribs).

“If we serve the best quality product, people will leave with a smile,” says Phil. That’s the philosophy behind Hannah’s: quality food makes for a quality experience. Phil wants his customers to come back time and again. He is genuinely excited about running Hannah’s.

Phil and Sheena strive to give Hannah’s an atmosphere of family. The chefs often whip up a meal just for staff working a long shift, and have been known to hold

Q

Date night out? Want salmon or steak? A Malbec or a Merlot?

TABLE

for two


[ BY kATE GRABLE ]dinners especially for their servers and waiters. Hannah’s is full of Denton pride. They make it a priority to use meat and vegetables from local sources, including the Denton Farmer’s Market, Cardo’s Farm Project and Green Valley Ranch. Twice a year, they hold a 100-mile dinner, where everything (down to the salt!) must come from the Denton area.

Wine Squared 110 W. Oak St. (940) 384-9463

Brook Ray and Andrew Marsteller knew two things for sure when they decided to go into business together three years ago: It would have to center around their love of wine and conversation. They opened Wine Squared in a 19th century building on Denton’s historic Square and started offering a rotating seasonal menu of wine and beer in a cozy setting. Wine Squared has been written up in many wine and Texas magazines, including D Magazine, where they were a finalist in the 2010 Readers’ Choice poll.

Brook and Andrew call themselves the “Einsteins of Wine,” and they definitely go off the beaten path. Brook wanted Wine Squared to have the same feel as a small cafe in Europe so she picked wines that aren’t from popular or well-known regions – and can’t be found in the supermarket. They aren’t snooty wine people, however. “It’s not a wine bar where you have to come with a shirt and tie or a fancy dress. People come in with T-shirts. It’s Denton style: good wine, relaxed atmosphere,” says Andrew, whose last job was running a fishing lodge on the Amazon in Brazil.

Wine Squared emphasizes that drinking a glass of wine should be an experience, a moment in time, not something to be dissected or analyzed. “Drink what you like and like what you drink,” Brook says. She started learning about wines early, at age 18, traveling all over the world and discovering different flavors and traditions. A professional sommelier, she has been certified by The Wine Academy of Spain and uses that knowledge and skill to design and teach wine classes.

For the wine novice, Wine Squared offers wine classes on Wednesday nights, teaching everything from how to pair wine with short ribs to understanding the wines of New Zealand. For a romantic evening out, Wine Squared also offers wine tastings on Thursday nights. Every Tuesday and Thursday, students from the University of North Texas play live jazz. At Wine Squared, wine and beer are the only items on the menu, but Spanish tapas and snacks are often served during tastings.

Giuseppe’s Italian Restaurant821 N. Locust St. (940) 381-2712

Giuseppe Brownell comes to work every morning with a smile on his face. His Italian restaurant has become his second home. He starts each morning there with an iced mocha while he plans the daily specials, based on the best fresh ingredients available. His traditional recipes, available all the time, include Vitello Marsala, veal in a Marsala wine sauce, or Linguine Pescatore, which mixes clams, mussels and shrimp in a white wine sauce over pasta. “I wouldn’t call this work. I’d call it a gift,” he says.

Giuseppe grew up in Umbria, in central Italy, watching his mother and grandmother cook. When he moved to the U.S., he brought those recipes with him, but it wasn’t until he met and fell in love with his wife Robin, a teacher in Denton, that he decided to open a restaurant of his own. He rented the ground floor of a bed and breakfast just off the Square 16 years ago.

He tries to mix traditional Italian dishes with the new, such as Pasta con Bistecca, Tuscan-style blackened steak sliced over pasta made with brandy pepper sauce. He focuses on his sauces, whether it’s the meaty Bolognese or a cream Alfredo. “All of our sauces are homemade and, in most cases, the sauce makes the dish,” he promises. Giuseppe is currently working on expanding the lunch menu. Mamma would be proud.

The Cellar 22219 E. Hickory St. (940) 435-0149

Amanda Espinoza and her father Virgil take their passion for wine and turn it into a family affair. Every day, they look forward to opening their wine bar, The Cellar 22, which they run together just off Denton’s Downtown Square. If Amanda’s there, Dad’s there. That family bond is clear, and they know the regulars by name. “It’s like a Cheers atmosphere,” says Amanda. The Cellar 22 offers more than 40 beers and a selection of wines, both local and foreign.

For cigar smokers, The Cellar 22 offers the only walk-in humidor room in Denton, equipped with comfortable chairs and a TV where patrons can puff a cigar and enjoy their wine at the same time. Cigar varieties include Hoyo de Monterrey and Punch. A Riesling is recommended to pair with the Punch brand cigar, as the sweetness of the wine complements the cigar’s natural flavor. As for wines, Amanda recommends the reds Papillon, a Cabernet Sauvignon with notes of cherry and plum, or The Prisoner, which has notes of red currant and blackberry. Napa Valley winemaker Orin Swift, who is regularly featured in wine competitions and magazines, makes both wines.

Hannah’s Off The Square

Vigne Wine Shop & Delicatessen

Cartwright’s Ranch House

The Cellar 22


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The Cellar 22 is next to the new A-train stop east of downtown and offers a quiet evening to those looking for a little love with their wine. Wines are available by the glass or bottle, and live music entertains wine lovers a few nights a week.

Vigne Wine Shop & Delicatessen222 W. Hickory St. (940) 566-1010

John and Carol Ryan are no strangers to running a business together. They owned an apartment complex in Denton for years, but wanted a business that combined their passion for wine with their yearning for good food in a relaxed atmosphere. Today, the Ryans own Vigne Wine Shop & Delicatessen, which carries more than 200 wines, ranging from popular Merlots to rare Malbecs. “It’s a never-ending learning process when it comes to wine,” says John, who is always looking for new wines for the Friday night tastings.

The Ryans pair their wines with gourmet flatbread pizzas and hamburgers made from organic, locally sourced meat and vegetables as well as date-night dishes such as pan-seared tuna crusted with sesame seeds. John’s personal favorite dish is the schnitzel, which is served with a homemade bratwurst potato salad that he created while grilling. To save time, he threw

the potatoes and bratwurst together, brought them to a boil and a new recipe was born. John calls the dish his “lazy recipe.”

Their sandwiches feature the names of past presidents: George Washington’s sandwich has seared tuna, while veal parmesan stars on Ronald Reagan’s. The restaurant’s hot dogs pay tribute to regional variations: the Tejas dog is stacked with bacon and chili, the Chicago dog has pepperoni, and the Seattle dog is sauerkraut with cream cheese. Hot dogs, of course, require beer and the Ryans offer 24 varieties.

The restaurant, set at the end of a brick alleyway just off the Square, creates a romantic atmosphere before patrons even step through the door. Instead of offering a Valentine’s Day special, John is proud that the menu is the same every day, so a couple can come in any day of the week and feel like it’s Valentine’s. Vigne has a history of marriage proposals and there are engagement parties every week. “Our entire restaurant was built around that date night feeling,” says John.

Cartwright’s Ranch House111 N. Elm St. (940) 387-7706

John Cartwright takes great pride in his chicken fried steak. Just don’t ask him to share

his secret recipe. Every day, he comes in well before opening hours to his new restaurant, Cartwright’s Ranch House, to personally oversee the mixing of the spices for the dish. About the only tidbit he’s willing to share involves the secret coating. “It uses several types of flour instead of just one kind,” he confides, his accent betraying Southern roots.

When John decided to open his restaurant after 25 years of managing a Luby’s, he knew he wanted it to remind customers of home. Cartwright’s specializes in comfort food – from fried chicken to rib-eye steak – all served family style with food passed around the table so everyone can sample. “I want you to push yourself away from the table and unbuckle your belt,” John says.

The setting is historic, on the Square downtown in the building that housed Ruby’s Diner for 25 years. Cartwright is aware of the history and tradition surrounding the old diner and he wants to ensure that the reputation that Ruby’s built is not lost. “I couldn’t be more excited to be here,” he says. To take advantage of the Square’s beauty, Cartwright’s is making plans to provide picnic food – with wine and beer to go – for couples looking to have a romantic night out.

Add one more ingredient for date night out: stars over the Square.

Denton Main Street will present a FREE concert Thursday evenings at 6:30 p.m. in May and June

on the lawn at the historic Denton County Courthouse-on-the-Square, 110 W. Hickory

For a complete schedule and more information, visit www.dentonmainstreet.org.

www.dentonlive.com

aiting quietly in a room full of women, Davia Roberts starts to get anxious. She’s barely eaten all day, but her stomach is the least of her

worries. Davia goes over the hundreds of questions she’s been practicing with her roommate night after night to prepare for her big interview. The Miss Juneteenth pageant calls for something different, but Davia worries she might be too different. She’s not the typical pageant girl.

“The hardest thing about the pageant was really just believing that I was all those great things that a pageant girl should be, because I really wouldn’t describe myself as a pageant girl … at all,” Davia says a year later. She’s talking into the camera on her computer for a YouTube video. Most pageant girls aren’t tomboys like Davia. They don’t box. And they certainly don’t give interviews with their hair back in a headband, wearing a University of North Texas “Mean Green” T-shirt and no makeup. Instead of a pageant styled hair – every strand blow-dried, flat ironed, hair sprayed and set into a perfect position – Davia’s is set into thick twists that run their own course.

Yet, this boxing tomboy with natural hair did win the pageant. Davia Roberts was crowned Miss Juneteenth 2010 as part of Denton’s celebrations commemorating the emancipation of slaves. Women from colleges and universities surrounding Denton compete each year for cash and scholarship money as well as the chance to make public appearances and mentor younger girls. The pageant’s message is simple: It doesn’t matter what you look like. All women are beautiful.

Denton resident John Baines, a former Miss Juneteenth judge, says the pageant is important to keep the history behind the holiday alive. On June 19, 1865 – two years late – news of the Emancipation Proclamation finally arrived in Texas. These days, the date is celebrated like the Fourth of July in the African-American community. “Besides just barbecue and playing baseball, I think there

needs to be a very positive, professional, poised and articulate aspect to Juneteenth. And I think that’s the reason the pageant was chosen,” says John. “To have some young women who embody what the emancipation struggle was for.”

Davia was still struggling to accept that she was not a Barbie doll pageant type when she signed up for the contest at age 20 while attending the University of North Texas. She competed to prove to herself that she could win. “I was dealing with a lot of stuff in college as far as accepting who I am. Not necessarily trying to fit in, but just accepting me as I am and not conforming to what I’m ‘supposed’ to be,” she says.

She remembers the pageant clearly. The auditorium was not completely full, but anybody could tell which group was cheering for Davia. With her father in Afghanistan and her brother back home in Atlanta, Georgia, Davia’s mother and friends showed up in full force for the “We Love Davia” section.

She stayed true to herself. For the informal wear competition, most contestants choose high heels. Not Davia. She pulled her cowboy boots over her jeans. Her platform was female empowerment. For her talent, she decided to dance to Nina Simone’s “Strange Fruit.” (The term “strange fruit” refers to the bodies of African Americans lynched and hung from trees in the South.) Davia says she was on stage ready to dance when her music started -- in the middle of the song. She had practiced her routine so many times that she picked up her dance at the right spot. The judges didn’t seem to notice.

At evening’s end, Davia stood next to the other contestants dressed in a light blue shimmering ball gown. She remembers being shocked when they announced the winner. They placed the crown uneasily on top of her natural braids. “You know Davia for Afro puffs. You know Davia for twists. That’s just who I am. So I

had my hair braided into an up-do. It was still very regal, but it was natural and that’s how I wanted to stay,” she says.

Davia has proven to herself that a “quirky, weird” tomboy could be a pageant winner. Now as Miss Juneteenth, she is working on her platform. Davia founded “Life of A Princess,” an event to empower young girls, pampering and treating them like princesses. Between the pampering, however, Davia sits down with the girls to talk to them about loving themselves for who they are. It’s a lesson she learned at the Juneteenth pageant.

Photo courtesy of David Minton/Denton Record-Chronicle

LIFE of a princess

Celebrating Juneteenth in Denton

W

[ BY SHANNON RAYMOND ]

3535


onday through Friday, it’s ice cream for breakfast in the back room of Beth Marie’s Old Fashioned Ice Cream shop. Ken Willis and his team

spend their mornings creating the thickest, heaviest ice cream in Texas with everything from gummy bears and chocolate flakes to jalapeños and bacon bits.

It’s surprisingly warm back here, warm enough to threaten the ice cream. The Emery Thompson ice cream maker shakes like an out-of-date washing machine. It’s the Ford pickup of ice cream makers, dating from 1927, no computer chips anywhere. The team pours a basic vanilla mixture into the Emery Thompson and tosses in special ingredients to create the day’s flavors – everything from Bee’s Knees (a lavender and honey mix) to Texas Cowgirl Heat (vanilla ice cream with candied jalapeños and chocolate flakes).

The team rushes the ice cream into a wall-sized ice cream batch freezer for initial freezing. Next they “box” it and move it to a blast freezer, where it’s kept at 20 degrees below zero, allowing just the right number of air bubbles to create Beth Marie’s smooth, creamy texture. Finally, the ice cream, kept at 10 degrees, goes to the counter where soda jerks scoop it out for hungry customers.

Beth Marie’s is successful on the Square downtown, as well as their new location at Unicorn Lake in south Denton, because it offers more than the grab-and-go ice cream experience. It’s a dairy-confection time machine, offering more than 100 flavors all made on

the 85-year-old Emery Thompson and served in a retro soda fountain setting. “I think Beth Marie’s draw is the whole ideal concept, the ’30s style theme, the taste profiles, the ice cream itself,” says Ken, who owns the shop along with Bob Moses.

Now Beth Marie’s is moving beyond the ice cream parlor, giving ice cream lovers across the state a chance to taste Denton’s sweetest export. Central Market, the H.E.B. chain known for buying direct from farmers and local producers, is teaming up with Beth Marie’s to sell to the ice-cream-starved hordes in Austin, San Antonio, Houston and five other cities in Texas. Ken says he hopes to find a few more distributors with the ethics and small town mentality that Central Market shows toward marketing. Even his store-bought ice cream is hand-packed into pints and labeled. Nothing is mechanized.

Ken gets his inspiration for new flavors from everywhere – ideas picked up while he was in culinary school, working for Grandy’s for 20 years, or working for his father in the family steakhouse. “I’m looking for what makes a good ice cream, be it salsa, honey,” says Ken. The taste du jour, in fact, is anything savory. Beth Marie’s serves up a “Salty Dog” – a mix of vanilla, caramel and sea salt – just for fans of salt. As a member of the Ice Cream Retailer’s Association, Ken says he’s even encountered ice cream makers who talk about concocting a hamburger ice cream. He’s not quite there yet. Cheese and ice cream might be a better match, he thinks – maybe a cheese and Merlot wine ice cream?

The favorite at Beth Marie’s seems to be – no,

not chocolate – but butternut ice cream with chocolate-covered pecans, caramel pieces and a caramel swirl. It’s called Turtle Torture. As for his personal favorite, Ken says he’s partial to Old South Fudge, a mix of chocolate ice cream with a fudge swirl and Oreo cookies. “It’s like cookies and cream, but chocolate style,” he says. Couples with a tie to Beth Marie’s – a first date or a wedding proposal there – can create their own ice cream, choosing their five favorite flavors. Employees who’ve worked at Beth Marie’s for two years can concoct a flavor, too. One of the most decadent? Maurice’s Muddy Mess, chocolate pieces and chocolate ice cream with a pecan brownie.

Every February, Beth Marie’s hosts a Love Stories contest. Ken remembers the winning story from two years ago: An African American woman brought her mother into the parlor. The woman, who would not have been allowed to sit at a lunch counter when she was younger, began to cry as she told her family about the welcome at Beth Marie’s.

For older generations looking to relive the treats of their childhood, Beth Marie’s serves egg creams, a carbonated chocolate milk, and phosphates – soda made with phosphoric acid instead of today’s citric acid. Phosphates were a favorite of Ken’s dad. Between the bare-bones technology of their ice cream and the sodas from yesteryear, Beth Marie’s lets frenetic 21st century folks step back into a slower time, if only for the duration of their ice cream. “Ice cream just makes you feel good,” says Ken. “It’s hard to argue about a place where everyone is happy.”

MBehind the scenes at Beth Marie’s, Denton’s favorite ice cream shop

UNIQUELY denton[ BY CORRISA JACkSON ]

Photo by Christina Childs

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Denton

Around the block,around the clock...

it’s happening inHistoric Downtown Denton.

Denton Firefighters’ Museum332 E. Hickory St.

Hours: Monday - Friday8 a.m. - 5 p.m.

Admission is free. For more information please call (940) 349-8840

Museums. Galleries. Shopping. Dining. Festivals. Live Music. Performing Arts.

That’s Entertainment!

Historic Denton Bayless-Selby Denton County Denton County Downtown Firefighters’ House Courthouse-on-the-Square African American Denton Museum Museum Museum Museum

Denton County Bayless-Selby African American House Museum Museum

317 W. Mulberry St.Hours: Tuesday - Saturday

10 a.m. - 12 p.m. & 1 p.m. - 3 p.m.(940) 349-2865

Denton Main Street AssociationFor information on events and promotions

visit www.dentonmainstreet.org or call (940) 349-8529

Denton CountyCourthouse-on-the-Square Museum

110 W. Hickory St.Hours: Monday - Friday

10 a.m. - 4:30 p.m.Saturday 11 a.m. - 3 p.m.

(940) 349-2850

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