Texas Bucket List

Texas Bucket List

Simmons Bank

Season 9 of The Texas Bucket is List Premieres September 9th

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The show dedicated to EVERYTHING there is to see, do, and experience in the Lone Star State is gearing up for its ninth season! Entering out 5th year on the air, The Texas Bucket List has been bringing exciting Texas stories, fantastic food finds, hidden gems, and amazing annual events into the homes of viewers since 2013 and will continue to do so on Sept. 9 during the first episode of the fall season.

TBL fans can expect to see an expanded palate on the show this year, including a tour of Central Texas BBQ stops in the season opener. The Texas Bucket List Burger of the Week segment will be returning this season as host Shane McAuliffe continues to find meaty treats almost as unique as the state they are made in.

The show will also feature interesting things to do in the state where everything is bigger and better that may inspire a few tall tales. Among these experiences are a Prairie Dog Park, a long standing Christmas ball, and Canton Trade Days, to name a few.

With more excitement, food, and action than ever before, the ninth season of TBL is one you won’t want to miss. It’s no secret that Texans are proud of the state they call home.  Shane McAuliffe’s interactions with people all over the Lone Star State make it easy to see why Texans are so proud of this great state.

The Texas Bucket List airs on 23 markets television markets and has won seven Telly Awards.  TBL has also been nominated for seven Lone Star Emmy Awards.

For more information on The Texas Bucket List, visit TheTexasBucketList.com and follow us on Facebook, Instagram, Twitter and Pintrist.

TO TEXAS!

The Texas Bucket List – The Bowling Hall of Fame and Museum in Arlington

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ARILINGTON, Texas – Finding unique stops with interesting stories is sort of our forte and when we heard about a museum dedicated to a sport just about everyone has given a go, well we figured we had the time to spare.  So we headed to Arlington because the dude abides.

Amongst the massive ballparks in Arlington, you’ll find another sprawling complex dedicated to a sport that may be the oldest of them all.

“Bowling goes back 5,000 years, so a lot of what we have is more U.S. focused, but we have an amazing collection here,” said Jessica Bell, curator of the International Bowling Museum and Hall of Fame.

“A lot of what people think, ‘There’s a bowling museum? What is that exactly?’ And then they get here and they see that you don’t even have to be a bowler to think this place is great.”

This story starts back in ancient Egypt where being buried with your bowling ball was common.

“I would say that’s not maybe necessarily historically 100 percent accurate, but it really is representing the origins of bowling which date back to ancient Egypt and the archaeologists have uncovered a bowling type game,” said Bell.

From there, the game expanded across the continents because bowling is right up everyone’s alley.

“Ninety-three million people per year participate in bowling, and that makes it the largest participatory sport in the world,” Jessica said.

The tale between bowling and beer started in the 50’s, when watching these finely tuned athletes bowling to perfection was a sure thing on a Saturday.

“As prohibition ended the beer companies started sponsoring bowling teams, and so that’s kind of where to association came from in the 1950’s,” Jessica said. “And the 1950’s were really when bowling was at its height. So, during the 1950’s television really took off, and bowling was on television. Every week on Saturday mornings they were watching championship bowling, and so people really had a relationship with some of the bowling stars at that time.”

Dick Weber, Marion Ladewig, Earl Anthony, and Walter Ray Williams Junior are names that never get drug through the gutter. In fact, they’re some of the biggest to grace hall of fame that happens to not have any names in it, sort of.

“We have this amazing digital system because we induct from five different organizations, so we have over 700 different hall of famers,” Jessica said when explaining why there are not names or photos of bowlers on the walls of the bowling hall of fame. So we can’t put up everybody on the wall, so what we do is we put everybody into this system here. And you can pull up individual biographies. When you click on a person, your favorite hall of famer, you can go through their biography, learn a little bit about their history, and then also look at their different pictures or videos if they have videos.”

This building dedicated to bowling isn’t just about the names and the history; it’s also about the stories many have not heard.  Like during World War II, when a Women’s International Bowling Congress raised enough money to purchase not just one bomber but several planes for the war effort.

Once you’re done reading up on the history and the people, then it’s time to get your roll on. Now this is all fun and games but if you want to bowl with best, you can do that here, too.

The International Bowling Campus includes a research and development center, where team USA, bowling professionals from all over the world, and even people who have no idea what they’re doing get into the right frame of mind.

“We’re the highest trained, certified coaches in the world,” Louis Marquez, better known as Lou, informed us.

Lou coaches up all sorts of players to help them put that extra into their ordinary bowling game.

“Bowlers who generally come to our facility are obviously looking for some kind of advancement in their game,” Lou said. “But really, sometimes they come here wanting to get fixed because it’s a last ditch effort to get better.”

That said, weather you’re a professional bowler, history buff, or average Joe Texan, the International Bowling Museum and Hall of Fame is well worth a stop.

“Bowling has such an interesting kind of niche history and kind of interplay with culture that coming to the International Bowling Museum, you get a piece of history that you’re probably not going to normally think about,” Jessica said.

 

The Texas Bucket List – The Fulton Mansion in Rockport-Fulton

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ROCKPORT-FULTON, Texas – The gentle waves of Aransas Bay can be a relaxing way to pass the day, and are a far cry from the howling winds of Hurricane Candy, Fern, or Erin that these waters have seen over the years.

But one structure on this shore has with stood the test of time since 1877.

“We are in Rockport, Texas at the home of George and Harriet Fulton, the Fulton Mansion.”

Marsha Hendrix with the Texas Historical Commission is the site manager to the mansion that was meticulously built with many modern convinces.

George and Harriet Fulton built this mansion over three years after inheriting the land from Harriet’s father Henry Smith, the first American governor of Texas, while it was still a territory of Mexico.  The Fulton’s called their new home Oakhurst due to the extraordinary amount of oaks on the peninsula.

Fulton was in his late 60’s when they moved into the mansion.

“This was his retirement home, and a lot of folks come to Rockport Fulton area now days to build their dream home and retire,” Marsha said. “And I like to say he started that trend way back in the 19th century.”

But that didn’t stop him from doing business.

“His job with the cattle company was to get additional investors involved,” Marsha informed us. “And so a great way to get people who had money to invest in your company is to invite them to your beautiful home that shows that you’ve been successful. Have a wonderful dinner for them, which Harriet always supplied because she loved to entertain. And then after dinner the gentlemen could come in here and talk business.”

The mansion had additions you normally wouldn’t find in a typical home in the 1870’s, like central heat!

“All of the fireplaces are covered in slate which is a really dull stone, but they’re all faux painted,” Marsha said. “But what’s really amazing about the fireplaces is that they’re all fake. They never burned anything in them. They’re really just a heat register for the central heating system. Down in the basement was a very large furnace, and there were air shafts built throughout the house at each fire place so that they warm air could rise up from the furnace.”

Indoor plumbing and hot and cold water were also installed in the home.

“This was probably the best modern convenience that they put into their home,” Marsha said. “They had another bathroom just like this on the third floor. And with a half bath on the first floor, they had a flush toilet for every floor. They used the heat from the cook stove to heat water in a copper boiler that was connected to the cook stove, and on this side of the house every sink had hot and cold running water. The other side of the house, all the bedrooms have sinks in the bedroom, but they just have cold running water. That’s still really nice.””

Even the construction was top of the line, hence the reason it still stands today.

“The walls are built with five inch pine boards that are laid flat and stacked solid,” Marsha said. “So when we talk about a solid wood structure, it is literal.”

The solidness of the house has come in handy as it has withstood high hurricane winds multiple times.

“The house has been hit by quite a few hurricanes, and even while they were building the house there where some hurricanes that came to the Texas coast, caused a lot of damage, and George wanted to use a unique building method,” Marsha said. “Being an engineer he knew about this building method, and he used it in his home. And that’s very unusual even for the time period.”

Exploring these rooms is a great way to connect to the history of the Coastal Bend.  A chance to see what life was like for a cattle baron on the coast.

“It’s again that connection to our Texas history that’s so valuable,” Marsha said. “And we can all appreciate where we come from and the things that people have done before us to make Texas what it is. It is a wonderful example of Texas history come to life.”

The Texas Bucket List – RV Museum in Amarillo

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AMARILLO, Texas – The great expanse that is the Panhandle calls travelers to explore the open road.  The old route 66 has a plethora of pit stops from the Cadillac Ranch, the barbed wire museum, the big Texan, and one you might not expect to find in Amarillo, the RV museum.

Trent and Jack Sisemore are a father and son duo that has been in the RV business since 1974.

For over 30 years, they’ve been collecting rare recreational vehicles in an 8,000 square foot metal building in the crossroads of the panhandle.

“We were very strategic in the accusations that we did through that 30 years knowing that this was going to be the ultimate consummation of that,” Jack said.

Winnebagos from way back, buses from blockbusters, and a few motorcycles to round out the mobile collection, this archive is sort of an accolade of Americana.

Their collection includes a 1935 Airstream.

“It’s the oldest Airstream in the world that was built by a Dr. Holloman in his back yard in Florida,” Trent said. “It was all built by hand. It looks kind of like something from a Jules Vern movie.”

So what did Dr. Holloman get from Airstream if he had to build the RV himself? Plans and one license to build it, according to Trent.

“It was out of Popular Mechanics and it cost five dollars,” Trent said. “But then as you can see, we’ve been in manufacturing and I don’t know many people anymore that could build something of this design and this quality. I mean it took years of love and care to build this. ”

The oldest RV in the world, you’ll find that here too.

“It’s a 1921 Lamsteed Kamkar built by Anheuser Busch,” Trent said. “They actually built five of them. There’s two of them left. This one and one in the museum in Harris in Reno Nevada.”

Even the super campy campers of the 70’s are all restored and maintained to the sparking super fly semblance that was somehow in style.

Jack and Trent are incredibly tedious about recreating what life was like during the time period of each trailer.

“I do a lot of RVing in the fall, and I go everywhere I can go,” Trent said. “Every garage sale, every yard sale, every junk store finding all the old toys and games that go along with these and the books and people can then go back there and remember how much fun they had.”

These old-school campers are a far cry from what you can find today but telling this story isn’t just about a fond look at the fixtures and patterns of the past.  This is about getting out there and seeing the world from a perspective with propulsion.

“From the time man began people have adventured and tried to move into new frontiers. And so that spirit, it keeps it alive,” Trent said. “And this keeps the history of the RV industry alive.”

The Texas Bucket List – Texas Surf Museum

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CORPUS CHRISTI, Texas – The unceasing song of the Texas surf is a sensational sound. The breaking waves draw you in as the lone star state sun shines down and taming the fairly timid waves has created a culture and history that’s well document in downtown Corpus Christi at the Texas Surf Museum.

Brad Lomax is the brain child behind this stockpile of surfboards.

“The surf museum was my version of middle age crazy,” Brad said. “And it almost cost me my marriage. Like most middle-aged crazies.”

Situated between several restaurants Brad owns, the Texas Surf Museum tells the story of some of the most sincere positive thinkers you’ll find in the coastal bend, Texas surfers.

“I tell people that to be a surfer in Texas you need to be an optimist with low standards,” Brad said.

Considering our state isn’t really known for its crashing waves, I mean not everything can be bigger in Texas, these dedicated dreamers still have created a culture to celebrate the occasional day when the conditions are just right.

Brad started this collection when his good friend and Texas sized surfing legend Pat Magee closed down his Port Aransas shop back in 2005. 36 years after Pat opened the store at the age of 18.

“One of the first people that I met in the surfing world was Pat McGee,” Brad said. “Pat is really a great story of surfing. He’s a surfer and he’s a business man and he’s a pioneer. “Pat over the years had amassed an amazing collection of surf memorabilia. It was stuck under beds and in attics and in store rooms.”

So Brad bought it all.

“I wanted to tell the story,” Brad said. “It’s a cool story how the people who pioneered it got started and stuck with it and made a niche in the surfing world on the Gulf Coast and in Texas.”

Built on a backbone of boards, each one of the colorful creations has a connection to the Lone Star State.

“These boards, you know, they’re not just a piece of Texas history,” Brad said. “They’re a piece of Corpus Christi, Texas and Port Aransas history, and those guys had a lot to do with getting me and other people kind of in that second wave out in the water.”

Having the physical history of hanging ten gives the museum a tangible taste of what cruising the gulf coast back in the day was like.  But for a more colorful account, the ever changing wall of history has a few more personal stories.

“This is a living wall where we allow people to come and they bring various photographs, memorabilia, ephemera,” Brad said.

From South Texas to the Sabine, all 367 miles of coastline are covered with this chronicle of hodgepodge.

“This is a part of Texas that most people don’t understand,” Matt said. “You know, we know the ranches, the cattle drives. We know the big cities, but this is a little tiny museum in a small town that’s in it of its self a wonderful place to come visit.”

So don’t bail on this opportunity to see some gnarly narratives of Texans who took to the tides and turned up with totally tubular tale to tell.

“This is important stuff,” Kent said. “This is our culture and this is America. This is what we’ve made, so you need to come see it.”

 

 

The Texas Bucket List – Little Graceland in Los Fresnos

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LOS FRESNOS, Texas – It’s hard to beat south Texas during the not so wintery days of January. The warmer weather brings in people from all over the country for sun, sand, and some serious sideburns. This week we start things off down in the Valley at a celebration fit for a king – well, the king of rock & roll, that is. You see, a personal friend of Presley’s puts on this Presley-sized party every few years, and it leaves people saying thank you, thank you very much.

Every January, close to the King of rock and roll’s birthday, people flock to Los Fresnos for a celebration at Little Graceland.

Just why is the tiny tribute to Elvis sitting here in South Texas? Well it’s all because of this man, Simon Vega.

“I was nine months younger than Elvis,” Vega said. “I was born in a two-room house, a two-room shed just like Elvis.”

He too was born in 1935, just a few miles from his little manor dedicated to the musical act of the millennia. But what was Simon’s special connection to the King?  He actually got to hang with one of the most influential singers of all time.

“I took my basic training at Fort Hood and was there for six weeks at the same time Elvis got there,” said Vega.

Simon was drafted into the Army in 1958 and while waiting for chow, Mr. Vega approached Presley.

“So when I patted him on the back, he turned around and said, ‘Hi, Vega You know me…?” And I said, ‘Hi, Elvis. Hey Elvis, what can I do for you? I want to be your friend.’ We shook hands. He said, ‘Okay, let’s be friends.’ And that’s, we were friends for a long time,” Vega said.

The duo was stationed in Germany and Simon was part of the crew that included Joe Esposito, Elvis’s eventual longtime bodyguard.  Simon fondly recalls their time together hanging out in the hot spots of Frieberg.

“You know at the end of the month in the Army. Everybody’s broke. Guys shoot dice and play cards and lose their money and on weekends he would say, ‘Hey guys, come with me.’ He would pick up some snacks at the bar and he would feed us hamburgers and stuff, and he’d pay for it,” said Vega.

Perhaps another interesting side to Elvis Simon witnessed was writing habits – not devoted to lyrics, but to letters.

“His company had two mail clerks,” Vega said. “Every day he would bring a big sack full of letters and throw them to the guys. Our company had two mail clerks. One for us, and one for Elvis.”

Elvis was a good friend to have and when their time together in the service came to an end, Elvis had a proposal for Simon, the same proposal that the King made to Joe Esposito.

“Told Elvis I had to go back to my wife and family, and he pointed at me, and he said, ‘Look Vega, go back to Texas, and if you can’t find a job right away, come to Graceland and I’ll put you on the payroll,” said Vega.

That was the last time Simon got to talk with Elvis, but Pressley made such an impression on Simon that he started his collection to the King and built Little Graceland.

“Many people haven’t been to Graceland because it’s too far or something. They come here, they get a pre-Graceland, you know, and they become friends and they become friends and all that, and they help keep Elvis’s name going,” Vega said.

Once a year, the big bash brings in the Elvis faithful and now a former schoolteacher is the one people want their pictures with. Danny Lee is Corpus Christi native who happens to be an Elvis impersonator.

“I wouldn’t have a job if it wasn’t for Elvis,” said Lee.

Being a native son of south Texas, Danny is a big draw at the Little Graceland Elvis Festival and he understands Simon’s connection to the King.

“You know, he also wrote a song about Elvis. Have you heard that? It was called ‘Hail to Elvis Presley,’ and that just goes to show you how much of an influence Elvis had over everybody in the United States and rock and roll,” Lee said.

So Simon keeps the King’s memory alive in South Texas with his royal tribute full of memorabilia, pictures, and every Elvis album ever made.

“Hope it never dies, because he was a, I don’t think there’s going to be another Elvis. Never,” said Vega.

The Texas Bucket List – Dutch Windmill Museum in Nederland

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NEDERLAND, Texas – Down in the Golden Triangle of southeast Texas, you’ll find Nederland.

Just like any town in Texas, this small Dutch community is proud of their heritage.  That’s why you’ll find a giant windmill proudly pushing again the winds of the gulf coast.

Carol Culp is the curator of the crazy looking Nederland Texas Windmill Museum that was built back in 1969.

“It’s 40 feet tall,” said Culp. “It’s in recognition of the Hollanders who established the town.”

In 1897, Nederland was settled by a group Dutch settlers who felt the low-lying lands of southeast Texas reminded them of their home in the Netherland, so they named their town after their European country.

The museum pays tribute to the 51 original settlers who came to the Lone Star State for a new life, but once they got a taste of the tropical heat of Texas, some weren’t so Amsterdam thrilled to be there.  The Dutch that were determined and had what it took to be Texans, built rice farms and dairies.

Glen Koelemay is kin to some of the original settlers.

“When they got here they found a little bit different climate,” Koelemay said.

Koelemay’s family operated the Orange Hotel for a time, sort of a staging area for Dutch families new to the area. The hotel had a library full of Dutch books, dancing, a lot of polka.

“The family would gather on Friday night and they’d have card games and play pinochle, and I loved to hear their Dutch brogue as they spoke,” said Koelemay.

Glen fondly remembers his boyhood, helping his father run the family dairy.

“I did help put caps on the bottles, and we had a special hand-held machine that had all the bottle caps stacked in it and you’d place it on the bottle and dispense the cap,” Koelemay said. “When I think about it, I thought, boy this was modern stuff at one time.”

He remembers his dad slipping on the old school wooden shoes to go out into the field and the reason his father swore by these not-so-flexible shoes. Of course here at the museum, you can try on a pair for yourself and surprisingly their not too bad but I’ll stick with my boots.

“It wasn’t that it, they were so comfortable, it was that you could slip them off easy when you came into the house, and when you were working around the cows and in the fields, they didn’t wear out,” said Koelemay. “Your feet may have wore out, but they didn’t wear out.”

The Dutch windmill museum is more than just a funny looking building with a few native novelties; it’s a repository of the original settlers who were as strong and stubborn as any Texan to make their way of life in a world much different than which they came, even if they happened to have the same name.

“We need to remember our heritage, all of us need to remember our roots, you know, where we came from, our mom, dad, grandma, well, you know who they were,” Culp said. “We have a lot of Europeans that come. They’re very excited about seeing our museum.”

Considering Texans don’t have to fly over the ocean to learn about this curious collection, it’s truly worth whisking in to hear about the Hollanders who made starting a life in Texas the very first item on the 1897 version of The Texas Bucket List.

“They, they came here, they did their best, they didn’t know what they were doing, but they were doing something and it contributed to their welfare,” said Koelemay. “I’m proud of it. Proud of it.”

The Texas Bucket List – Hemi Hideout in Brookshire

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BROOKSHIRE, Texas – Just west of Houston, in the small community of Brookshire, you’ll find a long tree-lined drive leading to a Texas-sized barn looking building. As soon you pull up to this place, it comes to light that this building is a radiant, retro, repository. Known as the Hemi Hideout, what started as a place to park some cars has turned into so much more.

John Hovas is the reason the Hemi Hideout is here and it all started when his father bought him a car – but not just any car.

“In 1970, my dad bought me a Dodge Super Bee. It was like the yellow one back here in the background, and this is why this is a Dodge and Plymouth venue,” said Hovas. “I’m trying to hang on to the past and reminisce the old days.”

Hovas’s time with his Super Bee flew by.

“I had that car for probably 2 or 3 years, and then got married, had children, and that car had to go,” Hovas said. “Everybody wishes they had the cars that they had originally, but who has the money or the wherewithal to do that? So I had to straighten up and walk a tight line at an early age.”

After a career of successful entrepreneurial ventures, Hovas wanted to relive his glory days, so he got his old car back plus a few more and built a small man cave in Waller country.

Construction took over two years and now Hovas is the proud owner of the biggest timber-framed building in Texas.  But it’s not just home to his car collection, it’s also home to a large collection of rare, colorful, and crazy signs.

“So, there’s probably 1200 signs in here right now, and it can easily hold three times as many,” said Hovas. “The more you put, the cooler it looks. The more cluttered, so to speak, the more intriguing, and you think you miss something and you want to go back over it again, and we hear that comment all the time here.”

With over 21,000 square feet of space in this cathedral to neon and Americana, you’ll find some of the most unique and rare signs in all of the United States. But for Hovas, it’s more than just flashy flares and radiant rays, it’s the story that these old advertisements tell.

“Men, women, old, young, everybody seems to love it because of all the beauty and the bling going on. But, when you start talking about the history behind it, it really grabs everybody’s attention,” Hovas said.

Having such a unique and luminous location brings in all sorts of life events – some of which you might not expect.

“We’ve had several weddings, we’ve had funerals in here too. I mean, I didn’t never dream in a million years, but car guys, it makes for a great, soft, nice touch if you’re a car guy,” said Hovas. “A farewell party in here, and they’re both fantastic.”

Despite having light bill from $2500 to $4500 that’s higher than a house payment, Hovas doesn’t charge people to gaze at the glare in his garage.  But if you do feel like you need to contribute to the cause, you’ll be doing more than just lighting the lights.

“We ask for a five dollar donation, and we match it dollar for dollar and all the funds go to local charities here, and we’ve done some remarkable things in Brookshire and Sealy area that we’re proud of,” Hovas said. “So if you don’t want to donate, you don’t have to.”

And if you take a fancy to some flashing neon lights, you’re allowed to bring them home – for a price. But for Hovas, this building is more than just trip down memory lane. It’s a culmination of everything he’s ever worked hard for, it’s a chance to bring joy and light up the eyes and hearts of the generations who got to see these signs in their glory years or to those who may have never seen the light.

“This will be the ride of my life, no doubt about that. I’ve done quite a few things that I’m proud of in my life, but this will be the ride of my life, and it’s still going on,” said Hovas.

 

The Texas Bucket List – Eisenhower Birthplace in Denison

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DENISON, Texas –Seventy-five miles north of Dallas, you’ll find a jewel at the crossing of a great river. Denison, Texas is just a few miles from the Oklahoma border and was founded in 1872, the same year that the Missouri-Kansas-Texas Railroad depot made its debut in town.

In 1888, work on the railroad brought a young man by the name of David Jacob Eisenhower to town and the 25 year-old moved his wife Ida down from Kansas the following year to a beautiful home that happened to be right next to the train tracks.

But the home’s proximity to the former railroad line that used to run past this place isn’t the only significant feature – we’re at the Eisenhower Birthplace State Historic Site. John Akers is the site manager to the house that welcomed Ike to the world.

“I think it was built on a double lot. It was meant to be a very fancy house before the railroad got put through right in front of it, and the guy who built it I think said ‘See ya, that was enough,’ and had a variety of homeowners after that,” said Akers. “The house was built in about 1877, but the family lived here from 1889 to early 1892. If the president wasn’t born in it, we might not have this house today.”

While Dwight didn’t grow up in this house, his connection to it was establish by a neighbor who helped deliver the president when he was a newborn, and thought his name sounded familiar as she watched newsreels of the General during World War 2.

“She was thinking about, what was that family that lived across the street? The Eisenhowers? So she actually starts writing General Eisenhower and eventually connects him to this house, and she also becomes the one who starts the movement to purchase the house for the town, and they successfully opened it as a museum in 1946 and they invited General Eisenhower to visit, and she was the hostess,” Akers said. “So, when he came in the front door we just went in, he met the woman who held him as a baby.”

After the war ended, Eisenhower was able to take trip down memory lane, even though he really didn’t have any memory of this place.

“When he came here on April 20th in 1946 for an event we call ‘Big Texas Breakfast,’ that was his first time seeing the house,” said Akers. “I think he was touched by the effort of Texas to preserve the house he was born in.”

After guiding Allied forces to victory, Eisenhower was hailed a hero of World War 2 and both political parties wanted to see Ike take the next step into the political ring.

“We won the war, so he’s very popular from that, and became a natural for the presidency. People saw him as a person of great character, and you know, a lot of people say they miss him, they miss having someone like him as president today,” Akers said.

In 1952 Dwight was the elected president and during the Republican’s two terms, NASA was founded, the interstate highway system was formed, America got out of the Korean War and the former general even downsized our nation’s military.

“Because he was a general, he had that credibility to make these changes, so I think he really did change the course of our country based upon his background,” said Akers. “No one questioned him when he said, made decisions about the military and about military spending because he had the credibility and people had great faith in him.”

Dwight would return to the home in 1952 and once more in 1965.  Even though the former president called Abilene, Kansas home, he always kept a connection to the Lone Star State and the people of Texas kept a connection to him.

“The best part of my job is meeting all of these people and hearing their stories. We get a lot of people now that were, he’s the first president they remembered or they remembered that it was the first experience with television, and he was on television, and they talk about seeing him come through their town – so they’re on dad’s shoulders in some town – so in fact, we still have lots of people that come by and remember him or they have the ‘I like Ike’ buttons, the campaign buttons,” Akers said. “So you get a lot of people that they bring their kids and grandchildren and they want to share these stories with them. They do that here as well.”

So dive into Denison to pay tribute to one of the most influential presidents of the 20th century and heroes of the greatest generation that ever lived.

“Denison has embraced having Dwight Eisenhower from here. You’ll see the Eisenhower name everywhere. There’s a lot of pride in Eisenhower, in the Eisenhower birthplace. So they’ve embraced him, he’s a big part of Denison’s identity,” said Akers.

The Texas Bucket List – Dick’s Classic Garage

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SAN MARCOS, Texas – When it comes to the cars of yesteryear, it’s hard not to stare at these unique pieces of art that used to be a part of everyday life. The classics can be seen all over our backroads and highways but if you want to see some of the cleanest and rarest cars in our state, you’ll have to make a stop in San Marcos.

Thomas Fortney is the curator of Dick’s Classic Garage in San Marcos. He gets to showcase an incredible collection of cars that got started in 1980 by World War II veteran Dick Burdick. The collection features rides from a specific time in American history.

“Oh, we stop at 1959 because that was kind of the last year the American auto industry was kind of in the great years,” said Fortney. “We start off with the 1901. We show the evolution of the car up through the ‘50s and how it impacted the society in America and how society impacted the automobile as it grew together.”

These aren’t you’re typical vintage vehicles; they’re some of the rarest retro rides in the world, including the last produced Tucker, number 1050.

“Curtis Foester had it. He rebuilt it in the ‘90s, restored it using original Tucker pieces. He found all of the body panels from wrecked Tuckers and some extra pieces, so it is a complete Tucker,” Fortney said. “It is the only Tucker that has never been driven.”

Another hard to come by carriage they’ve accumulated is the dazzling Duesenberg . They’ve got 4 of them here!

“Some of these were generally about $12-15,000, up to $20,000 back then. Unbelievable amount of money. It’s kind of like the Veyrons of today, the Bugattis, the high-end cars. That would be the only thing that would be even close to comparable, and they were the fastest, most luxurious cars ever built,” said Fortney.

Today, these cars are worth anywhere from a million to a million and a half. But if you really want to feel like royalty, their 1939 Chrysler has an amazing lineage.  The King and Queen of England rode in it during a visit to the World’s Fair in New York.

“Chrysler took it back and then they used it during World War II. FDR actually rode where you’re sitting right now during World War II and rode this around to tour the production plants,” Fortney said.

With so much history in these halls, beams of beauty, and metal magnificence, one often forgets about the folks who have to maintain these modern marvels, unless you just happen to crash into them.

Ray Terry has been tinkering with trucks and even the Tucker for the past 32 years. Terry’s got a long history of being hands-on with hot rods and it all started when he grew up in Austin.

“Austin never had a drag strip, but San Antonio did, you know, and so we’d have to tow down to San Antonio back in the ’50s and race,” said Terry.

Now a mature mechanic, this wheel whisperer has the task of making sure these rare relics stay true to form.

“I mean they, they’re kind of like me – they just want to rest. That’s what they want to do. They just want to rest and then you force them to run, and it’s a battle,” Terry said. “Yeah, and you win some, you lose some. Sometimes they win the battle. Sometimes you don’t get them right – but most of the time we do.”

Without Terry, the garage just wouldn’t be the same.

“Ray’s kind of the heart and soul of the museum. He can’t let anything be broken. He’s always got to fix it, he’s always got to make it the best it can possibly be, and he’s kind of the reason we’ve been here as long as we have and showcased these cars like we can,” said Fortney.

For Terry, it’s about remembering a time when a car was more than just something to get you to point A to point B.  It defined who you were.

“Man, that was freedom. That was, I mean you, all of a sudden you were ‘whole,’ you know,” Terry said. “We loved our cars. Whatever they were, we loved them.”

While most consider these classics a bygone era, they’re a strong reminder of his days here in old Texas.  They shine with brilliance thanks to the hardworking hands of a man whose heart revs with pride for these chariots of the past.

“Well, they’re going away. Bit by bit there’s less and less of them, and less and less people interested in doing anything with them,” said Terry. “We hang on here and if you are, if you’d like to know how it kind of was, well, you can come here and see kind of how it was as far as automobiles is concerned.”