Features

We’ll never forget. Honestly, it’s hard for me to come up with anything else to say about the Memorial Weekend Flood. 

After writing thousands and thousands of words over the last year about the flood that changed Wimberley forever, it’s strange to feel speechless. 

In some ways, it feels so distant. In other ways, the wounds are still too fresh. 

An outsider likely wouldn’t even know a tragedy had occurred after a quick drive down Ranch Road 12 through town. The weekend’s hustle and bustle is back with the standard flock of visitors –  just like it was before the flood. It’s heartening to see that many of the still-standing cypress trees have turned green again, returning some of the brightness that Wimberley is known for. 

In short, Wimberley is back.  The long-form story, however, has a different feel.

Cypress Creek Café will host its annual Crawfish Boil on this coming Saturday, May 21, after the Hog Pound’s “Ride for Vets,” touring the area’s sights. A $15 donation will get you into the motorcycle ride that starts at the Hog Pound, located in Plaza del Sol across the river, and finishes at the Cypress Creek Café. Prizes will be awarded for the registered riders. After that there’s more fun with a crawfish boil. 

This year’s event will be the 5th Annual Crawfish Boil at Cypress Creek Café. Although this will be owner Randy Uselton’s fifth, there were crawfish boils under the previous ownership, which had about 27 or more boils. Uselton remembers his first “had card tables set up on the driveway next to the Buzzard Bar.”

Some of the best gardens in Wimberley will be showcased with this year’s Wimberley Garden Club Tour.

Each year the club has a Garden Tour of outstanding private and public gardens in the Wimberley Valley.  The funds from the Tour go to support various public or non-profit gardens.  This year’s Tour is on May 14th from 10:00 a.m. to 4:00 p.m.  There are 7 private gardens and 1 public garden being showcased. Over the next two weeks, most gardens will be featured in the Wimberley View.

Tickets are available at the Visitors’ Center at a cost of $15.  www.WimberleyGardenClub.org.

Katherine Ann Porter has a new Superintendent, Coni Wilson. Wilson is an educator in every sense of the word.  Having served as a charter school principal/superintendent, project coordinator, secondary principal, and classroom teacher and as a hospital administrator, her talents have led her back to Wimberley.  As a teacher she is certified as a Lifetime Multi-Discipline teacher and has certification in everything from Biology to English, Social Studies to Health with a total of 14 different disciplines. She has a B.A.in Biology and History from SMU, M.S. in Hospital Administration from Texas Women’s University and has done doctoral work on Computer Education at University of North Texas. Another essential skill education-wise is writing grants, something that comes in very handy in any school, but especially a charter school.

“EmilyAnn is just that place that gives kids the opportunity to nurture the creative spark within, and that is important,” Ray Wylie Hubbard, who will be playing at EmilyAnn Theatre and Gardens this weekend for a fundraiser, said. 

Hubbard will sit down with “four or five guitars” for an intimate evening acoustic show to raise money for the local theater.

“It will be kind of like playing in my living room with a bunch of friends, because in Wimberley a lot of the audience are my friends,” Hubbard said.

The theater is raising money for a new building to replace the trailers that currently double as dressing rooms and classrooms on the property.

Before reviewing this play, I had only heard about the sophistication, incomparable style and professionalism of the Wimberley Players and their sheer bliss-inducing performances.

I owed it to myself to check out their show, and I was pleasantly overwhelmed while viewing their riveting matinee of “Good People” on April 17. The all-star cast’s talent is captivating, and they collectively delivered a high-caliber, emotionally charged performance.

Sitting in my comfortable theater chair, I was startled, enthralled and swiftly moved to the edge of my seat as I absorbed the sometimes humorous, sometimes unsettling dialogue and heartfelt facial expressions and organic movements of cast members.

Is it a car? Is it a giant hot dog? No, it’s the Wienermobile!

If you happened to pass by Brookshire Brothers on Thursday, maybe you saw it, a giant hot dog on wheels. No it wasn’t hunger pains or an illusion. It’s one of Oscar Mayer’s six Wienermobiles that travel the country bringing “187 smiles to the gallon” according to their publicity. And I was one of those smiles.

If you grew up in the ‘60’s and ‘70’s, every Saturday morning was spent watching cartoons, and that wiener song was featured during their commercials. “Oh, I wish I were an Oscar Mayer Wiener…everyone would be in love with me.” 

As I stood, there it was. After my initial awe wore off, everybody and I do mean everybody had the same look on their faces. First awe, sometimes with mouths open then a big old smile. 

Need some escape from the demanding pressures of the hectic modern world? Or want to relax as you create art works, watch TV or enjoy friends at a party? Then, the answer is simple, inexpensive and rewarding: Take up adult coloring!
Yes, join the millions across the country, including artists and hobbyists here in the Wimberley area, now enjoying a return to skills learned as a kid to help heal your tired adult mind!
Stacy Peterson, a children’s book illustrator living in Woodcreek, has joined artists creating adult coloring books for the craze sweeping the country. Peterson recently provided pages of her new coloring books In the Forest: Color and Frame, In the City and In the Country for a Woodcreek neighborhood party at the Cypress Point home of photographer Betty McDonald to celebrate the release of Peterson’s first adult coloring series.

Although separated by an ocean, the American Revolution and according to George Bernard Shaw “separated by a common language,” America has a fascination with the British and their royalty. Millions view royal births, marriages, and deaths when they happen and the top TV show for PBS is “Downton Abbey,” about an upper class family and their servants.
But a few Americans from Wimberley, Danforth Junior High 8th Grade students twins Declan and Justin, and father Charles Duggan were invited to Buckingham Palace on February 8 to attend a gala event to celebrate the achievements of Royal Welsh College of Music and Drama.

Different colored personal inscribed squares stitched together, “carried by the wind across the countryside, and that all beings touched by the wind become happier and uplifted.” Kathy Arnold, one of the volunteers explained that, and that prayer flags are from ancient Tibet, China Persia and India.

The Blanco River Monument was raising funds at $5 a square flag for a new monument and were helping with the expertise on how to construct the flag and to make a personal statement. 

The stitched together strands of flags will be erected over the Blanco River, probably Memorial Day. The monument committee is talking to several property owners of river property and uses them as partners. We’d like it to be close to the bridge so people could see them,” said Jan Fitzhugh, one of the organizers.