A social media tagline for Con Ganas Mija gets to the essence of the organization and its energetic founder. “A network of women from the RGV who hustle!” Mija is a term of endearment in Spanish for a girl or daughter. Ganas can translate to “giving it your all,” or “doing your best.” Natalie Garza certainly does both and then some. In early 2024, she opened a storefront in downtown…
Downtown Edinburg has lost much of its luster with aging infrastructure and block after block of lawyers’ offices filling up what were once retail spaces. For one day at least, on May 1, downtown was buzzing again. It was the day when the new Hidalgo County Courthouse celebrated its much-delayed completion and the venerable Citrus Theater marked its rebirth with a grand reopening event. Frustrations mounted in recent years over…
The urban forests found throughout McAllen and at its wildlife sanctuary are creating new habitats to help counter dwindling butterfly populations in the region and across the country. The efforts to do so have become a citywide initiative with educational programs at the Quinta Mazatlan sanctuary and a butterfly garden at McAllen City Hall. At local schools, students gather for tree-planting events at the urban forests and develop awareness of…
One Rio Grande Valley car dealer whose name is today emblazoned across the region got his start in a modest-sized store selling Buicks just blocks south of the courthouse in Edinburg. Bert Ogden sold cars as a side business before opening his first dealership in the 1960s. He would purchase used cars from upstate Texas sources, restore them to running condition, and then sell them in the Valley. The downtown…
Carmen Garza describes she and her daughters as antique collectors who “love the hunt” and they have plenty of spaces to fill at their shop in downtown Harlingen. Jackson Street Antiques on the corner of Jackson and Commerce streets is one of the anchors of the specialty niche that downtown Harlingen has developed over the years. The collection of antique stores and like-minded businesses have given the downtown area an…
Edinburg’s mayor describes 2024 as marking the “end of an incredible three-year run.” From 2021-2024, the Rio Grande Valley’s fastest-growing city surpassed the 100,000 population mark and today stands at about 106,000 residents. Mayor Ramiro Garza Jr. described Edinburg as “a city on the move” during a recent state of the city speech at the new Arts, Culture & Events Center. The mayor’s speech included an elaborate and well-structured video…
Joseph Mayers by training is an auto technician who also has a flair for style and design as part of his skill set. All of those skills and others would be called upon in his early 30s when he became visually impaired due to an ongoing medical condition. Today, Mayers says, he is legally blind and is not able to see clearly past 20 feet without magnification. The adversity he…
StartUp Texas launched in 2019 as a means to provide local entrepreneurs with modest amounts of capital while providing insights on how to scale up their businesses. The event coincided with the opening of the 36,000-square-foot eBridge Center in downtown Brownsville, which houses the Brownsville Community Improvement Corporation. StartUp Texas is the creation of BCIC and is styled after similar events in other metro areas in the state and country.…
Rodrigo Cadena started his business life in the United States with a single pastry and cake shop in Mission. As the CEO of Los Pastelas Caseros de Gaby’s, his goal from inception was to scale up with more locations in the Rio Grande Valley. The cake shop company has its roots in Mexico, where it has three locations in the Reynosa area. Cadena aimed for similar successes in the U.S.…
The open-air labs of the automotive technology program at Texas State Technical College feature lifts, computerized equipment, tools and students huddled around their instructors as they troubleshoot and diagnose scenarios. Rosendo Rodriguez is one of the auto tech instructors at the TSTC campus in Harlingen. On a recent sunny morning, he pointed out what the different groups of students were doing. One instructor was going over a large engine placed…