William Dietrich was fresh out of college after serving in the U.S. Army when deciding he wanted to be a police officer. That ambition brought him to Brownsville. The city’s police department was hiring and Dietrich went to where the job was being offered. Starting as a police officer, he saw the job as a stepping stone that would soon enough take him out of Brownsville. The first scenario may…
The white sign along Business 77 on the Harlingen/San Benito line has seen its better days. It leans over a bit with wear that has not worn well. It reads “VFW Post 2410” with an arrow pointing north to where the lodge sits on Whalen Road. It is there where post Commander Trey Villela walks among boxes of toy donations for distribution throughout Cameron County. The boxes of Legos, Star…
Susan Valverde’s background was in business and going to trade shows to attract jobs to McAllen. Working in business development, Valverde was on the staff of the McAllen Economic Development Corporation. It was a six-year stint that ran from 1997 to 2002. She began to understand that bringing in jobs to her community was dependent on having a better trained and educated workforce. That fact became even more apparent in…
James Horta is a barber with a flair and a commitment in giving back to his community. Horta’s glow-in-the-dark shop in downtown Mercedes is adorned with deco-style posters that illuminate and feature a cast of characters from Albert Einstein and Albert Hitchcock to racecar driver Jeff Gordon. There’s also plenty of memorabilia to be found, especially items featuring his beloved Dallas Cowboys. The barber’s affinity for pop culture is reflected…
The South Texas Alliance of Cities launched in 2023 with the goal of fostering greater cooperation and collaboration among communities in addressing key issues. The partnership appears to be off to a good start. The majority of the communities in the pact are in the Rio Grande Valley although it does extend to San Antonio. That city’s mayor, Ron Nirenberg, has attended some of the alliance’s quarterly meetings. The focus…
McAllen’s inclusion on a national top-20 list for small businesses reaffirms the city’s long-standing support for entrepreneurship and development. McAllen Mayor Javier Villalobos made that assessment after learning of CoworkingCafe listing his city as the ninth best place for small businesses among 136 southern U.S. cities surveyed. Coworking Café is a listing service for flex workplace solutions in supporting remote workers, freelancers and employees from all fields seeking user-friendly platforms.…
Gilbert Hernandez had 500 books and a $5,000 loan when taking his business from markets and pop-ups to a storefront in downtown Brownsville. It was the first days of January 2022. His new bookstore Buho now had a physical location in a historic downtown building that got its start in 1921 as a pharmacy on Washington Street. The 29-year-old Hernandez was out to prove a point. His research revealed that…
El Paso native Michelle Franco-Mar fell in love in the aughts and moved to the Rio Grande Valley in 2009. “I married a Valley boy,” Franco-Mar said of her husband, Greg, who is from Brownsville. Once here, the former newspaper graphic artist sized up her job possibilities, and wondered, “What can I do here?” Her new husband, an accountant, advised Michelle to do something she liked and to think about…
The McAllen International Airport is looking to build out its 150,000-square-foot-plus terminal during a time when the airfield is setting all-time total traveler records on a monthly basis. In July, 114,694 passengers utilized the McAllen airport, which set an all-time monthly traveler record. The July traveler number marked an eight percent improvement over June, which at the time with 105,508 passengers represented a new monthly record. In all, for 2024,…
The “pan chiquitos,” as Albaro De La Garza calls them, started out as miniature versions of sweet bread for his then-young children. De La Garza’s kids often didn’t finish off a full-size empanada or a fluffy concha pastry. So, De La Garza and his baker at the time at the Mercedes panaderia made them smaller. The child-sized Mexican sweet bread of De La Garza Bakery and Cake Shop in Mercedes…