266 Express
Welcome to the 266 Express, your official podcast of Sanger, TX.
In every episode, we paint a picture of life in this beautiful North Texas town.
You will gain insight into everything from our rich history, community events, and the rapid growth and development of Sanger. Welcome to the 266 Express.
266 Express
From Pinstripes to Spotlights: The Tex McDormand Story
You have been listening to The 266 Express, the official podcast of Sanger, TX. IF you have comments or suggestions, please send them to dgreen@sangertexas.org
Welcome to the 266 Express. I'm John Noblet, here with Donna Green, my co-host, donna, who do we have with us today?
Speaker 2:John. Today we have a local celebrity, tex McDormand. He's a Brownwood native, a Navy veteran, a lifelong artist who started pinstriping at age of 14. And after a decade of service, six deployments, tex turned his creative passion into McDormand Signs and advertising and it's now a family-run business here in Sanger. He runs it alongside with his wife Melissa, his son Critter and even his grandson Chopper. His artistry has taken him nationwide, from HBO promotional work to custom paint for race teams and helmet art featured in museum exhibits.
Speaker 2:I could just go on and on about this guy I can't possibly get through all of the things. He spent decades as an event announcer, an emcee for major motorsports, company galas, veterans events, Sanger events. He champions causes like the Chris Coll Memorial Benefit and, as we know, he's big in the Miracle League. He's had TV appearances, magazines and even in documentaries in the works.
Speaker 1:So Tex's story is more than this podcast can hold. Yeah, it sounds like it.
Speaker 3:Tex, thank you for being here. Yeah, great to be here.
Speaker 1:Well, can you take us back a little bit to Brownwood? I know that you know Clayton, our finance director our CFO and he mentions Brownwood. I want to hear your side of Brownwood. What was life like growing up there? And it looks like that's where rodeo and pinstriping really first showed up in your world.
Speaker 3:Yeah, it is Growing up in Brownwood to me. I think most kids say that wherever they live, they live in a bad part of town, a good part of town, an uppity part of town. When you grow up, you don't know any better.
Speaker 3:And to me Brownwood was a great place. You grow up you don't know any better and to me brownwood was a great place to grow up. It was small enough that most everybody knew everybody, but it was large enough to have, you know, some of the conveniences that you know an intermediate town has. I guess we didn't have walmart back then, of course it wasn't walmart Motz 5 and Dime or whatever it was. But yeah, walmart I mean Walmart Brownwood was a great place to grow up. You could do all the things that you know kids nowadays hear their grandparents or their parents talk about. Yeah, we rode our bicycles everywhere and I mean it was just. It was a good place. It seemed like a safe place to grow up. You know, then my grandparents lived there and my dad worked for Santa Fe Railroad and he got stationed there.
Speaker 3:But my love for art started at a young age because my grandmother was a famous painter, a canvas painter, and so that's kind of where art started for me. My mother was an artist in pastries and cakes and stuff, so I always had art around me and I loved being in that town of Brownwood. I mean it's kind of, like they say, I guess, a little artsy-fartsy kind of community and it was a great place to grow up. And yeah, me and John we went to school together. We graduated together in the same class and it's a small school, you know, around 100 or maybe 110 kids or something. So it was. I think John was probably a little bit more popular than me. I was just a rodeo kid and an artist and screamed around town in the 67 GTO, so you know.
Speaker 1:It's a good car by the way.
Speaker 2:Yeah, it's a good car, it's a very good car. So what drew you at the age of 14 to pinstriping that particular form of art I've always done art.
Speaker 3:I've always drawn hot rods, always drew motorcycles and I'd seen it in magazines and the artwork on cars or bikes in magazines. But I had never, I'd never seen anybody do it until I went to a car show that we had in our town. My dad took me to the car show to walk around and look at cars because hot rods was my interest. And when we first got there I saw a guy pinstripe and I had never seen anybody doing that before, seen it on the cars in the magazines, but I never knew how it was actually done. So that day I never left that guy's spot. I watched him all day long and if you just saw the guy driving a van parked in a parking lot at a shopping center, that would be the van and the guy standing outside that van that you would tell your kids. You ever see that van, that guy walking down our street. Make sure you come in the house. He was scruffy looking and the lady he had with him was scruffy, his dog was scruffy, his van was terrible, but but the the praise that this guy was getting as a kid. I'm standing outside listening to other people talk about how lucky that they were to have this guy, this artist, be in their town and painting on the vehicles that were there and I just couldn't understand how that was. But anyway, I saw how somebody was doing it and I went and kind of just started messing with it myself. And so, yeah, I started messing with it probably about 13 and 14, I think, was when I got my first paying job, 14, maybe summer, before I turned 15. That's when I got my first paying job as a, a pinstriper. And then I was so much into rodeo in that I could sit out in the parking lot at the rodeos and pinstripe trucks and paint on bug shields and stuff like that and make a little bit of money. And if I didn't win anything at the rodeo, you know, I paid a little gas money, yeah, back home. So, yeah, that's really kind of how it started.
Speaker 3:And eventually a, a guy I bought this GTO and a guy said I was kind of messing around doing a little work at the body shop, helping as a kid summer job, and he was kind of the one who said, hey, you're using the wrong brushes and the wrong paint. This is what you should be using. Go to the. You know the the wrong brushes and the wrong paint. This is what you should be using. Go to the paint store and get that stuff. And so I had my GTO and he said if you want to work off some stuff, come up here and I'll teach you how to do the body work and how to paint your own car. So I painted it Before I turned 16, I did my first paint job on a car which was my own car. So I painted it before I turned 16. I did my first paint job on a car which was my own car, and so that's just that.
Speaker 3:That love of being around hot rods and that kind of stuff is is what really drew me into it. I never thought I'd be in you know magazines or TV shows. From the artwork and stuff that I did, I never thought that there would be a living in it, and so that was kind of you know what forced me more into choosing something else. I knew I wasn't going to be a professional bull rider. I was okay, but I wasn't good.
Speaker 3:So my, my mom and my dad was the one who said really you need to do something. And so my dad kind of jokingly said well, you like to fight a lot, so maybe joining the military and getting paid to fight is the best thing for you. So that's why I ended up joining the Navy. And the guy is, oddly enough, if you remember the movie the Rookie with Dennis Quaid. Well, that movie was made about a guy that John Gray and I actually graduated high school with, jimmy Morris, and Jimmy Morris's dad was a Navy recruiter in our town. We graduated with Jimmy played baseball. I liked to play baseball when I was a kid, but you know I was decent at it, but when Jimmy Morris showed up, I was a pitcher and Jimmy Morris was a whole lot better pitcher you know even in high school.
Speaker 3:So yeah, so he took over the pitching job. Even in high school. So yeah, so he took over the pitching job. But oddly enough, when I was 17, his dad's who signed me up in the Navy.
Speaker 1:And you spent 10 years. Yeah, I spent 10 years and six deployments yeah.
Speaker 3:What was the most memorable experience during that time? Wow, man, I think for a young kid, being 18, 19 years old, was being at the beach, living in Virginia Beach, never being exposed really to the beach. So that was. That was a kind of a cool outing experience. And my wife and I we started.
Speaker 3:We started dating in high school and when I joined the Navy and I asked her to marry me and I came home that Christmas on leave in 82 and we got married she was still in school and so I had, you know, obviously, I asked her dad to marry me and he said that's great, but she needs to finish school first. And I said that's definitely, but she needs to finish school first. And I said, well, that's definitely for sure. So when my wife graduated high school, she moved by herself to Virginia Beach, got an apartment, set up, all the furniture, all that stuff, because as soon as I got out of my schooling, went to my first ship, I left for a deployment and I was gone for I don't know five, five and a half months, something like that. And so whenever I came back and I stepped off the boat, I had a wife, I had a house and I had furniture that was ours.
Speaker 1:That was ours.
Speaker 3:And for whatever reason. Whenever I think to my Navy career, that one particular moment is what I think about the most. Not being in Rome and going to the Coliseum, or being in Norway, you know, skiing in the Alps or you know whatever crazy adventure that we were on whenever I was in the military. That's not what I think about. I think about stepping off that boat and seeing my wife, who just graduated high school a month before, and now, all of a sudden, I've got the start of a family. That's as goofy as it sounds, is what I think of the most.
Speaker 3:No, it's not goofy at all.
Speaker 1:I mean it think of the most. No, it's not goofy at all. I mean it takes with the military. There is the other side of that that we don't always acknowledge the spouses on the other end of that deal, and it takes a special person to be the spouse of somebody that's dedicated to the military as well.
Speaker 3:We appreciate them.
Speaker 1:We appreciate your service, certainly, but we certainly appreciate the commitment that the men and women that are married to service members make to their families as well.
Speaker 3:Well, you know I talked about it yesterday which is when you're in the military and you're deployed and your spouse is there, oftentimes, like with my wife, she moved there by herself, she knew absolutely not one single person in that town and she was there getting all this stuff set up and over the course of time, you know, obviously we made friends and that sort of stuff.
Speaker 3:But when I'm deployed she can't pick up the phone and call me and say, hey, the water heater's out, the car's not running right. This dude next door keeps hitting on me and I think somebody's peeping in the window. You can't, there's nothing that I can do. You know I'm 10,000 miles away, or whatever. You know I'm 10,000 miles away or whatever. There's just nothing that I can do. Nor is it of any help to me to worry about all of that stuff that goes on. Now, oftentimes what's terrible is when you get off the boat you get the big hug, the adrenaline's pumping you know you hadn't seen your wife in nine months, or whatever and standing up on her neck and you're just excited. And then you get home and she says oh, by the way, the water heater's broke the car's not running right, the guy's hitting on you, whatever it is, so oftentimes you get that that piling on you know you?
Speaker 3:I saw something online they said my wife can't remember what I asked her to do for me yesterday, but she can remember the last five times to specific dates and times, when she was pissed off at me that I did something wrong. And it could have been years ago.
Speaker 2:We don't ever forget. No, you don't Rolodex, nope. So while you were serving, you launched McNorman Signs. How did that business get off the ground? And then, what drew you to Sanger?
Speaker 3:Well, back in the day I was hand painting signs, pinstriping motorcycles, and it got to be a little bigger than the small shop that we had behind our house. So we needed to expand a little bit, move into something bigger and more professional looking, and so we got a shop in 1985 and it was mainly so that my wife could be there during the day or book appointments when I was gone for those months. Oftentimes there wouldn't be a lot to do but she could talk to the occasional customer that walked in the door and book appointments for me. When I got back and we kind of decided early on that eventually we would move into buying a sign computer. But they were so new back then not very many people had the computers and the plotters to print and cut vinyl and all that sort of stuff. So we ended up buying one.
Speaker 3:She went to carolina, learned how to use it and while she was gone back in those days I was painting a lot of stereo vans and cars and stuff for guys that were in these stereo competitions and so we were doing one for Alpine and while she was gone they came by to check on the progress of the job that I was doing and the guy from Alpine said oh yeah, well, I need you know, five different sizes, six colors, and I need 500 of each color or whatever.
Speaker 3:So I mean, it was literally 25 or 30,000 stickers that we had to make and she didn't even know how to use a machine yet.
Speaker 3:Before cell phones we didn't even have a way to contact really each other. And so when she got home I said hey, you know, oh, by the way, we've got 30 something thousand stickers to make, and you could see her tearing up. She's like I don. Hey, you know, oh, by the way, we've got 30-something thousand stickers to make, and you could see her tearing up. She's like I don't even know how to use the machine yet. But it didn't take her very long to figure it out and we spent a lot of time. They spent.
Speaker 3:I don't even know how to turn a computer on still to this day, and I got, you know, a million dollars worth of machines or whatever it is, in our shop and I couldn't tell you how to turn the first one on or how to use it. So that's always been her job. I do the hand painting and the pin striping and paint motorcycles and that sort of stuff, and she does the signs, and still to this day she's a great designer and designs a lot of stuff. But that was the birth, and the funny thing is is that we still have one of the first stickers that we ever made sticking on this old 1957 refrigerator that I have in the shop, and we still have the original plotter cutter that we had from 1985. So yeah, that was kind of where it started and why it started and it gave her a job to do instead of going and doing some other job. It was a way for her to have the kids there with her and work in the shop.
Speaker 1:It's a real family business. Yeah, true family.
Speaker 3:And our son Critter. He started working with us when he was probably 12 or 13, just doing whatever he could do weed and vinyl or something and now he helps design stuff and he talks to customers and he goes out and does installs. Our grandson Chopper he just graduated last year. He's been working with us since he was 14 or 15. Now he's our shop supervisor, foreman, whatever you want to call him. He runs all the print machines and all the stuff out in the shop.
Speaker 3:We've got a new guy that we hired. That's a buddy of my grandson's and so he's helping do installs and pretty much anything. We just got done doing a few cars for the school police department and so he's been helping lay that and learn about laying vinyl and and doing some of the crazy things that sometimes we don't have time to taking the cars and washing them when they're done, getting them ready for the customer to come and pick them up. So, uh, yeah, it's just it's always expanding. We're looking at buying some new equipment, some machines and to do even more stuff. So, yeah, it's always grown. But it started at that little shop there in Chesapeake. We had our shop there 20 years almost 20, and then we ended up selling it to a girl that worked for us for 13 years. So she took over the shop when we moved back to Texas in 2002.
Speaker 2:What brought you here, though? What brought you to Sanger?
Speaker 3:Well, oddly enough, we originally were moving to New Braunfels and we had looked at some houses down there.
Speaker 3:We had some picked out in a couple of little ranch properties and the weekend that we came down was when they had this hundred year flood down there in 02 and we flew into Dallas, drove down there. The real estate lady called us the next morning said well, the good news is the three houses that you were looking at on the Guadalupe are still on the Guadalupe but they're three miles further down and the ranch properties are flooded out. One there's water up in the house, the other one, the property and everything getting to it is flooded out. So I had a friend that lived in Gainesville that had a wheel company that made wheels for Harleys and we kind of came up to visit him and we looked at the area and I said you know this would be a cool place to be.
Speaker 3:We're north of the Metroplex. You know, if we were down south as many shows as I go to out east or west or up north that I'd have to make that three-and-a-half-hour trip just to get on the other side of Dallas. And we got up here and kind of looked around, said well, there's a private airport. So some of my customers that have planes that fly in it was close to that and I just, I really like the town. The store the uh sportsman was was relatively new and there was a guy in town that had made a big smoker and had it out front red.
Speaker 3:And I just remember the town, the way that people were walking around and we drove downtown they had the festival. You know, then I didn't know that it was only, you know, one day a year. But I'm like man, this is a cool kind of town, this is where I want to be, the stuff like in the movies. And when we drove around downtown and it was odd, I stopped it and I saw that the building where the Coke sign is painted and I said I swear this is out of a damn movie down here. I swear to God it is.
Speaker 3:And my wife no, no, no, you remember the oddest stuff, and actually it was out of a movie.
Speaker 3:But I told her. I said I think this is where I want to be. And she said, yeah, me too. And she just called this guy that there was a house. Well, she called a real estate agent about buying a house which was on my street and the lady said, well, that house is sold, but we have property up there, steve Koch and Teresa. And she said you know, we've got some other properties. You come look, we can build you a house.
Speaker 3:So when we showed up, her husband gets out of the car and goes wait a minute, aren't you a pinstriper, aren't you? Isn't your name Tex? And you know. I said yeah. He said, oh, you pinstriped a bike for a friend of mine like six years ago in Daytona. We sat around all day long and watched you paint on this bike down in Florida and I'm like, well, how odd is that? So he ended up building us a house.
Speaker 3:But this was the kind of town that I wanted to live in and it reminded me a lot, in a way, of the way Brownwood was. Back when I graduated Didn't think that there was any chance of really going back to Brownwood and starting over as an artist and a custom painter and all that kind of stuff. It wasn't that kind of a town. So up here is where we decided to live at, and even though 90% of my business painting motorcycles up until I kind of retired from doing that 2019 wasn't even from texas, it's from, it's from all over. They bring bikes, ship bikes, whatever for us to do here. Same way, nascar helmets, all that stuff is shipped in.
Speaker 3:So it didn't really matter where I was and I just I like this town. Everything south of here wasn't wasn't my cup of tea and everything north of here at that time wasn't my cup of tea. This is, this is where we wanted to be, and hopefully we were small or we were far enough out of the metroplex that that you know. I didn't realize it in 22 years that the metroplex was going to be getting so damn close. Yep, yeah.
Speaker 1:Now talking about that. You know people forget that when you're in towns like this, that businesses aren't dependent necessarily on where you're at. Your art has been featured all over Museum exhibits one of the top 25 pinstripers in the country. What does that recognition mean to you personally and professionally?
Speaker 3:To me it really doesn't matter. You know, if you don't see me on the microphone or see me on the stage or doing an article in a magazine, I can walk into a group of 50 people and nobody even needs to know who I am. I'm not the person that has to be out in front of everybody. But if you give me a crazy jacket or a microphone, I'm a different person, and that was taught to me by a friend of mine who I'd known for 10 years in Virginia. I didn't even.
Speaker 3:This guy was so quiet and so shy. We were at a Shriners parade and all the Shriners come by in their little cars or doing their juggling, and this group of clowns walked by and we're standing on the side of the road in Chesapeake, Virginia, which is like Denton, and this guy goes by and says, hey, Tex man, it's good to see you here, hey, Melissa, and kind of kept walking and I was like wait a minute, who the heck was that? And you know my kids were little and they're all excited. Oh, my God, the clown knows who you are and I said oh, I know a lot of clowns.
Speaker 3:But he came by the shop the next week and said I guess you didn't recognize me. And I said absolutely, where did I see you? He said I was the clown in the Shriners. And I knew he was a Shriner, but I didn't know that he was a clown. And I said I couldn't ever imagine you being a clown. And he said well, whenever I put the makeup on and that suit on, I'm like I'm a wrestler, I take on a different persona and it just kind of hit me like wow, that is great.
Speaker 3:Now, this is long before I was an announcer. So to me, when you give me a microphone or you put me on a stage, I'm a different person because as a kid I was not that guy. You know, I just I wasn't. I didn't feel the need to be out there in front of everybody. So I apologize. It's a long way around your question. It's more for me it's like if you know somebody famous, you go oh, I'm getting ready to go over to Troy Aikman's house, or Troy Aikman's coming to my barbecue, or I was just hanging out with Herschel Walker. It's more for my customers to say, oh, the guy that painted this bike my bike also was in this magazine or was on this tv show or or it's more for them.
Speaker 3:I, I could, I could really care less. Do I like being recognized? Yeah, I mean, we just had it the other day, my wife and I dinner, and uh, so guy said yeah, I was actually, aren't you Tex and McDormand's? Yeah, that's me. And he said yeah, I was just recently flying from Anchorage. Well, he said I work in and I was flying out of Anchorage and I struck up a conversation with the guy and the guy said so where are you from? In Texas, I ride motorcycles and I travel all over the country. And he said I live in Sanger and he goes Sanger. Holy hell, some good friends of mine live in Sanger, tex McDormand, and he goes. Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah.
Speaker 3:I know tex and so he said you struck up a conversation about me in an airport in anchorage, alaska, so I you know getting wrecked. My wife has always thinks it's funny that no matter where we go branson missouri, or in an airport or cash station somebody recognize who I am and that part that that's okay. I can't imagine being so famous that you you can't walk down the street or go to a grocery store or paparazzi standing outside your house.
Speaker 3:I, the the small bit of notoriety or whatever. Uh, I know you were telling me don't bang this table, but that little latch right.
Speaker 3:There is right in my way. So here I'm going to do this, I'm going to move the microphone right over here and then I'm going to slide down just a little bit. So that thing, I had directives not to tap the table and don't make a bunch of noise, and there's a bracket underneath this microphone I keep hitting. So, yeah, you know, a little bit of notoriety is is kind of cool, but I like it more for the people that I'm doing work for Right, you know well, speaking of notoriety.
Speaker 3:Um tell us about landing the contract with HBO in the early nineties we were fortunate, with our shop, to run into a lady that worked for HBO and she found out about us because y'all are probably young enough to remember the very first Road Rules show that was on MTV. Well, I painted the tire cover that was on that van bus thing that they Winnebago, whatever it was that traveled all over the country and filmed the very first show. And the lady that worked for the road rules crew somehow ended up going and working for hbo. So when the time came, she needed sign stuff and things done for and, if you remember back in the day, sex in the city and boxing after dark and the sopranos so we, we just got a job with him doing any kind of sign, advertisement stuff that hbo needed, we we did them for him. Uh, she was also associated.
Speaker 3:This girl was stationed out of um, her office was in, I think, georgia, atlanta, and we were in virgin Beach, which is on the way to New York where their headquarters was, or whatever, and yeah, so she would kind of order this stuff, stop, pick it up and take it up for whenever they're doing their filming, and it might be a bunch of stickers for a trash truck for Tony Soprano's trash company or I don't know anything that HBO needed at that time. We were fortunate enough to be able to do for them, but we also she also helped get us this contract with a big outdoor amphitheater and we made just huge banners and huge signs that were all over the park and backdrops for stages and all of that sort of stuff. So it just kind of snowballed into a bigger thing than what at that time what we were prepared for. But we ended up staffing up and getting enough people in there and extra plotters, things to do the stuff that they, that they needed us to do and then you did, uh, did some work for nascar yeah, oddly enough, I used to be on the nascar pit crew, yeah, from 9701, and then that well, how cool would that be okay?
Speaker 2:let's just talk about that. You didn't put that in here. Yeah, that's cool. Yeah, back when you had five lug nuts, yeah, yeah.
Speaker 3:A friend of mine, joe Falk, who still owns the team today and we're still involved in a couple of teams with doing lettering on cars and stuff for these NASCAR teams. But a friend of mine, joe Falk, bought the number 91 car. Mike Wallace was driving it was a spam car and me and a friend of mine that owned a deli we didn't even know that he bought the team. But I went in there and ate like four or five days a week and ate a sandwich, and me and my buddy that owned the deli, we were just bench racing, racing, griping and complaining about the way the pit crew did this or our guy did that, and so we were bench racing and joe falk would always sit there next to us or next to me, like two seats down. We always sat in the same places and, um, we were just complaining about and he said, well, do you think y'all guys could do? Oh yeah, we, we man, we'd sling the heck out of that tire. We wouldn't miss the gas thing here. We, that lug nut, you know this whole thing. And he said, well, why don't y'all just show up at indianapolis and see what you can do? And so me and my buddy both rode harleys and we, kind of, on a wing and a prayer, went to indianapolis thinking that joe got us some kind of passes to get in and watch the race from the inside, because Joe owned a bunch of car lots in that area. He's like the you know, the Woods or whoever that you know around here that own a bunch of dealerships. And so we showed up at Indianapolis and next thing, you know, we got crew shirts on and we're hauling gasoline and we were pitted at the very last pit. So you had to go about three miles down pit road and then down this little slope and then about a mile and a half back to the fuel station fill up the can. So we were running gas and the trip there was great two empty cans and a little three-wheel cart. But boy, coming back it sucked. Oh my gosh. Full cans going uphill, oh it was. It was terrible. But we had the best, the best time ever.
Speaker 3:And um when, when we were pushing the car down the front stretch, I was wearing a black harley shirt with all these lightning bolts on it. We were pushing the car down the front stretch, I was wearing a black Harley shirt with all these lightning bolts on it. We were just staging the car before we went back and put our uniforms on, so it was a very distinctive-looking Harley shirt. And when we got done with the races and we left, we went two and a half hours outside of town and we stopped somewhere. It was late to get dinner and eric and myself were sitting in this restaurant and this guy and kid comes up and goes hey, don't, don't y'all work on the nascar team.
Speaker 3:I remember seeing you on the the thing they're pushing the car and I said how in the world would you pick me close to three hours away from Indianapolis in a restaurant at midnight, you know, or 11 o'clock, whatever it was, I don't know. I just I recognize you and you, you know you stuck out. So me and Eric, we sit there and signed autographs and stuff. We were just guys pushing the car very first race ever and Eric goes oh well, I guess this is how it is, being famous like tex or something. But that's what led me into being around nascar.
Speaker 3:We rode our harleys to most of the races that we could. What we couldn't ride to, we flew on joe's plane, um, but the majority of time we we rode, and it's kind of what led me into doing helmets for some of the NASCAR drivers. And I was fortunate to be working at the race at Daytona when Earnhardt won his very first ever Daytona. And you know, you see the video of Earnhardt going down pit road slapping everybody's hand on the crew that was standing out. Well, I was one of those, one of those guys that happened to be standing there when he drove by.
Speaker 3:So I think, of all the races that I ever worked, that was the most memorable for me, even though I wasn't an Earnhardt fan, I was a Gordon fan back in those days, and so even under our crew suit, my crew shirt, I had a Gordon T-shirt on a DuPont T-shirt. So yeah, and I still, I still paint some you know some NASCAR helmets. I've just, I've kind of gotten to where I'm in a way burnout on the painting part and my focus and my passion now is more on the, the announcing stuff, spending time on the microphone that's what I, that's what I enjoy doing more. And to me, being a business owner, there's nothing cooler than to sit back at my desk and look out in my shop and see my wife and they're working and my son standing beside her and my grandson, they're helping. You know, to me that's, that's the coolest part of doing anything that we do, trump's everything.
Speaker 2:Speaking of. Nascar and I'm going out of order. But you do the. I don't know if it's a trophy.
Speaker 3:Yeah, it is a trophy, it's a trophy with the Longhorn. Yeah, cow skulls yeah.
Speaker 2:Where did that come from? I mean they're super cool, I've seen them, but where did that come from? I mean they're super cool, I've seen them, but where did that come from? How did that start?
Speaker 3:I was in victory circle with one of the teams and a lady came up to me and said said hey, aren't you the guy that paints, you know a lot of NASCAR helmets? Yeah, she said you're local. I said yeah, and she said well, we're coming up with this new idea of an award that we want to give to the drivers, so we'll contact you. So a little bit later she contacted me and said hey, we've got these Longhorn skulls. We want you to custom paint them, put the race logo on top, and then paint them, pinstripe them, do whatever you want to do to them, and they're going to be an award. They get a trophy and the hat and then they shoot off the guns, but then we want to hand them these trophies. So we got the first shipment in and I was a little unsure how to paint them, because I've never really done a cow skull like that, and so we did the first ones. There were seven of them three for the dirt track out front, which was Tony Stewart and Christopher Bell's World of Outlaws, and we did those, along with the four ones for the race, the IndyCar Cup, xfinity and NASCAR, and they were a huge hit. So they decided to just go ahead and continue to paint them.
Speaker 3:And in those days we were painting because NASCAR was racing at Texas twice. We would do them twice a year for them. So we were doing 14 cow skulls a year for them. So now it's down to one race and, oddly enough, at this past race they gave the award to the driver and then Earnhardt Jr was standing in the victory circle because Kyle Larson won driving Junior's car, but Kyle Larson had stepped in for somebody else and Kyle Larson made the comment hey, how cool is that, I get another one of these custom-painted skulls. Everybody loves these things in our trophy room. And Junior was standing there and asked you know the director of NASCAR for Texas Motor Speedway, hey, do the owners get one of these? And they said no, it's just for the driver. And Earnhardt said well, I think that's bull crap. I think the owners ought to get one as well.
Speaker 3:And then the very next day, jack Ralph said something to them to the very same effect that the owners needed to get one of those. So now I think Texas Motor Speedway is going to have me paint, you know, double what I'm already painting, so that the owners get one and the drivers get one. I don't know, we'll see next year, when the race comes, that they're going to have me paint twice as many. But yeah, it's one of the coolest awards. But yeah, it's one of the coolest awards. You know, everything else other than the grandfather clock is basically, you know, a trophy. But when they come to Texas, I mean what's more Texas than the dang Longhorn skull? And I mean these things are six, seven, eight feet wide some of them. So they get something that's hand painted and that's truly Texas. So it's nice, yeah kind of cool.
Speaker 1:Now we're going to go back just a little bit to you know you've mentioned several times you're starting with your spouse, then to the rest of the family, moving on. It's very clear that you are a very centered individual and I think that boils over into community as well and that's what we've seen here. You know you've been the voice of Sanger at a ton of events. You do the celebration, the education foundation, the gal out there. You've done events for us. Last year you were scooting around on your four-wheeler out at the Old Bolivar Songwriter Festival. Can you tell us a little bit about what centers you around community as well? I mean, it's clearly a part of your character. Succeed.
Speaker 3:you have to get involved in something, it doesn't matter if it's in a local, you know Lions Club or whatever organization. I don't really spend much time with organizations because I do probably 20 events a year that are voluntary. Now if I'm on, you know whatever it is, whatever organization, and I spend a lot of time, you know, getting donations or raffle items or custom painting something for them. Then the next guy goes. Well, you know you do all this stuff for them. You know how come you don't do it for us. So for me it's easier and, I think, more beneficial to just volunteer my time to host, because most city festivals that you go to unless it's big Dallas or you know Frisco, they have a ton of people there that are comfortable on a microphone and entertaining people or introducing a band. But some places that are smaller don't have that. So they just have to deal with whatever they have.
Speaker 3:And I know that you've probably been to events or whether it's a football game or a baseball game or any kind of local event, if the announcer is terrible, it makes for a terrible event. So being a part of the community, doing what I do, is my way to give back and I think that if I had more, more time, I would do more of it, but I do veteran events and first responder events and all of the local events that I can, because I've. I've been here to an event when we first moved here, and it was even before, I was an announcer and my wife and I had a booth, you know, just advertising for McDormand signs, and I ended up going to the, to the store, and buying earplugs because the person who was on the stage was just raking my nerves and and so I thought I was going to be helpful by going and saying hey, you know, don't do this or can you do that?
Speaker 3:my wife kept. She kept pushing my hand, put her hand on my shoulder and pushing me down the seat and said it's not your business, just just keep on sitting right here and uh, so that's, that's what I did so yeah.
Speaker 3:But I think, more than anything, my, my wife is probably who helps me stay more centered than anything, cause I can. I can come off of a show and I'll say, well, how, how was that? And she'll say, well, you said um, and, and a little bit too much, maybe. Make that a pause instead of saying um, or and or whatever it is, which all of us do If you talk on a microphone. Sometimes there are points where you struggle to find that word and so you suffice it with and and um, and just like that that was actually done on purpose.
Speaker 3:So she's the one that keeps you grounded and she does not care whatsoever about being recognized being a star. She cares nothing about it. Most of the time she doesn't even care who I'm interviewing or introducing on stage. I could be. I just said this yesterday. I could be going to do a sit-down interview in the shop with Garth Brooks.
Speaker 2:And you better take me, no, she would say okay, y'all kids go and have fun.
Speaker 3:Better take me. She's. No, she would say okay, y'all kids go and have fun. So she, that kind of stuff, just doesn't even remotely interest her. But I told her the other day. I said, babe, you are really the meat and potatoes of this relationship. You're the one who holds it together, you pay the bills, make sure all this is done, you run a sign shop, you help take care of my mom and her husband that live with us and my mother-in-law. You, you kind of you, do everything and I'm just like that green stuff that they put on your plate at the fancy restaurants. You know, I'm just the garnish over on the side. You can either eat it or you can just throw it away. It doesn't matter, you know. So that to me is just what, what makes us and keeps everything centered. Because I'm telling you right now, no matter how popular I got or whatever, it just doesn't affect her.
Speaker 1:It's a good team right there, it's a good team.
Speaker 2:So, with all the things you've done, because you've lived 10 lives artist, entrepreneur, announcer, veteran what do you consider your proudest achievement Outside of Melissa, which is clearly your biggest, your best.
Speaker 3:I think one of the coolest things for me was that happened really in 2017. Was in that happened really in 2017? Because I, the whole way to the event in georgia and and probably pretty much all the way home, I kept telling myself what, what in the world would a 13 year old kid who went and saw smoky and the bandit like nine times, how, how could you tell that kid? Hey, in 40 years you're actually going to be sitting on a stage right next to that guy on TV interviewing him Burt Reynolds. To me that was an aha moment. It's like how in the world and I've got to.
Speaker 3:I mean, I've interviewed tons of people and introduced them on stage that sing songs or been in movies and are wildly popular, but for some reason, that's that one that stands out in my mind is to I don't know. I don't know if you call it what made it, you know just that. To me, I guess that aha moment. And then getting to interview John Snyder, that was pretty cool, but for me it's really Burt Reynolds, and at his 40th anniversary reunion and stunt show was kind of the coolest thing for me and I mean we've got to do a lot of cool stuff and be on a lot of cool stages or at events with some really cool people, but for me, that was probably the coolest, best one. That's awesome.
Speaker 1:That is awesome, well we could do this for days.
Speaker 2:For. Days.
Speaker 1:For days. Tex, thank you for coming in. I'm looking forward to the Miracle Field work coming up. We're very appreciative of you for bringing that to our attention. You know, the fact that you stay connected to the community the community stays connected to you has been an opportunity for all of us to be better and do better. I still need to talk to you about a giant chair at some point and all those things, but where can if people are looking for you if you need any more work?
Speaker 1:at all or not where do people find you?
Speaker 3:Well, if you're looking on any social media stuff the Instabgram or whatever there are, whatever they are uh, that was done on purpose, by the way. Um, you can look up tex mcdormand and then our sign business is mcdormand signs, so you can, you can pretty much find us there you can probably go to the like the city site and look at anything in town or at the schools.
Speaker 1:I mean you did some beautiful wraps over on their vehicles our city's kind of a walking uh portfolio yeah, it definitely is.
Speaker 3:And it I said this to, uh, to donald, when I first met her. I said you know I've been trying for 15 years to get in and do stuff for the city, that I know that they were having to get somebody to do it and it was out of town and wasn't a local person. So I'm glad to be, we are glad to be doing that stuff for the city. And you know, john, you were talking about the Miracle League. John, you were talking about the Miracle League and I appreciate you all listening and willing to take on bringing that Miracle League into Sanger. I love being out there when they have the games and announce them for those kids and I'm glad that the families are receptive to being a part of it.
Speaker 3:We grew from one team now to like three, that's awesome.
Speaker 1:We're super excited, the council is super excited. We've got our first round of true design coming in, so now we're ready to roll. It takes a long time. We work at the speed of government.
Speaker 3:Well, and I was going to tell you it doesn't need to say tex, mcdormand field or anything but a bench would be cool. I'd love to.
Speaker 3:I bet I know somebody that can make that happen yeah, uh, it's cool what y'all do and I appreciate y'all shining a light on some of the people around town and the stuff that y'all do. I mean y'all made dramatic improvements on the city. I know probably there are a lot of people that aren't happy about so much growth, but I think it's growth in the right direction and bringing the right stuff you know into town that needs to be here and y'all highlighting businesses and all the work that's being done. I appreciate y'all doing that.
Speaker 2:It's pretty cool thank you, so anything else from you I don't have anything, anything else from you no, I just have to know is there anything that? But there, I know there's a lot of things that we didn't cover I mean, you know, rednecks with paychecks, which is, you know, really, really cool. We could do a whole show just on that, but anything that we left out, that you might want to just let people know.
Speaker 3:No, just other than just get involved. Find something that you're passionate about, whether it's kids or the environment, or you know new ball fields. Get involved, Do something.
Speaker 2:Board. The commission Slide plug Nowadays.
Speaker 3:Boarding commission Slide plug. Anything I mean nowadays everything that's on the TV you can record and watch later when you don't have anything to do. But get off your butt and do something. Be a hand, as my granddad used to say.
Speaker 1:That's good, good words. Well, you've been listening to the 266 Express. I can't even talk now the 266 Express. I can't even talk now. 266 Express. I'm.
Speaker 2:John Noblet, I'm Donna Green.
Speaker 1:Thanks for listening in to what's going on in our small little North Texas town.