PRESIDENT Jehadu Abshiro | COO Alessandra Quintero EDITOR Alyssa High
DESIGNERS Jynnette Neal | Lauren Allen
SALES Frank McClendon | Linda Kenney | Brandon Rodriguez | Chalon Feddern | Kennedy Cox
Dear Thoughreaders, at the time of writing this the weather is frightful, our hope is that at the time of publication spring will have sprung. Spring is a time of change and renewal, and in this issue we see a pastor turned author, a mom with a new record label and a newarerestaurantwitharetrovibe.Yourfavoritelocalservices awarded on page 11. Coming up in Plano, we’vegotPlanoArtsWeekfromApril5-11,followedbyPlano Public Library’s 60th anniversary from April 17-19 and the final rounds of the Battle of the Balladeers from March 23-April 19. — Editor, Alyssa High
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I AM ENOUGH
Neighborhood minister talks struggles with self image
Story by ALYSSA HIGH | Photography by RAE OVERMAN
Whitehead was one of the first women ordained as a minister in the United Methodist Church.
Educator. Homemaker. Pastor. Lovers Lane United Methodist Church Associate Pastor Reverend Donna Whitehead’s restlessness to learn has earned her many titles. And now she’s added published author to the list.
“Growing up, church was the center of my life. (That), along with school, those were the two areas where almost everything happened,” Whitehead says.
Whitehead grew up in a small town in Louisiana, where her parents were teachers and church was a must.
“We all knew each other. We were all alike in the sense that we came from the same kind of economic background and cultural background, but I was loved and I belonged and I knew the church was a great place to be, so I was very blessed there,” Whitehead says. “But my mother said to me, and I didn’t understand it at first, that I was always restless when it came to learning. I was a lifelong learner.”
After graduating high school, Whitehead’s restlessness led her to leave the small town to study secondary education at the University of North Texas.
“I have the thirst of a teacher. I love to take complicated things and make them simpler,” Whitehead says.
After three years, Whitehead became pregnant with her first child and took some time off. Not too long, though, because she again became restless to learn.
She headed to Southern Methodist University where she got a master’s of liberal arts degree. That’s also where she met Rabbi Levi Olan.
“He was so well-known in Dallas, well thought of. He’s known as the conscience of Dallas because he took strong stands for justice and for doing what was right. This was right in the middle of the Civil Rights Movement. He was known for being very wise and very intelligent, very spiritual and that really appealed to me, all three of those things,” Whitehead says. “So I took his course, and in that class, he said something that I never forgot, which is ‘Truth is found in paradox.’”
For Whitehead, this was a turning point. Her life, it seemed, was full of paradoxes. And she’d been struggling with feeling like she had to choose an either/or option. Faith or science. Desire to learn or duty to family. Pursuing passion projects or submitting to other’s desires.
preach,” she says. “But I opened up the Perkins catalog, and I thought, ‘I have to take these courses. These are the best courses I’ve ever seen.’”
Topics like the human condition, moral theology and introduction to who God is brought her into the university in a way she’d never studied before — all with a 3 and 6-yearold at home.
“I did not know where it was going to lead me professionally, I just knew I had to do it, and got a lot of resistance because this was unusual,” Whitehead says. “At this point, I was in the second wave of women who entered seminary, so we did a lot of sharing with one another and supporting one another. The community was fairly open to women, but it was a change.”
“I knew that I wanted to go to school there, but I certainly didn’t think I was called to ministry. I had no idea even what that looked like for a woman. I’d never seen a woman preach.”
Armed with this idea, Whitehead became pregnant with her second child, and again, felt restless.
Whitehead looked at a catalog for the Perkins School of Theology, where a friend of hers, who aimed to become a community college chaplain, was attending.
“I knew that I wanted to go to school there, but I certainly didn’t think I was called to ministry. I had no idea even what that looked like for a woman. I’d never seen a woman
The next challenge came as she completed seminary, when she had to go before the United Methodist Board of Ministry and declare why she believed she was called to ministry. She struggled with having the confidence to say she had gifts, and felt it presumptuous to say she knew what God wanted for her, she says.
After talking to a friend, who told her she should feel affirmed in her abilities because of how far she’d made it, eventually Whitehead decided she’d set her sights on local churches, where she “could see God working.”
She did an internship at Highland Park United Methodist Church, and was the first woman to do so. And though she did not get a job there after her internship like the last four (male) interns before her, she did not lose faith.
She still didn’t lose faith when she lost her second job opportunity.
“I didn’t think it was just because I was a woman, but I was realizing it was different for people,” Whitehead says. “I was trying to be caring about the fact that a woman in this role was still very different for people.”
When a 6-month-old church in her area of Plano opened up, Whitehead finally caught a break and became the associate pastor at Custer Road United Methodist Church under the senior pastor, Reverend Mark Craig.
“He was very good at being efficient and effective and he made things happen,” she says. “I knew after working with him for one week that we were going to be a success because he was very good at a lot of things that really mattered to a local church, and he gave me the freedom to use the gifts that I had.”
Whitehead soon realized she was “a starter,” she says. She started small groups, Sunday school classes, ministry teams and infrastructure. She also had many firsts, like becoming the first woman to serve as chair of the Plano Ministerial
GUNS RANGE ARCHERY RETAIL
Alliance in 1985 and the first woman to chair the Finance and Administration Team for the North Texas UMC Conference in 1988.
Fifteen years later, Craig moved to become pastor at Highland Park United Methodist Church.
“That’s what I call the end of the beginning because he and I had done everything together. We had hired a lot of part-time people, but we were very much a team and the church had grown tremendously because we did hit the ground running,” she says. “We were in the zone.”
Paul Goodrich came to the church to be senior pastor in 1995, and though she enjoyed working with him, his laid-back energy and comfortability in the status quo brought on a familiar feeling: restlessness.
Whitehead started to become open to leaving the church she’d been at for over a decade. And in 2000, Stan Copeland came to Lovers Lane United Methodist Church.
“He was more visionary, really, than I was. He was very strong in evangelism and kind of a change-agent,” she says. “That appealed to me because I was ready for that kind of challenge again.”
At 52 years old, Whitehead started over and headed to Lovers Lane UMC, where she’s been for 24 years, helping guide the church as it has grown in size, moved off Lovers Lane, started private elementary
school Wesley Prep and merged with Walnut Hill United Methodist Church in 2020.
Though not restless in church service, Whitehead recently felt a pull for a new journey: writing a book.
“The book came out of five years of wrestling with being able to share my faith journey in such a way that other people would want to continue to go on their faith journey,” Whitehead says. “I strongly want people to get that just like we grow up physically and we grow up emotionally, hopefully we can grow up spiritually.”
I Am Enough: A Memoir for Spiritual Seekers was published on October 1 and is available on Amazon for $19.95. The book chronicles Whitehead’s life from growing up in a small town to becoming an educator, housewife and, eventually, an ordained minister. Despite all of these titles, she says, feelings of doubt and impostor syndrome continued to hold her back, leading her on a journey toward self-acceptance.
“We keep thinking that somehow we’ve got to do more and be more than we currently are and what I learned in my own journey is that it’s important to be honest and open and real and truthful about who I am, and once I’m authentic and real then I can name my flaws,” Whitehead says. “Once I can look at the things that are blocking me from connecting with God, I can feel that love and be accepted by God.”
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Exploring the world of Sweeps Casinos
A guide to big wins and excitement
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Julie Ann Kennedy describes herself as a little pop, a little country and a little rock inspired by Olivia Newton-John.
Julie Ann Kennedy returns to music after the hiatus of motherhood story by Alyssa High
| photo by Yuvie Styles
There is no shortage of musical greats who put their careers on pause for motherhood. Shania Twain. Gwen Stefani. J.Lo.
The music industry is a well-known user of the “motherhood penalty.” Pressure to produce shortly after giving birth, grappling with whether to bring children on the road, pause your career or ask friends or family to watch them, pressure to lose “baby weight.” While many women pause their careers to raise children, few are able to return to the same level of success.
Plano mom Julie Ann Kennedy is attempting to break that cycle, recently obtaining a record contract after decades out of the business.
Kennedy was always a performer, she says. Her mom was a singer/ songwriter/pianist, and the house was full of songs every day. Her great grandfather was an actor, known as the original voice of Snow White and the Seven Dwarves’ Happy.
“Music and acting runs in my family,” she says. “I’ve always had that in my blood.”
Kennedy began hosting concerts at 5 years old. They may have been on a makeshift stage in her parents’ garage, but the jumprope handle she used as a microphone got her the neighbors’ attention. From there, she knew she had to chase that feeling.
After college, Kennedy was ready to pursue music full time. She produced a CD and performed at various venues around the country, even opening for The Chicks, formerly known as The Dixie Chicks, in 1995 at an Arbor Day Festival.
But when she got married and started a family, she put her career on pause. And even after she got divorced, life as a single mom didn’t feel conducive to the music scene’s lifestyle.
“I had to stay home with my babies,” she says. “I put my music and my passion and my dreams on hold
because I wanted my kids to know they were number one. They’re always number one.”
Now that her kids are off and independent, Kennedy was ready to start again.
“When you stop doing something, it gets harder to start back up. I was so connected to the music world,” Kennedy says. “When I got out of that, I had to restart my mind and try to get back into … the bright people and places and connections and gigs and venues.”
And though the industry has changed since the ’90s, she’s nothing if not adaptable. Stuck at home during the pandemic, she recalled the doorto-door pitching she’d done to get attention for her music to producers and fans when she first started.
This time, she looked to social media.
“First I would get on Facebook and start doing [silly videos,]” Kennedy says. “I needed the traffic, the people, the followers. I want to be noticed even if they think I’m nuts.”
After she obtained a following, she started calling musician friends who were also stuck in their homes due to the pandemic to come over and perform together. Snippets of music, covers and previews of her own music soon mingled in her feed with the “silly” bits.
Not long after Kennedy was able to start trying to book small venues again, she got a call from a record label that had seen her posts on Facebook and TikTok. Her plan had worked, with a record label came gigs and a new single called “You Ain’t Seen Crazy Yet.”
The music video is out now on YouTube and ReverbNation. She also has a podcast, Small Talk about Big Topics , where she discusses her personal story and aims to encourage others.
“It’s never too late to live your dream,” she says. “It doesn’t matter how old you are, it’s never too late.”
INVENTING JACK SEAGER
Seager & Sons brings fried chicken & pizza together to tell a story
story by Alyssa High
Jack Seager was the star of his high school football team, and his father was just as well known for the fried chicken served at their bustling gas station diner. Dreaming of becoming a rock star, Jack would play his guitar around town at nightwhether in Plano, or somewhere that felt a lot smaller in the ’70s than it grew to be. Regardless, he ‘grew into his shoes’ and eventually opened Seager & Sons, stepping into his family’s fried chicken footsteps.
Or, at least, that’s how the story goes. Jack Seager, his father or any other relation may not be real, but the story comes from movie tropes of a simpler time — one filled with rock music, simple cocktails and simple recipes.
Seager & Sons Operating Partner Bobby Roberts is no stranger to restaurants rooted in nostalgia and good drinks. With management positions at Flying Saucer Draught Emporium, Rollertown Beerworks and The Londoner, a lot of his career has focused on experiential dining.
“I’ve been in the industry for a little over 20 years,” Roberts says. “I just really enjoy the genuine connections and everything that you’re able to make in this business.”
Most recently, Roberts worked for Rock N Concepts, a hospitality brand known for rock ‘n’ roll - themed eateries and managing experiences for music artists the company has toured with. For the last four years, as an example, the brand has toured with Snoop Dogg, planning parties and VIP experiences.
“The travel is really what got me there,” Roberts says. “Honestly, I was at a point where I was either going to get out of the restaurant industry or I was going to work for 33 Restaurant Group. It was the only restaurant group I had any interest working for.”
So when former coworkers Preston Lancaster, the president and CEO of 33 Restaurant Group, and Tanner Fleming, director of operations at Union Bear, mentioned the creation of a new, ‘70s-themed concept, Roberts hopped on board.
33 Restaurant Group already had several restaurants on The Boardwalk at Granite Park, including Suburban
Seager & Sons offers a variety of “drinking snacks” and shareables, like briny olives and pickled peppers, Bloody Mary Shrimp Cocktail and Fancy Potato Skins. Photo courtesy of 33 Restaurant Group.
Yacht Club and Union Bear, as well as pizza-forward concepts in Plano and The Colony.
“We were going to do a really grown-up version of that here, and along the way we got into the design,” Roberts says. “We wanted a different style, so we threw in the fried chicken aspect and that changed the entire dynamic of what we were going to do with this concept.”
As the theme started to unfold, they settled on Seager & Sons, playing off the influence of the name Seeger in the decade’s music but also creating their own story of Jack and his family’s legacy.
But even with a well-thought out concept, Roberts didn’t want the theme to become gimmicky.
“One of the most important things for us is that we feel these days like there’s a lot of transactional service that happens in our daily lives,” he says. “Everybody wants to put an iPad in your face and ask for a tip. And for what? With this opportunity to take a step back in time, we felt a real opportunity to push that human connection back into the experience, and the story alludes to that genuine hospitality and honest service.”
The menu highlights the pizza that has become signature to the 33 Restaurant Group name, with small but impactful adjustments. The dough is handstretched, with a billowy crust and crispy bottom.
“We have a couple of leaders in our company that have some Chicago [roots],” Roberts says. “For them, growing up in that area, it was fried chicken and it was really good pizza. So, why not try to do something where we can fuse those together.”
Adding a featured fried chicken dish is an all new venture, and in typical 33 fashion, that means being a little extra with it.
“We tested so many different breading techniques, recipes, fryers, breading equipment, holding ovens, things like that,” he says. “Same thing with our pizza dough. We worked tirelessly to really get the dough where we felt it was at its best.”
Roberts brought the same intentionality to the cocktail program.
“The swankiness and upscale energy that we have here, beautiful built-out woodworking, lights dimmed low, it just lends itself to an awesome cocktail bar,” he says.
Looking back at cocktails of the era, they were all “just sugar bombs,” Roberts says. So instead, he put his own twist on the classics.
A basic sour becomes Mr. Seager’s Sour, with a Chilean spirit called pisco, lime, foam, passion fruit and simple syrup. The Sex on the Beach includes black currant and apricot liqueur instead of peach schnapps.
Roberts’ highlights? An espresso martini called Rocketman, which Roberts says is “the best espresso martini in town.” It includes honey vanilla bean vodka, coffee liqueur and espresso. And the banana bread old fashioned is their bestselling cocktail, he says. It includes a rye whiskey, banana liquor, spiced brown simple and black walnut bitters.
“The fried chicken. The hand-stretched pizza. The vibe. The energy. [It’s] timeless,” Roberts says. “Bringing all the elements together to create remarkable experiences is something we really like to hone in on as a company … and it is a remarkable experience.”
SEAGER & SONS, 5864 State Highway 121, Suite 106. 214.296.9300, seagerandsons.com
Seager’s fried chicken comes in a half-bird for $16 or full-bird for $28. It’s served with ‘drizzly’ sauces including chipotle hot honey (which reviews on Plano Foodies say is to die for) and ‘green stuff.’
DESIGNING A COMPELLING CORPORATE SPACE
Splunk’soffice bringsthe geology of
Below the stairs is fire glass, which reflects the light of the space.
story by Alyssa High
In the corporate jungle that is Plano, Texas, many regional and national headquarters of well-known businesses abound. And even more join the lineup each year.
One of these is Splunk, a data analysis software company with a spelunking theme — which draws a comparison between delving into data and cave exploration — and an office in Plano.
When it came to designing a space for the company’s team, IA Interior Architects dove into the spelunking idea (pun intended), and the office’s three floors became a visual representation of the “transformation of materials” to go along with the spelunking theme.
The first floor reflects raw materials, the second the material’s “finished” state, and the third textiles. The variation between floors also serves as a wayfinding element.
“We went through a conceptualization process that riffs off spelunking and the transformation of materials,” says Kendi Sparks, a registered interior designer with IA Interior Architects. “We took a deep dive into the natural materials and how they are woven together as a process.”
The theme might not be obvious to all at first. And Easter eggs found throughout the office space are even less obvious, like Buttercup. Buttercup is an electronic pony that served as the Splunk mascot.
“Each Splunk location had one and we wanted to
make it refined and a little bit more integrated in the architecture rather than just having a pony in their reception area with blinking eyes,” Sparks says.
To keep the vibes of Buttercup in the space, small nods to Buttercup can be found throughout, if you look hard enough.
Next to the elevator at each level is a cased-out frame opening with nods to that floor’s theme. The first floor’s opening is wooden to allude to the raw material, the second floor is terracotta for refined material and the third features woven materials for the textile floor.
“As you get off the elevator lobby, [the material that you see] is the most refined version of the material,” Sparks says. “But as you walk through the floor, it becomes [inspired by] the raw version of the material, so on the outskirts of the floor, you might see a microscopic version of thata graphic, very abstractly, in the most raw state of it.”
A major feature of the space is the staircase in the lobby. A cantilevered stair (with the exception of one support in the middle), there are two pathways up or down — a nod to the different pathways one could take when cave diving. The steel staircase is covered in a casing made to look like minerals or rocks seen while spelunking.
“I don’t think I’ll ever do another stair like this in my career,” she says. “It’s one of those once-in-alifetime things.”
Buttercup, Splunk’s pony mascot, is an Easter egg in this Mario Bros. motif. The numbers displayed are another personal touch — their old and new address numbers. Courtesy of Garrett Roland via IA Interior Architects.
COMING TOGETHER FOR GOOD
has steadily increased.
Ostory by Alyssa High
ne Saturday in August, a 91-year-old uninsured woman walked into a nearby church to have her heart examined.
She’d recently moved from China to Plano to live with her daughter and didn’t have health insurance while working on her green card. She’d already had to pay out of pocket for heart surgery, and Russell Creek Chinese Gospel Church — which hosted a newly opened clinic for the uninsured — was not far from her house.
“She was so happy,” Texas Community Clinic board of directors President Weibin Yang says. “She felt like the service was actually better because he spent so much time with her.”
The woman ended up donating to the clinic herself, noting that the visit felt more personal and less rushed outside of the hospital setting.
According to the U.S. Census Bureau, approximately 13% of the Plano population under the age of 65 is uninsured. (Insurance statistics for those older are not readily available.) And as nearly one third are foreign born and/or speak a language other than English at home, barriers to health care abound even in an area with a majority skilled-worker and high-earning population.
While Dallas has Parkland Health clinics and hospitals for those that are uninsured as well as other nonprofitled initiatives, the surrounding suburbs have a substantial uninsured population and no publicly funded, free healthcare facilities.
There are four clinics that offer free services in the city. The Islamic Association of Collin County maintains a clinic on Independence Parkway. Watermark Church maintains an urgent care facility on West Parker. Julia’s Center for Healthcare, partnered with nine area churches, has a clinic on Avenue K.
Noticing a cultural and geographic gap in care, Wenbao Wang and Yang set out to open a clinic tailored to, but not limited to, Plano’s Chinese-speaking community. Wang secured space at Russell Creek Chinese Gospel Church, and in 2023, Texas Community Clinic was born. Initially open just two weekends a month, the clinic saw only a handful of patients in its early days. But word spread quickly, and attendance
Current offerings include routine checkups, treatment for common illnesses, chronic disease management, preventive care, cardiology, pain management, sports medicine, physical medicine and rehabilitation. According to the clinic’s website, other specialty services will be added as more physicians volunteer. Common medications, other than controlled substances, can be prescribed and EKG and common blood work are available.
Texas Community Clinic opened on Aug. 3, 2024, with a grand opening celebration featuring Tai Chi dancers and appearances from Congressman Matt Shaheen, Mayor John Muns and several council members. According to Dallas Chinese Daily , about 200 community members were in attendance.
“The support we get from the community is enormous. It’s much more than I expected,” Yang says.
The shift from the hospital setting to a self-run clinic was a challenge, Yang says, noting that in a hospital setting there are whole departments to rely on. However, he was pleasantly surprised by the amount of people willing to pitch in once they heard.
Before opening, the clinic was able to get credentials for just three physicians. But the amount of volunteers meant growth, with 17 more in the credential application process.
Volunteers weren’t the only ones jumping on board. Shortly after the ceremony, a community member approached Yang with a $1,000 check. Then a physician from Baylor, Scott & White connected the clinic with BSW’s warehouse system, where extra medical supplies are lent to nonprofit organizations. Others with UT Southwestern donated equipment.
As the number of people seeking the clinic’s care rises, Texas Community Clinic is in need of donations to increase services, volunteer doctors and nurses to increase hours open and a designated space.
“Nowadays, everybody is busy but a lot of physicians have the intention to do something good for the community without any controversy,” Yang says. “The country is so divided. We have different opinions on so many things, but this, I think there’s no question. Everybody thinks this is the right thing to do.”
Texas Community Clinic is located at 7801 Coit Road and is open on the 1st and 3rd Saturdays of the month from 9 a.m. to 1 p.m. Appointments can be made online or walkins on Sundays.
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