We launched Brick & Elm five years ago because we kept seeing people, places and projects shaping this city—but they weren’t being covered by local print media. Amplifying those stories in a locally owned publication became part of our vision. We wanted to share with our readers what was happening and why it mattered.
Anniversary milestones invite reflection. To mark our fifth year in business, we decided to look back at some of the early stories that helped define the voice and focus of our magazine. We’re revisiting them by asking one question: What happened next?
In other words, we’re looking back in order to catch up. It reminds us how Amarillo has changed in just five years, and how the stories we told then continue to shape this region today.
“Built to Last”
It’s hard to believe, but our first issue came out before The Barfield was complete. Renovations to the downtown Amarillo hotel had been ongoing for months at the time we published, so we were only able to show architectural renderings. A few weeks later, the prestigious 10-story hotel finally opened. Since then, we’ve enjoyed its West Texas luxury vibe. You might have seen our team members dining at its restaurant, enjoying its outdoor patio, sipping drinks in its speakeasy and attending a variety of events on the premises.
Those early expectations were high, and over the past five years, The Barfield has met and exceeded just about all of them. Its recognition reaches well beyond Amarillo, especially as the Route 66 Centennial approaches. Recent guests have arrived from France, Australia, Germany and beyond. “We’re welcoming guests from across the country and around the world who have discovered The Barfield,” says General Manager Kelsey Pratt. “We truly enjoy sharing our story with each of them during their stay.”
The Yellowstone connection certainly helped. The blockbuster series was spotted filming in Amarillo in August 2024. To start, the cast of the prequel 1883 were regularly spotted staying at the hotel while filming in the Panhandle. Then, near the end of Yellowstone’s fifth season, Beth Dutton (Kelly Reilly) and Rip Wheeler (Cole Hauser) visit the hotel on-screen while Rip works with cattle in Texas. The production shot on location in downtown Amarillo, showcasing the hotel’s Paramount Recreation Club speakeasy (including its “secret” entrance) and its high-end atmosphere.
Like any good marketer, Pratt and her team jumped on the branding potential. “I love incorporating it into my spiel during site tours for potential clients,” says Director of Sales Chloe Shelton. “It always adds that extra ‘wow’ factor. It’s also common to see both locals and visitors making their way to the Paramount Recreation Club Speakeasy, hoping to recreate the iconic scene of Beth and
Rip dancing.”
In the years since, The Barfield has become an important partner for us. Every guest at The Barfield finds a copy of Brick & Elm in their room. Beyond that exclusive placement, we’ve enjoyed collaborating with them on photo shoots, events and other shared opportunities.
“Truckin’ Delicious”
“Truckin’ Delicious”Brick & Elm has tried to maintain a working list of local food trucks since our second-ever cover story—a July/August 2021 guide to Amarillo’s growing food truck scene. Since that issue, our food truck list has literally tripled in size. We just updated it a few weeks ago. Food trucks in Amarillo/Canyon are alive and well.
But at least one food truck has mostly left the scene: Dirty Uncle Monte, which was operated by Chris Kizer and appeared on that issue’s cover.
By 2024, Kizer had turned his Airstream trailer and higher-end menu into more of a catering business and had begun consulting with restaurants including the Borger Country Club. That’s when he learned that Polk Street Methodist Church, where his
niece attended the church’s child development center, was looking for someone to run its meal program.
Kizer applied and interviewed for the position, but also challenged the church to think bigger. Before long, Polk Street had established a dedicated food ministry, with Kizer as its director. “It’s something I didn’t think I would be doing, but the food truck segued me into the position,” he says today.
Last year, his ministry served 68,000 meals. Kizer describes the approach as something of a three-legged stool.
Internal church activities form one leg, from special events like Easter brunch to the weekly Wednesday meals before Bible study.
The second leg is the child development center, where hundreds of children receive breakfast, lunch and two snacks each day. Kizer takes what he calls a “nutritionist’s approach” to this responsibility, actually plating meals and introducing healthy foods like quinoa to kids, knowing they might not try those things at home.
The third leg is community outreach, including catering for Rotary groups, Lions Clubs, and other nonprofits. Like running a food truck, he says, “it’s about building relationships. It’s easy to see it has a good impact.”
“The Neighborhood”
Our cover feature for September/October 2021 was called “The Neighborhood” and we interviewed several local residents about Amarillo’s historic Barrio. One of those individuals was Teresa Kenedy, a retired AISD drug and violence prevention educator who had assumed leadership of the Barrio Neighborhood Planning Committee. That committee had multiple projects in motion at the time, including a $6 million 10th Avenue streetscape beautification project passing through the heart of the neighborhood.
Less than five years later, on April 16, 2026, Kenedy and her team finally cut the ribbon on the completed project, officially opening it to the public. For seven blocks from Garfield to Ross, 10th Avenue now includes crosswalks, bike lanes, bike racks, ADA-accessible sidewalks, colorful benches with matching trash containers, as well as new trees and landscaping.
“This neighborhood is 137 years old,” says Kenedy, a Community Builder award recipient at our inaugural 2025 Brickly Awards. “Other than Habitat for Humanity homes, this is the biggest renovation in this neighborhood [in decades]. We’ve never had benches on 10th. We’ve never had trash cans on 10th. That’s exciting to see.”
Her work isn’t done. The BNPC is still raising money for La Plazita, a “pocket park” at 918 S. Houston St. that will become the city’s first park offering free Wi-Fi. The space was purchased by the city, but construction won’t begin until the funds are raised. After that, Kenedy has another corridor in mind that could use some updating.
Kenedy points out that when our team interviewed her for our article in 2021, there were nine empty buildings along 10th Avenue. All but one of these buildings are now occupied. New businesses are opening or have moved into the now-thriving neighborhood. “We are truly just excited to share this with our families, to reflect our culture and show that our families want a better life for their kids. They wanted to be able to walk down 10th and be proud of it,” she says. “And I think they are. We had a dream and it has become a reality for us.”
“Range Writer”
When Jonathan Baker first interviewed Taylor Moore for our September/October 2021 issue, Moore’s debut thriller, Down Range, had just been released into the world. That series features DEA Agent Garrett Kohl and is set in the Texas Panhandle. Moore and his family are Amarillo residents, and much of Down Range was written inside various Palace Coffee locations.
Down Range was a success, and after that, Moore and his publisher released a new Garrett Kohl book every year through 2024. Four books and four years later, Moore finally got a chance to breathe. “It was a hard few years,” he says. “You have your whole life to write your first book, and then six months to write the next one.” And the next one after that. “Once you get in the hamster wheel of putting books out, meeting constant deadlines, promoting, editing, doing podcasts, doing the Hollywood part, you’re working seven days a week and missing vacations with your family,” he says.
About that Hollywood part: At one point, the series had an option agreement with Universal TV to turn Down Range into a series on Peacock, but like many film and TV projects, it kept hitting production and financing roadblocks. “We still have a director attached, and still have Hollywood interest,” Moore says. He’s even spent time recently working on multiple screenwriting projects apart from the Garrett Kohl series.
And this spring, he finished a new novel set in a completely different landscape. “It’s a psychological thriller, hopefully a little mind-bendy,” he says. “My publisher asked me to do something new, with new characters. I’m pretty excited about it.”
He’ll only reveal the book is set “five minutes into the future.”
Look for that one in a year or two. Until then, Moore is focused on “being a dad and being a writer, and enjoying life,” he says. As for the Panhandle-set Garrett Kohl series, he says, “I still have more of those books in me. I just don’t know when.”
“A Few Words about Words”
In our final issue of our inaugural year, November/December 2021, we assembled a sprawling cover feature about libraries, language and literacy. As avid readers ourselves, we found great joy in covering the ways reading and language influence local lives.
The feature highlighted the work of Storybridge, the local nonprofit that provides books for young readers. It looked into the growing Little Free Libraries movement in Amarillo. It explored the intricacies and mysteries of the Research Center at Panhandle-Plains Historical Museum—a library of preserved letters, photos and books cataloguing local history. It discussed book clubs and the rambling, multi-tome home library of Philip and Judy Periman in the Wolflin neighborhood. We also profiled the public library system and our favorite places to buy books in Amarillo.
With such a broad subject matter, we faced a question: How do we visually represent a big idea that doesn’t have a single location or face? How do we personify the quiet magic of getting lost in a book?
For that, we turned to Neighbors Creative, which represented our first collaboration with the Canyon-based, husband-and-wife photography duo of Jeremy and Lauren Pawlowski. And to serve as our symbolic reader, we had them photograph Kaniya Barringer inside the original Burrowing Owl Books location in Canyon. Kaniya became our first, true cover model.
At the time, she was a middle-school student (and, it should be said, an avid reader). Five years later, Kaniya is 18 years old and finishing up the final weeks of her senior year at Amarillo High School. She’s still a passionate reader. This fall, she’ll head off to the University of Texas at Arlington, where she intends to major in psychology.
“The First Female Rodeo Clown”
Written by Maddisun Fowler, this January/February 2022 feature about Dixie Reger Mosley has consistently been one of our top-performing articles online, attracting readers from all over the world. Amarillo resident Dixie Reger was born in Oklahoma and grew up on the road as part of a family rodeo act in Colonel Jim Eskew’s Wild West Show. She moved from rodeo to rodeo, performing trick riding, roping and clowning as she became a pioneer for women in rodeo.
Through the organization that became the Women’s Professional Rodeo Association, she became part of the “first girl rodeo” in the nation, in Amarillo in 1947.
Dixie was a sharp 91-year-old when Maddisun interviewed her in late 2021. Last fall, she celebrated her 95th birthday and continues to live at home. She remains very independent, says her daughter, Judy Day.
“Mother is doing well and remains actively engaged in rodeo activities,” Day tells us “Since her interview for Brick & Elm, she has been inducted into the Texas Rodeo Cowboy Hall of Fame in Fort Worth, attended another clown reunion at the ProRodeo Hall of Fame in Colorado Springs, and had the honor of accepting induction awards on behalf of two close friends at the National Cowboy & Western Heritage Museum in Oklahoma City.”
Later this year, Dixie is looking forward to participating in the 50th anniversary of the National Cowgirl Museum & Hall of Fame in Fort Worth.
“Bright Horizons”
For our November/December 2022 issue, Jonathan Baker profiled Evan Guerrero, an astronomy student at West Texas A&M University. We had gotten a tip from WT faculty that one of their students had garnered millions of followers teaching science content on TikTok. That caught our attention.
We reached out to Guerrero and followed his @evanthorizon account, introducing readers to this talented young creator and educator. Back then, he had amassed more than 2 million followers on TikTok and had just begun to hear from major sponsors—like Northrop Grumman—wanting him to share about their products on his account.
Today, he’s still at it. As of press time, Guerrero had 2.8 million followers on TikTok and another 1.5 million across Instagram, Facebook and YouTube. “I’ve now established a strong presence on every major social media platform, each of which contributes to allowing me to support myself through this work,” he says.
In a reaction to accusations of “brain rot” over social media, publishers are beginning to prioritize educational content like his. “There’s been a big push by all platforms in the last few years to incentivize creators to make short-form educational content,” Guerrero says. That’s been good for him, since he already occupies that niche.
Meanwhile, the sponsors are still calling. Guerrero just returned from a trip to Paris, France, where TikTok connected him with top-tier scientists to make educational content. He worked with Xbox to promote the space-based video game Starfield, and collaborated with Apple TV in helping explain the physics of the series For All Mankind.
Unfortunately, Guerrero is still finishing his undergraduate degree after chronic health issues slowed his academic journey. But he’s still moving forward. “I still aspire to achieve higher educational credentials,” he says. Eventually that pursuit will take him away from Amarillo. Until then, he’ll hold the unique distinction of keeping a fairly low local profile while remaining one of this area’s best-known residents.
“Big Swing”
In 2023, for one of his first Brick & Elm features, veteran local journalist Jon Mark Beilue visited Hamlet Elementary to highlight its Tiger Flight Golf Club. At the time, R.J. Soleyjacks was the new Hamlet principal, Justin Thompson was a local golf enthusiast with a large collection of vintage clubs, and 35 students at the school were interested in using their Response to Intervention hour to learn how to hit a golf ball.
“This is about kids getting exposed to the world,” Soleyjacks said back then, pointing out the number of unfilled golf scholarships across the country. “What an opportunity this could be.”
The shoestring organization was new then. It has since matured and evolved. Soleyjacks is now the director of the Maverick Boys & Girls Clubs of Amarillo. Thompson spent the past couple years expanding the golf club out of Hamlet and into other economically disadvantaged schools, rechristening it the 107 Golf Academy in 2024.
Then, in 2025, the organization merged with Acts Community, creating the Acts Community Golf Academy and hiring Thompson as its part-time golf director. He now travels to area schools with a portable, inflatable golf simulator that uses photometric cameras and an HD projector to help students learn the mechanics of a golf swing. “We are working really hard at the moment to expose kids to the game, teach them a basic swing and get them interested in golf,” Thompson says. He has set up the simulator in school gyms, church parking lots, and even at last year’s Hoodoo Mural Festival.
Hundreds of local kids have since gained confidence and experience swinging a golf club. “It’s been pretty amazing,” Thompson says. “I wouldn’t have pictured it looking like this when we first sat down and talked about it, but it’s evolving the way it needs to. It allows us to reach a ton more kids this way.”
Revisiting these early features reminds us that a magazine is only as vibrant as the community it covers. We are grateful to the small business owners, nonprofits and local residents who let an upstart new publication into their lives years ago, and who continue to support us today. Amarillo is a city in the midst of transformation. Catching up with these familiar faces has only deepened our excitement for who we are and what we’re becoming.
Thank you for reading, thank you for your story ideas, and thank you for being part of this first five-year chapter of Brick & Elm. We’re just getting started.
