Join us Tuesday, Feb. 3, for our Brickly Awards banquet at the Amarillo Club. The public is invited! Reserve your tickets or table here.
We introduced our Brickly Awards last year, born from a desire not only to tell the stories of local people, but also to celebrate the best of this region. Our goal is to recognize people who are working hard to serve this community, improve quality of life, and add to our culture.
Our process began with dozens of very thoughtful nominations, with recipients selected by a committee of local residents and Brick & Elm contributors. It’s not a popularity contest. It’s not driven by clicks or likes on social media. By design, these honors are grounded in substance and merit.
In identifying winners, our committee spent several hours engaged in a lively, heartfelt conversation. We weighed influence and discussed impact. We laughed. We shed a few tears. These are inspiring people with meaningful stories.
It’s such an honor to introduce these Brickly Award winners to you once again. They challenge us, encourage us, and embody the very best of this place we call home. — Michele McAffrey and Jason Boyett
Nonprofit of the Year
Refugee Language Project
It’s a cold Thursday morning at The PLACE, a multicultural community center on Plains Boulevard. Despite the threat of snow, a diverse crowd has gathered for an event called Culture Cafe. Women from Mexico are serving food from their native region and talking about their home cultures, surrounded by volunteers, fellow language students and staff members of Refugee Language Project.
Ryan and Crystal Pennington begin to identify some of the students enjoying the authentic Mexican cuisine. Some are from Iran. There are Cubans and a smattering of Burmese, Congolese and Eritrean immigrants and refugees.
Mariachi music plays from someone’s smartphone. A woman from Mexico dances with a woman from Colombia. A Turkish woman, wearing a hijab, laughs at them.
A door chime rings across the room and a middle-aged man walks in, looking uncertain. Ryan watches as the man is greeted by Victoria Sheridan, an AmeriCorps member with We Find in Love, another nonprofit involved with The PLACE.
“I don’t know him, but I believe he’s Pashtun,” Ryan whispers. Pashtuns are the largest ethnic group in Afghanistan.
Without a word, the man hands Victoria a mailed legal document. She opens an iPad with translation capabilities, the two have a brief digital conversation, and then she facilitates a phone call with a commercial translation service, connecting him with someone who speaks Pashto. Together, the three of them figure out his next steps.
It’s clear he knew he could find help at The PLACE.
After the Culture Cafe, the adult students gather in a large meeting room for an English class. Across town, at 24th Avenue and North Grand, another class connects through a video link.
“Our classes are four times bigger now than a couple years ago,” says Ryan, the nonprofit’s executive director. “There’s been an influx of new people this year.”
He pauses and looks at Crystal, who serves as the organization’s marketing director. He doesn’t really need to explain the influx, but he summarizes the past year in five words.
“There’s a lot of fear.”
When the couple returned to Amarillo in 2016, they’d been away for 15 years. Crystal grew up here but the Penningtons spent several years based in Australia and Papua New Guinea, where Ryan, a linguist with a Ph.D., had been working as a Bible translator. Coming back, they encountered a very different Amarillo than where she’d been raised—one with an enormous refugee population.
After having gone into the world to cultivate cross-culture understanding, they returned to find the world had come to Amarillo.
Before long, they had founded the Refugee Language Project, a faith-based nonprofit that uses language as a doorway to welcome Amarillo’s international population, honoring cultures and breaking down barriers.
The organization had been rolling along, fostering relationships between communities, providing translation work, and teaching English classes. Then came 2025. Shifting federal policies, executive orders, and unexpected funding cuts turned an already complex system into a maze of uncertainty.
Refugee Language Project, which receives no federal funding and does not resettle refugees, was in a position to respond in innovative, practical ways.
After Catholic Charities of the Texas Panhandle lost its resettlement funding, RLP convened a regular Refugee Advisory Council that facilitated emergency conversations between churches, Amarillo Public Health, and representatives from Rep. Ronny Jackson’s office. They gathered focus groups of pastors and nonprofit leaders. They developed a text system to allow students to ask questions and receive factual information.
More than anything, they opened their arms to residents who were afraid they might be sent away. “We wanted them to feel safe, even though we knew they weren’t,” Ryan says. “We wanted to reassure them that they were welcome here.”
They were welcome at The PLACE, and welcome in Amarillo.
By that time, RLP had spent years building trust among multiple people groups and multiple Amarillo churches. The rolling refugee crises of 2025 found the organization in a position to bring all these entities into the same conversation, leveraging the trust they’d established to solve problems and create opportunities.
Some problems were immediate, like those refugees who lost cash assistance to pay rent after having been resettled here by the federal government. (The City of Amarillo’s Coming Home program was able to step in.) Others are long-term, from learning English to obtaining professional certifications. Balancing the solutions to those needs is always a challenge. “When you care for refugees, there’s always this urgent crisis,” Ryan says. “It’s the tyranny of the urgent. Now, I can ethically say that we can meet that need, but we also have long-term solutions. We need both.”
Critically, the organization, Ryan explains, “is consistently pro-refugee but without having political bite because we want all people to feel welcome.”
That “all people” includes local residents who may have conflicting political opinions about immigration. “We can all come to the table,” Crystal adds. “We can have different opinions about what kind of policies should be in place. But what we tell people all the time is we want to serve whoever’s here in front of us—our neighbor who’s
right here.”
The staff has invited politically minded critics—and there have been a few—to come to The PLACE, to serve a meal to people from Afghanistan or Iran, and to see what West Texas hospitality looks like.
In many cases, those individuals have left with a new perspective.
“It’s a come-and-see model,” Ryan says. “Come look at what’s happening here.”
What’s happening is that English has become a tool for immigrants and refugees to contribute to this community while pursuing the dreams that brought them to the United States in the first place. The Refugee Language Project is making that tool available to thousands.
The public has embraced it. In late 2024, RLP introduced its award-winning Taste the World, a hugely successful food event featuring global flavors served by international residents. The follow-up 2025 event quickly sold out.
After an extremely busy year, The PLACE remains a hive of activity. Churches are serving lunches. Nonprofits are creating partnerships. Volunteers are interacting with English students. Businesses are hiring hard-working immigrants. And donors are giving.
“We’re just bridging, connecting,” Ryan says. “It has made me believe in Amarillo.”
Innovator of the Year
Andrew Hall
In 2019, Andrew Hall brought a disruptive and attention-getting idea to Amarillo’s cultural landscape: a nonprofit mural project that would end up convincing nationally recognized artists to add their artwork to local walls. It culminated in an annual festival that brought art, music and young people to downtown Amarillo. Then, in 2025, Hall released it to the community.
Born and raised in Amarillo, Andrew Hall left home to attend Southern Methodist University. He was gone for a decade. Newly married, he and his wife, Lauren, traveled often and kept noticing catalyst projects across the country, new ideas that showed communities taking risks in the name of revitalization.
From Wynwood Walls in Miami to street murals in Dallas, he saw how the visual arts could attract foot traffic, foster civic pride and transform neighborhoods.
Then he came back to Amarillo.
“It was kind of a disappointment that nothing had really changed. I’m trying to sell to my new bride this idea of Amarillo and why I loved it and why this should be her home, too,” he remembers. So many other communities had been transformed. Why hadn’t Amarillo?
While Hall started getting involved in a number of downtown projects and boards, his attention kept being drawn to the arts—specifically murals. “I vividly remembered us being in New Orleans and there were these wings on a wall. It made us stop and take a picture in front of it. Then we got a cup of coffee next door. We walked around and shopped,” he says. Murals aren’t just about aesthetics. Public art has real economic impact, from business visibility to Instagram tourism. It shows a place is being cared for.
He thought of a solution, and the Hoodoo Mural Festival began taking shape. In a series of unrelated, lucky coincidences, several external elements converged: The City of Amarillo was launching its volunteer-led Board of Public Arts and Beautification. Shawn Kennedy and Dyron Howell were planting the seeds for what became Blank Spaces. Local muralist Malcolm Byers was gaining traction.
Hall launched an early version of Hoodoo in 2019, relying on Byers to help connect him with outside artists. After a 2020 hiatus, the 2021 event attracted former Amarillo resident and Clovis native Drew Merritt, whose career trajectory was starting to skyrocket. Merritt created the vertical, hyper-realistic cowboy mural on a downtown ANB building that year. Then in 2022, according to Hall, “Drew had such a great time he wanted to bring all his famous friends.” That included Tristan Eaton, who has literally painted walls around the world.
Suddenly, Hoodoo hit the radar of major visual artists, putting Amarillo’s street art on the map. At the same time, thanks to the connections of promoter Will Krause, the music side of the festival was gaining attention, too. Several headliners—LP Giobbi, Neil Frances, Flamingosis, DRAMA—performed at Hoodoo events as their streaming numbers began to surge.
Hoodoo was becoming a big deal. That’s when Andrew Hall did something even more pioneering than starting an attention-getting festival from nothing.
He decided to let it go.
In 2025, he handed over the entirety of Hoodoo to Amarillo Art Institute and Arts in the Sunset.
Though risky, the transition ended up a success. Breaking free from the downtown grid allowed for more activities and more space, with just as much energy as its first few incarnations.
“It was really hard, but it was meant to be,” Hall says of the change. “Each year we had limited resources, but we always tried to add a new element highlighting our own community—musicians, local muralists, more traditional gallery-style art. That all kept evolving. Seeing what the Art Institute was doing, their community and who was involved with it, it just fell into where it needed to be.”
The weeks and months leading up to Hoodoo were, as usual, a blur. But when Hall showed up early that Saturday in late September, after years of work and planning, he discovered that his original vision really didn’t need him at all. Under the direction of Rachel Flores and Mike LaFleur from Arts in the Sunset, he saw volunteers everywhere. “I really didn’t know what to do [with myself],” Hall says. “I just ended up giving myself a job. I was like a volunteer.”
He finally took a breath. “Seeing the people there, getting ideas, that’s what makes projects special. It was very emotional for me, but it was absolutely the right decision.”
Hall’s greatest innovation wasn’t just creating an event that brought world-class art to Amarillo. It was proving that risk, vision and a strategic handoff could transform our city’s identity.
Entrepreneur of the Year
Dallas BELL, BURROWING OWL BOOKS
Burrowing Owl Books launched a new location in the Shops at Wolflin Square, 2461 W. Interstate 40 in Amarillo, in May 2025. By September, Dallas Bell’s independent bookstore—which also has a location at 400 15th St. in Canyon—was getting a shoutout in the New York Times.
It was that kind of year.
“This year has really seemed to take off in so many different directions,” Bell says one morning from her shop on the Square in Canyon. “It’s floored me.”
Some directions have been intentional but low-profile, like Burrowing Owl’s collaboration with Happy Independent School District for a children’s book fair. Parents and teachers at the district say their kids love classic books and outdoor themes, from Laura Ingalls Wilder’s Little House on the Prairie books to John R. Erickson’s Hank the Cowdog series. But publishers weren’t providing those titles in their book fair packages. “So the parents would leave [without books] because there was nothing of interest [to their children],” Bell says. She wanted to make sure books ended up in the hands of local schoolchildren, and her locally curated book fair idea was born. It may soon expand to other small schools.
Burrowing Owl is reaching older readers, too, including college students and young adults—and that’s been a pleasant surprise. The social media community #BookTok continued to grow in 2025 and is a powerful force in the publishing world.
“When I first opened up, I didn’t have many college students coming in,” Bell says, despite the shop’s origins in Canyon. Young adults are some of her best customers now. “Because of TikTok and #BookTok in particular, I’m seeing more and more [customers] who are college students and young professionals,” she adds.
Some actually prefer physical books in a digital world. Others consume books on Kindle or as audiobooks, then purchase the physical version when they finish. They display these “book trophies” at home. It’s a #BookTok thing, and it helps the bottom line. “The beautiful thing is these kids are watching #BookTok and picking up these lighthearted books to read, enjoying them, and then decide they want to dig in deeper. They may try a memoir or something more literary,” she explains. It turns out the internet is not as bad for books as expected. “I truly believe it has helped the industry.”
Then, over the summer, a New York Times reporter named Katherine Rosman arrived in Amarillo to report on the community’s response to Amy Griffin’s best-selling memoir, The Tell. Much of the controversial memoir is set in Amarillo, where Griffin grew up.
Rosman’s local investigation hinges on a key scene at The Burrowing Owl, during which members of a local book club discuss Griffin’s work. Rosman had reached out to Bell, hoping to get a sense of local conversations about the topic. Bell saw opportunity, and invited the reporter to a book club meeting, to “sit like a fly on the wall and listen in on conversations about The Tell,” Bell says. “I couldn’t keep the book on my shelves.”
It was another unexpected twist of fate—a cultural surprise that she embraced. “I think it’s pretty cool we were mentioned in the New York Times,” Bell says. “I would have never thought I would have been approached by a Times reporter being here.”
Those aren’t the only chapters in Bell’s 2025 story. Children’s storytimes have become beloved traditions at Burrowing Owl. Bell has started curating adult book fairs at places like The Barfield. Multiple book clubs gather in her shops. The Burrowing Owl has cultivated deep, loyal communities of readers by adapting to a rapidly shifting culture and the opportunities it brings.
“People want to support local,” she says. “I thought I’d be a small, little shop and sell a book a day and make it work, and now I’m thinking about the future and what’s the next thing we can tap into. The buying trends are so different now than when I started. But people still want the experience of coming into a bookshop, because it’s so rare.”
Advocate of the Year
Brady Clark
“People need the encouragement to continue on, and we’ve seen that in some of the businesses we’ve helped,” Brady Clark says. “It’s hard. They go through times where they’re discouraged and they don’t know what to do, or they feel like giving up.”
In those cases, the businesses don’t necessarily need to be told how to move forward. They need to know someone has their back. “They need somebody that’s going to stand behind them and say, ‘I see what you see. I see what you’re doing and I believe in it, and I’m behind you,’” , says Clark, the executive director of Square Mile Community Development.
That’s true advocacy, and it’s at the heart of the nonprofit Clark founded. He describes Square Mile’s efforts this way: “We work on long-term solutions to help struggling communities be successful and be healthy.” The organization began in 2016 with a focus on the San Jacinto neighborhood—that’s the “square mile” in its name—but has since expanded into other under-resourced neighborhoods, including North Heights, Eastridge and the Barrio. Its broad focus spans from economic development to refugee services to food security.
The past year has been challenging. In February, Square Mile received word that a $150,000 federal grant dedicated to agriculture assistance and urban farming support would disappear due to government cuts. Those funds provided job training for young people, impacting payroll.
Meanwhile, upheaval in immigration and refugee resettlement brought desperate, legally admitted residents to Clark’s offices. His organization helps manage The PLACE along with nonprofits Refugee Language Project and We Find in Love, and Clark found himself trying to reassure members of the international community during a period of deep uncertainty.
We see you, he told them. We have your back.
“Half of our work is professional and practical,” he says. “The other half is standing behind them.”
The professional work takes a number of forms, like Square Mile’s PATH program, which facilitates small business development for early entrepreneurs.
For instance, the program helped Serges Hakizimana set up Karibu Services, a refugee-owned translation company that launched during the pandemic. “That just really turned into a wonderful success for our community and a great resource and wonderful business,” Clark says. Hakizimana, a pastor who arrived in Amarillo in 2013 and speaks several languages, provides translation services across a variety of sectors, including education, medicine and the legal world.
Black Fig Food, the catering company managed by Brick & Elm contributor Ruthie Landelius, is another Square Mile success story. “We helped her when she first came back into town,” Clark says. “Ruthie had all the skills she needed. She just needed the encouragement to support that. We consider Black Fig a big win.”
Clark and Square Mile have also become indispensable resources for local nonprofits navigating complex structural and governance logistics. Recently, these have included the ETHAN Project, for children with special needs, and a nonprofit for women and girls in South Sudan founded by South Sudanese refugee Diana Majok.
His advocacy may have started in San Jacinto but the impact reaches all the way to Africa. Clark says there’s something special about how individuals can make an outsized impact in Amarillo. “One of the reasons I came back to Amarillo in 2010 is because I saw our community as very resilient and having a heart for others,” he adds. “We can see a bigger vision, to make sure that we’re not just building our own kingdoms but really working to raise each other up.”
Like so many others in the area, Clark’s efforts are driven by faith. “The whole concept of loving your neighbor is a core tenet of things. But it has to be put into practical use. You’ve got to put action behind it,” he says. “You’ve got to do. I take that very seriously.”
Volunteer of the Year
Gwen Hicks
Locals know Gwen Hicks as the founder and former executive director of Amarillo Angels, an organization supporting foster families and children in foster care. Launched in 2016, it was the first chapter to pilot a national model for Austin Angels, its umbrella organization.
Most people probably aren’t aware, however, that Hicks never took a salary from the thriving organization she founded. Until she passed the baton to new Executive Director Sarena Carpenter in 2025, Hicks’ full-time role was strictly volunteer. For almost nine years she worked without compensation.
“There are a lot of reasons why,” Hicks says. “I had a heart for the work and I wanted to give back to my community, but I didn’t need a salary.”
She started the organization after having retired from a long education career, first as a teacher and counselor for Canyon Independent School District, followed by leadership roles at Region 16 Education Service Center. Hicks already was receiving monthly retirement income when she founded Amarillo Angels. Her needs were being met.
“This community had been so, so good to me and had given me so many amazing opportunities,” she says about her first retirement. “I had such high-level training and learned so much. It didn’t seem like I was just supposed to walk away.”
So Amarillo Angels became a way for her to keep helping local children.
More than a year ago, Hicks began planning for a transition. “I was passionate about doing it, but I knew we needed a succession plan. I didn’t want to leave the organization in a pickle. I felt a tremendous responsibility to make sure it continued on,” she says. The board hired Carpenter, who could draw from a background in youth development and finance. The two women worked side by side for several months as co-directors until Hicks officially stepped down.
“She brings so many skillsets to the organization, she was kind enough to let me continue to help,” Hicks says of Carpenter. “It was a slow transition so she could get comfortable as I slowly pulled back. In education, we call that a ‘gradual release’ model. I haven’t done it perfectly, but Amarillo Angels is in great hands.”
Hicks is still involved with the organization, working remotely—again, uncompensated—a few hours a week, especially on donor communications. She’s filled the rest of her time with other volunteering opportunities, including with Canyon Main Street, the Canyon Lions Club, and at her church. “This morning, I played with babies during a Bible study,” she says. “My daughter says I am an Enneagram 2. The Helper.”
The popular Enneagram personality test identifies people like Hicks as being motivated by acts of service. “I can’t help myself but to help,” she says with a laugh.
Which is why she’s ready to stop talking about herself. She wants to talk about Amarillo Angels. “I have seen how impactful and meaningful it has been for families,” she says, rattling off shocking statistics that have become second nature to her. “Half of foster homes close in the first year, so the kiddos have to move. They move an average of seven times every two years,” which sets them back educationally. “Only half [of foster children] graduate from high school. Three percent go to college. The 97 percent who don’t, the vast majority of them are likely to be homeless, incarcerated, trafficked
or dead.”
Hicks can’t stop talking about foster families and children, even as she slips into her second retirement. “It was an easy decision. There’s a season for everything, and I felt I was moving into a different season of life,” she says. Gratefully, it’s one that still offers plenty of space for volunteering.
Community Builder Award
Rachel Flores
You’re not alone in feeling like every big community event over the past year seems to have taken place inside Arts in the Sunset—from the Hoodoo Mural Festival to Refugee Language Project’s Taste the World fundraiser to your niece’s quinceanera. It’s been a big year for the community art center founded by the late artist and philanthropist Ann Crouch.
Rachel Flores is the determined leader behind the resurgence.
Flores arrived in Amarillo in late 2015 to serve as executive director of the Amarillo Art Institute, which is housed in the building—formerly known as Sunset Center—and manages the facility. Crouch passed away a few days into 2017, leaving behind an aging building and a lot of uncertainty.
With the help of long-time Crouch Foundation board members including Mike LaFleur, who is now the creative/facilities director for Arts in the Sunset, Flores got to work. Before arriving in Amarillo, she was employed at the Volunteer Center of Lubbock, where she coordinated operations and multiple volunteer programs.
Like any artist, she faced something of a blank canvas. She and her team found a way to achieve Crouch’s vision of an affordable artists’ community while painting with a few colors and brushes of their own.
“I think we did start off in pursuit of Ann’s vision,” Flores says. “But one of the neat things that came out of this opportunity, personally, is I got to tie in my own vision with it. I always saw this space being a community center. The board was the same way.”
Critically, they were open to experimentation. “We said ‘yes’ to everything. As long as it fits our mission, let’s try it and see how it goes,” she says.
With that yes mentality on the map, the next few years took Arts in the Sunset to unexpected places.
Flores, LaFleur and the board oversaw much-needed renovations to the building, including the A.J. Swope Performance Plaza, which opened in 2023.
The next year brought the introduction of Sunset Marketown, a gathering of local makers and vendors, on summer Saturdays.
In 2024, the Amarillo International Film Festival launched with Sunset as its home, then returned in 2025.
First Friday Art Walks resumed, and now attract up to 2,000 people a month.
The Hoodoo Mural Festival transitioned to Sunset this year, bringing 2,500 people and world-class muralists to the campus.
Other major outside events like Ronald McDonald House Charities of Amarillo’s Wine, Women & Shoes and Panhandle AIDS Support Organization’s Turnabout have claimed the facility as their home.
Then there are the weekly sweet-16 parties, baby showers, quinceañeras and other small events that now take place on the premises. Last year, Arts in the Sunset booked more than 100 events that weren’t tied to the organization.
“We are back to being a community center,” Flores says of the building, which opened in 1960 as Amarillo’s first mall. “We are fortunate to have a facility of the size we have, and we’ve worked to preserve as much as possible to keep the history of this building alive. This is how we did it: by offering a space for people to host things.”
It also gives an arts organization the chance to impact the city beyond the realm of art. “We can extend a helping hand without getting outside of our mission,” she says. “We’re not going to be everything for everyone, but we can be a place where those people can come and do their thing. It’s cool to be the answer for all these events.”
Flores views the building’s availability as a way to diversify its revenue stream beyond art programming, but so many in the community see it as, simply, a place where Amarillo comes together. Sunset has become something of a “third place” for so many—a space to meet people outside the home and workplace—and Flores welcomes that designation.
She sees it among the artists who maintain studios there, and community members taking art classes, and everyone else who ends up at Arts in the Sunset, for some reason or another, multiple times throughout the year.
Triumph Award
Beth Glasscock
Just three years ago, Beth Glasscock was homeless, pregnant, addicted to drugs and living in a tent in a wooded area behind United Supermarkets on Gem Lake Road. Today, she’s sober, employed by the City of Amarillo, and excelling in college as she finishes a degree.
She has transformed her life. She is rewriting her story. The turning point arrived, she says, when she walked in the door at Martha’s Home, desperate and broken.
Several years earlier, Beth had lost custody of her oldest daughter. “She was my whole meaning of life at that point,” Beth says during a break from her occupation as a municipal grant monitor. When it happened, she began to spiral.
Prior to that, Beth had been rotating through a series of low-paying, entry-level jobs. She turned to drugs to numb the pain of losing her daughter. As the substance abuse intensified, her social circle grew smaller and smaller. “I kept cutting relationship ties with anyone who would have been there to help me out of that situation,” she says. “I was self-destructive, deciding to [use drugs] instead of going into work or doing any regular obligations.”
She became homeless, living with another man in a tent they would pitch in hidden, protected areas on the northwest side of town. In 2022, Beth found out she was pregnant. She made a few attempts to get clean. “It was very off and on,” she says. To her credit, she took steps to provide for her baby. She collected infant clothes, stashing a few pieces in a basket outside her tent, which at that time was tucked into the dry creek bed east of Walmart. If nothing else, at least she was looking toward the future.
Then came the rain.
The creek bed flooded. Beth and her partner fled to safety, and when she returned, the basket had tipped over and the baby clothing was covered in mud. She walked the soggy creek, digging for the colorful fabric. Recovering a few pieces, however, provided no relief. “I had no way to clean those clothes. Out of everything, that’s what broke me. I had been feeling some bit of hope and it all crashed down,” she says.
Desperate, Beth fell to her knees and promised God that, if any way out of her situation presented itself, she would follow it.
She called her mom, who still lived in Amarillo and agreed to pick her up even though the two hadn’t spoken in months. On a quiet drive home, Beth’s mother’s phone rang. It was Martha’s Home, informing her they had an opening and inviting her in for an interview. “I had called them from that number before,” she says. Beth didn’t have a phone of her own. “I was using whatever number I could find. Sometimes it had been a phone from Toot’n Totum. A couple of times, it had been my mom’s phone.”
Martha’s Home provides a supportive environment for women like Beth, offering shelter along with case management and other resources.
Connie Garcia met Beth at the door. “I won’t ever forget it,” Beth says. “Ms. Connie said, ‘Make yourself at home.’ There was a nice chair, nice couch. Air conditioning. That seemed so unusual to me at the moment.” For years, Beth’s idea of “home” had been a tent or a dirt floor.
The next few months were challenging, but Beth embraced the opportunities placed in front of her. The Present Needs Future Success program at Martha’s Home allowed her to enroll at Amarillo College. Beth participated in recovery groups. She kicked the drug habit. She learned to practice self-reflection.
In April 2023, she gave birth to her daughter, and Martha’s Home hosted a baby shower. Beth graduated from Amarillo College with a 4.0, having gained admission to multiple honor societies. She got a job with the City of Amarillo, administering grants like Emergency Solutions and Tenant-Based Rental Systems that support homeless individuals, which allows her to identify—in a truly authentic way—with those she helps. Her success at AC allowed her to transfer into a remote, four-year degree plan with the University of Texas at Arlington, where she’s majoring in social work and minoring in substance-use disorders.
And after moving out of Martha’s Home and into an apartment of her own, Beth regained custody of her oldest daughter—the one whose absence sent her spiraling into homelessness.
“Every day I’m surprised,” she says about how her life has changed. “It surprises me every day I have new accomplishments. I never thought I would have a government job or even an office job. I didn’t think it was a possibility, but it happened so soon after the most disastrous part of my life.”
She describes that call from Martha’s Home as an answer to prayer. That may be true. But when the door to a new life opened to her, Beth showed the determination to walk through it. In the process, she didn’t just transform her life. She changed the trajectory of her children’s lives, too.
Rising Leader of the Year
Niara Torres
Amarillo residents are undoubtedly familiar with Niara Torres’ art; they just don’t realize it. Now a 21-year-old fine arts major at the University of Texas in Austin, Niara spent her last two years at Caprock High School and the three summers since graduation as a critical part of Blank Spaces Murals, the student mural crew now responsible for 115 public art projects across the city.
In fact, she has also created multiple mural commissions on her own, including works at the Warford Center and Southeast Pool. Niara also had the honor of being one of the youngest featured artists this year at the Hoodoo Mural Festival.
“My confidence has grown so much as an artist because I’ve been with Blank Spaces,” she says. “Honestly, my first mural without Blank Spaces was a breeze. It’s something I was prepared to do.”
Shawn Kennedy, the founder of Blank Spaces and head of fine arts at Caprock, describes Niara as an “anchor” of the nonprofit’s work. “She didn’t just learn the craft, she mastered the process,” Kennedy says. He identifies her as a dependable leader who came of age in the program, and who now helps spearhead execution, offers input in design meetings and serves as an example for younger artists. She took on a central leadership role as Blank Spaces completed its landmark 100th mural in 2025.
That public-art experience was one of the reasons Niara got accepted into the prestigious fine arts program at the University of Texas. “I’m one of the only ones who has done murals,” she says of her extremely talented cohort. “It set me apart from a lot of other students. They have portfolios and things they have done, but most are pretty traditional.”
A first-generation college student, Niara is pursuing a studio art degree and will be spending the current spring semester in Los Angeles as an entertainment production intern. “I want to do all kinds of art, not just painting or drawing,” she says. This study-away experience represents her first time outside Texas. Before that, Austin had been the furthest Niara had traveled.
“I’m wanting to see what opportunities arise. I hope L.A. will open a whole new door for me, and being in L.A. will hopefully change how I see art and what I’m able to put into the world. I’m seeing what’s out there.” She pauses, thinking. “But I know I always want to do murals.”
This semester gives her something of a break from a few very busy years on campus, as Niara has balanced art projects and studies with her position as an active member of the award-winning UT Longhorn Band Color Guard. Membership is competitive in this elite group of performers, with a multi-step audition process.
From helping lead high school muralists to forging her own path as a first-gen college student, Niara continues to find inspiration from her mother, April, her family, and the rest of the Amarillo community. “My relationship to Amarillo has always been something that I’m very proud of. It’s my home. Always being able to come back here just brings me such happiness,” she says. “It’s changed the way that I see the world, and that’s why I want to create murals here. Being able to change the places I went to—like the city pool and Warford Activity Center—and bring creativity and art and love into a space is really important to me.”
Rising Leader of the Year
Nicholas Shaffer
Nicholas Shaffer’s father passed away when Nicholas was 9, leaving him and his sister to be raised by a single mother. “In a way, for me, I felt like I was alone,” he says. But like so many young people in this area, he eventually found a community that encouraged him to move forward.
For this talented young man, that community was the Amarillo Little Theatre and ALT Academy. “One thing they have, throughout everything they do, is that they open kids’ eyes to the world of theater,” he says of ALT. “That makes them want to join and be part of the Academy.”
He didn’t just attend Academy classes. He found his people. ALT, Nicholas says, nurtured him when he felt lost, and helped him step into his own talent.
It also opened up to him the world of volunteer service. Today, this West Texas A&M University sophomore is a passionate ALT performer who recently portrayed Booker T. Washington in the theater’s powerful production of Ragtime.
But his involvement in Amarillo’s art community goes far beyond what happens on stage. A Tascosa High School graduate, Nicholas continues giving back with volunteer vocal coaching and music direction for theater students at Tascosa, Palo Duro and Caprock. “I just work with them, help them find the music and where it fits in their voice,” he says. “I want them to give their best performance.”
Meanwhile, he’s quietly become an invaluable fixture at ALT. On-stage performances notwithstanding, most of his efforts take place behind the scenes. “Nicholas grew up in our ALT Academy and since graduating our program, has become one of our most valued volunteers,” says ALT’s Managing/Artistic Director Jason Crespin. “He could easily be putting his energy elsewhere.”
This college student has helped with the popular Candlelight Concerts staged at the ALT Allen Shankles Mainstage, helped build and paint sets, managed wigs backstage during productions and and even served as assistant musical director for Rent. Occasionally, he’ll just stop by the theater during the week to see if he can be helpful.
Crespin says Nicholas tackles even the smallest tasks “with a smile and an infectious laugh.”
Nicholas finds time to volunteer while also mentoring students at ALT Academy and studying political science (with a theater minor) at WT. His goal is to get a law degree, then find a way to impact policy nationwide. “I’ve always been attracted to a way of making a difference in the community,” Nicholas says. “I want to be involved in the production of policies and behind those doors of policymaking, writing laws to bring change to improve not just my community, but other communities as well.”
By all accounts—and despite his enormous talent—he goes about his work quietly and humbly, saying “yes” to almost everything asked of him. He no longer feels alone. He’s found his place, and that community helped him unlock his talent. “I just want to help where I can and do what needs to be done,” Nicholas adds. “[ALT] is always a place bringing in new people, welcoming them with open arms—a place to go serve the community and meet people and also have a great time creating art.”
Special Judges Award
Clay Stribling
Every year, the Panhandle loses notable and influential residents. The past year included the passing of leaders like J. Pat Hickman, Jim Jordan Jr., Jack King, Valerie Kiper and Susan Coleman. But the death of Clay Stribling at the end of 2024—right before we announced our first Brickly Awards honorees—is a loss still being felt in Amarillo, especially as his ongoing impact continues to come into focus.
For those reasons, our committee decided to honor Stribling, the late president and chief executive officer of the Amarillo Area Foundation, with a posthumous Special Judges Award.
Under his leadership, AAF became a true regional backbone, strengthening the nonprofit ecosystem in countless ways. The foundation’s fundraising powerhouse, The Panhandle Gives, is central to his legacy. In a Brick & Elm interview in 2023, he said the annual event transformed AAF’s perception among local people, “making them understand we’re not the stodgy old 1950s community foundation that you’re used to.”
The Panhandle Gives had a big profile, but Stribling’s leadership style was much, much quieter. Steady and pragmatic, he focused on building bridges and cultivating relationships, bringing diverse partners to the table during moments of crisis, from the 2020-2021 pandemic to the Smokehouse Creek Fire in 2024.
He played a substantial role in establishing the Texas Tech University School of Veterinary Medicine in Amarillo. Transformation Park is another major project he helped steer into existence.
“While he was with us, all the work he was doing was quiet,” says Keralee Clay, who worked with Stribling for several years, eventually succeeding him as president/CEO. “It wasn’t until people started talking about everything he did, after he passed, that I think everyone realized everything that he was quietly doing behind the scenes.” He had a wide span of influence and deep connections, and was eager to share those connections. But he didn’t want recognition for it.
A native of Hereford, Stribling remained passionate about making sure the work of the Foundation wasn’t just confined to Potter and Randall counties. “You’d see him in a suit, as a lawyer, and it was easy to forget. But he had such a heart for the rural Texas Panhandle. That’s something he’d want to be remembered for—making sure we were serving all 26 counties and not just Amarillo,” Keralee says.
He was also a fierce supporter of the value of the people choosing to work in the nonprofit sector. “They are very smart, well-trained, well-credentialed folks doing really important work—professionals doing public good,” Clay says. “And I think [acknowledging] that was really important for him. They’re not just big-hearted folks doing big-hearted things. [Nonprofit executives] are outstanding business people, outstanding fundraisers. They could be doing something else and, frankly, making a lot more money. ”
Through his guidance, small and mid-sized charitable organizations became more stable and more sustainable. The Panhandle Gives helped normalize data-driven generosity while bringing in literally millions of dollars for local nonprofits each year. Clay points to the value of the unrestricted nature of the money donated during the event. “They need the money to keep the lights on, to pay staff, to upgrade computer systems, to do trainings,” she says.
Those capacity investments are not flashy or glamorous, but they are exactly what allow nonprofits to serve more people well—simply because it keeps them from careening from one emergency fundraiser to the next.
Your favorite local nonprofit is in a stronger position today because of Clay Stribling.
Over the past year, his life and legacy have already been celebrated in many meaningful ways, from lifetime achievement awards to the Clay Stribling Legacy Endowment Fund at the Amarillo Area Foundation. Despite this, we want to add our own tribute—not just to honor his enduring impact, but as a reminder how deeply one person’s leadership can shape our community.
“At this point, he would probably be like, ‘Y’all need to quit talking about me,’” Clay says, laughing.
Maybe. Someday. But not yet.
