From the Podcast Mansfield Recording Studio, welcome to About Mansfield. I’m Steve Cosio. We’re glad that you’re here today. Coming up on the show we have news, weather and sports. I will talk in-studio with a local husband and wife team who always have a hot cup of joe at the ready, as well as the Mansfield Events Calendar and we will conclude with your chance to win a $25 gift card to Steven’s Garden and Grill with the Trivia Question of the Week.
Taking a look at this week’s headlines
- Mayor, council and now school board races are starting to take shape.
- Are you registered to vote? If not will tell you how.
- Where are the safest cities in Texas and does it include Mansfield?
- Area residents chime in on the question: “What is the one thing you love about Mansfield?”
And our unscientific poll question “What’s the one song that keeps you in the car even though you’ve reached your destination?” We have the answers along with your weekly weather forecast and local sports. The news starts in 30 seconds. This is About Mansfield.
NEWS
Welcome back to About Mansfield
The mayoral and council seats aren’t the only race in town. Courtney Lackey Wilson has filed for re-election for MISD Board of Trustees Place 7. Wilson is about to complete her third three-year term so far. Place 6, currently held by Darrell Sneed, will also be on the ballot. There is no word as of yet whether Sneed—who could not be reached before deadline—will seek re-election and no opponents have been announced with their intent to run for either seat at this time.
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With the May second special and general elections just ahead of us, it’s important to make sure that you are registered to vote. The Tarrant County website explains the process:
Postage-paid voter registration applications (for both new registrations or updates) are available at the Tarrant County Elections Center, all Tarrant County sub-courthouses, U.S. post offices, city halls, libraries and public assistance offices in Tarrant County. There’s also a link on the Tarrant County website to view and print the online version of the voter registration application. You can complete the form on your computer and then print, sign and return the completed form. The completed application must be returned to the Elections Department in person or by mail to the address shown on the application form. Completed applications must be returned or clearly postmarked by the 30th day before any election in which you desire to vote. If the deadline falls on a weekend or holiday, the deadline moves forward to the next business day.
We will post the Tarrant County website link on our website, AboutMansfield.com. Just click on the LINKS tab.
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The National Council of Home and Safety Security has released a list of safest cities in Texas. Mansfield was one of four North Texas cities in the Top ten with Colleyville at number 2, Keller at number 3 and Trophy Club at number 8. Mansfield has been named the sixth safest city in the state, according to the national trade association comprised of companies in the security sector.
The rankings were based on data from the most recent FBI Uniform Crime Report Statistics. Over 7,600 Texas cities represented in the data, which looked at total crimes and population and then calculated a crime rate based on those statistics.
For more information on the association or the safest city study, visit alarms.org.
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Perusing social media last week, a question was posted that caught my eye. It was simply: What is one thing you love about Mansfield?
With over 200 comments, the things that stood out the most are: the schools, the parks including the Linear Trail, downtown and the city’s overall small town feel and the Pickle Parade. What’s not to love about the Pickle Queens? Thanks to the Mansfield Talk & Share page on Facebook for posting the question.
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Let’s take a look at the weather. Alexa, what is the weather forecast for the next week in Mansfield, Texas?
ALEXA: Next seven days:
Thursday 60 degrees Fahrenheit and lots of clouds.
Friday 62 degrees and lots of sun.
Saturday 64 degrees and lots of clouds.
Sunday 64 degrees and showers.
Monday 66 degrees and mostly sunny weather.
Tuesday 68 degrees and cloudy skies.
Wednesday. 65 degrees and lots of clouds.
Taking a look at upcoming local home games this week: Friday January 24, it’s Friday night basketball! Summit and Legacy men and women play at home. In Friday night soccer, Legacy men as well as Lake Ridge and Legacy women play on their home turf. Home games on Tuesday, January 28 include Summit basketball and Lake Ridge Lady Eagle soccer. Get out and enjoy some sports here in Mansfield.
Texas Monthly’s ‘weird news from 2019’ includes a story of out Mansfield. Video footage from a Ring doorbell camera shows a cow approaching a home near Fern Drive and Hidden Glade Drive, just off of Debbie Lane and North Main Street in July, politely peering into the front door window, backing away from the door and patiently waiting for someone to answer his call. The cow slowly walks away and (hopefully) back home. We have a link to the Texas Monthly top weird stories and the “udderly” viral video on our website. Just click on the LINKS tab.
Looking ahead at the “National Day Of…” for the upcoming week:
Wed January 22 National Blonde Brownie Day (go have a brownie at Creations Bakery)
Thu January 23 National Pie Day (go have a slice of pie at Joe’s, or Our Place, or Buttermilk Sky Pie, or Dixie House, now open on 1187)!
Fri January 24 Beer Can Appreciation Day (go have a beer at Dirty Job Brewing)
Sat January 25 Opposite Day (so… turn left when you meant to turn right)
Sun January 26 Spouse’s Day (go get a pedi with your spouse, you won’t regret it)
Mon January 27 Chocolate Cake Day (go have a slice of chocolate cake to die for at the Market Street bakery)
Tue January 28 Fun at Work Day, and I got to ask you, who has more fun at work than me?
In this week’s unscientific poll, Podcast Mansfield Recording Studio once again took to the Internet and asked the question, “what is the one song that makes you sit in the car until it’s finished even though you’ve arrived well before it’s ended?”
Some of the top songs included Rush’s Tom Sawyer, Freebird and Sittin’ On The Dock of the Bay but the top three songs are:
3. Creep by Radiohead
2. Stairway to Heaven by Led Zeppelin
1. Bohemian Rhapsody by Queen
We’ll have to the results of another unscientific poll next week.
That’s a look at news, weather and sports. We mentioned on last week’s episode that Tuesday January 21 was National Squirrel Appreciation Day. When we come back, we’ll get squirrelly when we talk in-studio with Amy and Daryle Ryan of Flying Squirrel Coffee Company. We’re back in 30 seconds. You’re listening to About Mansfield.
INTERVIEW
ABOUT MANSFIELD: Welcome back to another segment of about Mansfield. I’m Steve Cosio broadcasting from the studios of podcast Mansfield in Mansfield, Texas and in the studio today we have a husband and wife entrepreneur team, and they’ve just launched a new business here in Mansfield on Main Street and it’s titled Flying Squirrel Coffee and we’re going to find out more about that. Welcome to the studio Amy and Daryle Ryan, welcome.
FLYING SQUIRREL: Thank you. Thanks for having us.
AM: Good to have you here. Let’s talk coffee. We’re going to talk coffee and aviation. And first I want to know about: how’d you come up with the title Flying Squirrel Coffee?
FS: My dad was a pilot in the Air Force for over 20 years and then he retired and became a pilot for American Airlines. So, he’s the pilot and I’m the squirrel. So I basically embraced my nickname of the squirrel as far as being a little bit all over the place, unable to focus at times and just owned it and put my dad and I together and came up with the Flying Squirrel.
AM: And in the coffee shop, you have an aviation theme, do you not?
FS: I do. Absolutely. We’ve got an aviation theme, a very cool bar setup that’s going to be able to reflect that, I can’t give it quite all away yet because it’s gonna be a surprise here in the next week or two. But we have some neat pieces from aircraft that will definitely showcase the aviation theme.
AM: And what made you decide to open a coffee shop?
FS: I’ve always wanted to open up a coffee shop and the main reason is because I feel every time I go into a coffee shop, it’s about the atmosphere and being together. Community is super important to us and so I wanted to be able to build real relationships. I truly believe that’s why we’re put here on earth is to fellowship and grow and connect and just really I wanted to own a place that that could be everybody’s gathering spot. And so that was the main reason and I just love coffee so I put community and coffee together and I think this is exactly what we were wanting.
For me, as long as I can remember, she’s wanting to have a coffee shop. So I didn’t really get on board, I guess until probably four years ago or so our church did a study of a book called The Circle Maker and the preacher that wrote it, actually is a preacher in DC. And they came up with the idea to instead of renting a place to have a second campus, they bought a coffee shop and used it for their second campus and it supported itself and just a great concept. And I think that’s when I started seeing just the vision of possibly being able to do mission work through what we make at the coffee shop and just all started to slowly fall in place from there.
AM: So, Amy, tou talked about the coffee shop being a place for people to gather and meet. This is going to be a place for people to meet early in the morning into late at night, is it not? This is going to be unusual for Mansfield.
FS: Yeah, so we’re excited because we’re going to open at 6am. And we will be open Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursday 6am to 8pm. And then we are going to open on Friday and stay at 6am and stay open till 10 as well as Saturday till 10. And then on Sunday, we’re going to go ahead and do a 7 to 2. And that way we’d like to actually even can do a podcast and on Sundays from our church. So if you don’t necessarily get up and make it to church on time, we’re going to podcast TCal, our church, on Sunday so you can come enjoy a cup of coffee and enjoy services well in a community and a coffee shop.
AM: There are no coffee shops right now that are 6am until late at night in Mansfield are there? You’re kind of developing your own, your own niche.
FS: Yeah, we’re definitely trying to be open to be able to meet and take care of everybody that we can along the way.
AM: So it’s not just coffee. I don’t drink coffee after 12 noon. So what are some of the other features of the coffee shop besides coffee?
FS: For those people that are coffee drinkers, or at least at late at night, we’re going to have smoothies and we’ll have frozen blended drinks, we’re going to have hot and ice tea, hot chocolate. So we’ll have options for everybody. We also are going to do pairings. So we will have pastries we’ll have muffins and cookies and loaves and basically a great specialty coffee with desserts is really what we’re going to be mainly focused on.
AM: Let’s talk about the coffee itself. What are some of the types of coffees, I would assume obviously, caffeinated and decaf, dark, medium, light roast, talking about the coffee that you’re serving.
FS: We are partnering with Salter brothers. They are coffee roasters. It’s actually local here in Arlington, Cindy and John Salters. So basically the difference of specialty coffee is that quality coffee from Central North and South America. So basically all specialty means it’s a term for the highest grade quality coffee, which basically gives you the best flavor produced in those special micro-lots. So it’s bought in smaller quantities and it’s just roasted, like the day that we get it is when he roasted that morning of so it’s as fresh as you can get it. But yes, it’s going to be from different origins of the world. So anywhere from Central North and South America. So different coffees will brew for different months and just kind of let the public decide what their favorite origin is. And that’s going to be fun to just get everybody an opportunity to see what parts and what tastes they like.
AM: Daryle, you’ve been awfully quiet, letting Amy do most of the talking. What is your role in the coffee shop?
FS: So when we close and we need a sweep [laughing]; she is definitely the coffee expert. I even still make her order for me when we get coffee just because probably say something stupid. So now I’m the head flunky, whatever she tells me to do sweep, clean, polish, shine, run coffee. We are willing to deliver, run, do whatever we’ve got to do to take care of the customer. So we’re definitely gonna be aggressive about customer service. Absolutely.
AM: How are people going to find out about this coffee shop?
FS: So we are located at 110 North Main Street downtown Mansfield. We would love for you guys to follow us on social media. Instagram, it’s @FlyingSquirrelCoffeeCo and then Facebook it’s Flying Squirrel Coffee Company. So please log into your social media, follow us and we’ll keep you updated with all the exciting news that’s to come.
AM: Where do you see yourselves in five years?
FS: You first. to me the coffee shops always been kind of an avenue or to something bigger. We went to one coffee shop where they had pictures on the walls of different places they were doing mission work. So just to me the vision of say we buy coffee from from Costa Rica from a farm there to be able to go to Costa Rica and maybe put in a well or, you know, just kind of that the vision maybe aggressive I don’t know, the more coffee everybody buys the sooner we can do that. But just the ability to go back into a community where they’re farming the coffee and do some mission work would be very cool.
I think that we can think in five years. Ideally we would like to have more than one location. But even if I think the bigger deal is if we were able to give back locally and then across the world to where our partners are then that’s where we’ll start but I think God’s got a big plan so it’s gonna be interesting to see where it all takes off.
AM: Located at 110 North Main Street, it is Flying Squirrel Coffee Company, Amy and Daryle Ryan are the husband and wife, the co-owners of the coffee shop and we sure appreciate you coming on out here and telling us about your new venture and hope to come by soon and enjoy a cup of coffee.
FS: Thank you so much for having us.
AM: It was a pleasure having both of you on the show today. Thank you for stopping by the studios of Podcast Mansfield and thank you for your support and About Mansfield.
Welcome back to About Mansfield. I’m Steve Cosio and it is time for the events calendar for the next few days here in Mansfield, Texas.
WED JAN 22
Trivia and Pint Night – 6 PM · Big D Barbecue
THU JAN 23
Just Say JLA Giveback Night at Poured! Starting at 4 PM
Coffee & Crayons Teacher Appreciation – 4:30 PM · Mansfield Activities Center
Steve Cosio – 6:30 – Dirty Job Brewing
Vic & The Stray Dawgs – 6:30 PM · TapHouse 16
Texas Flood – 8 PM · Fat Daddy’s Mansfield
FRI JAN 24
MHS Spring Improv Show – 7:00 PM – MHS Performing Arts Center
Legacy High School presents Seussical the Musical, a two-day run at the MISD Center for Performing Arts including two performances on Saturday
Lake Ridge High School presents Sister Act, a two-day run at the Lake Ridge Performing Arts Center
JAN24
Phillip Johnson – Fat Fridays Happy Hour – 5 PM · Fat Daddy’s
Brews and Brains Trivia – 7 PM · Dirty Job Brewing
Preston Scott & Josh Burch – 7 PM · Branded Burger Co.
Friday Night Magic – 7 PM · Oblivion Games Inc.
Vegas Stars – 9:30 PM · Fat Daddy’s Mansfield
JAN25
Run with Heart – 6 AM · Methodist Mansfield Medical Center
Grand Opening! – 10 AM · Three Dog Bakery Mansfield
ACT Boot Camp – 10 AM · Mansfield Activities Center
DIY Sprinkler System Repairs – 10 AM – Chris W. Burkett Service Center
Saturday Watercolor Workshop – 10 AM · Gensheer’s Art Studio
Saturday Pokemon – 1 PM · Oblivion Games
Congressional Candidate Stephen Daniel and State House candidate Joe Drago Meet and Greet – 3:30 PM · By The Horns Brewing
Bark Ranger (15+) – 4 PM · Oliver Nature Park
Girl Scout STEM Program (5Y+) – 5 PM · Oliver Nature Park
Stargazing with Astronomers – 7 PM · Oliver Nature Park
Glen Templeton w/ Mike Donnell – 8 PM · Fat Daddy’s Mansfield
If you missed any of those events, dates or times, you can find them on our website at about mansfield.com
COMMENTARY
I was in New York City over the weekend and visited the SoHo neighborhood in Lower Manhattan, which reminded me, on a much larger scale, of downtown Mansfield. The neighborhood is rich with history with some of the buildings, such as the Saint Patrick’s Basilica, dating back to the 18-hundreds. One of the many things that catches the eye in SoHo is the art. Colorful wall murals are everywhere, reminiscent of Mary Elizabeth and Eddie Phillips’ work here in Mansfield. By the way, Mary and Eddie will be in-studio guests in a couple of weeks.
Shops and boutiques complemented the neighborhood that were also lined with unique, funky restaurants with a cool local vibe. We stopped at a Mexican restaurant for breakfast and the appetizers were cooked inside of an old, gutted Volkswagon van. I can only imagine the nightlife in the neighborhood with music everywhere spilling out to the streets. SoHo gets it.
Which brings me to my point. Downtown Mansfield is close to having that SoHo vibe — a walkable district with funky shops, boutiques and restaurants and watering holes. Will more restaurants and shops come to the area? Will Mellow Mushroom rise from the ashes? Time will tell.
Having attended a Texas Downtown Association convention a few years ago, the one takeaway, which I refer to this day, is an acronym — ACME — four components that make up a successful downtown. ACME, A-C-M-E, stands for ART, CULTURE, MUSIC and EATING. Put those four features into downtown Mansfield and watch the area thrive.
The walking bridge on North Main Street is a wonderful gateway into downtown, especially the way it is lighted at night. The construction on South Main is almost finished and I can’t wait to see the finished product.
That’s my comment for the week. What’s yours?
We welcome all feedback about the program, whether it’s about a specific news story or feature that you heard or the show itself. Feel free to chime-in by email at comments@aboutmansfield.com or by voicemail at 817-435- 9238. That’s 817-435-9238. We’ll read or play back some of the comments next week.
TRIVIA WINNER
We want to say congratulations to Sonia Salazar, who was the first person to correctly answer last week’s trivia question, who was RL Anderson? Knowing that he was a high school teacher, counselor and football PA announcer at the stadium that bears his name. As the “man behind the mic,” Mr. Anderson never missed a Mansfield football game for 33 straight years. Sonia receives a $25 gift card to Steven’s Garden and Grill. When we come back from the break, this week’s trivia question. I’m Steve Cosio. This is about Mansfield.
TRIVIA QUESTION
Welcome back to About Mansfield, it is time for the Trivia Question of the Week. The first person to email the correct answer to trivia@aboutmansfield.com will receive a $25 gift card to Steven’s Garden and Grill located at 223 Depot Street in downtown Mansfield. They have some new hours, you want to check them out, Thursdays, Fridays and Saturdays. You can find them on the Internet at StevensGardenAndGrill.com.
This week’s question is: The population in Mansfield, Texas has been rising steadily year by year but its area has not. How many square miles is the City of Mansfield? The first person to email the correct answer to trivia@aboutmansfield.com. The question again, how many square miles is the City of Mansfield? Good luck and thanks to Jan and John Cox at Steven’s for the gift card.
NEXT WEEK
Coming up next week on About Mansfield we will talk with a Mansfield resident who works on a national campaign to help the area be a safer place to live. The show will be released on Wednesday, January 29. Until then, thanks for listening. I’m Steve Cosio and this is About Mansfield.