August 12th, 2026

This is the West Texas Dispatch. I'm Nathan Bernie Sanders. The last time Congress passed a farm bill was 2018. Since that law expired in 2023, they've passed extensions. The current extension is set to expire at the end of September, and last week, the Senate Committee on Agriculture, Nutrition, and Forestry failed to pass the most recent proposal. Texas Farm Bureau spokesman Gary Joyner is on the line to give us some perspective. Gary, thank you for being with us today. My pleasure. So the House passed the Farm Bill, officially the Farm, Food, and National Security Act of 2026 in April. But the Senate's version, the Agricultural Act of 2026, stalled in committee last week. Is that it? Is the Farm Bill dead for this Congress? It's on life support. It may not be dead. What's happening, the chairman of the Senate committee, Senator John Bozeman of Arkansas, he actually left the bill, its markup, in recess, which means the committee, when it reconvenes, and it looks like September 14th will be the next time the committee is back, they can reconsider and again begin to deliberate and discuss the Senate Farm Bill. But right now, it is a... A very bright line partisan vote, Democrats against it, Republicans for it. And I don't know if there are chances for passage or not. There are some politics in play, politics related to things really not associated with production agriculture, but more on the supplemental nutrition side that is part of the Farm Bill, which accounts for about 85% of the spending. That's where the political tug of war right now is occurring. The Farm Bureau president said in a statement that the failure to advance the legislation holds Texas farm and ranch families hostage to political theater. What happened in the Senate committee? Why did the bill fail? The Democrats on the Senate Ag Committee were seeking a longer delay or postponant of some provisions related to the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program, or SNAP, as it's called. The Republican bill that the chairman had cobbled together, thinking he had enough support to do so, is a one-year postponant of some of these state responsibilities related to that program. The Democrats on the committee said they want two-year postponant. And Chairman Bozeman said, I don't know if I can go there. I may lose the support of others that told me one year is all they can do. So that's what's going to happen between now and when they reconvene on September 14th is their middle ground to compromise. The Democrats on the committee say there are some good provisions to help production agriculture in the bill, but they do not feel like they can support it, which is a one-year delay. on these SNAP programs. And it is disappointing. This is the time to do it. This Congress is a window of opportunity. We've got provisions right now that are being utilized at a farm bill and data that date back to 2012, if you can imagine that, regarding loan limits and some of those provisions. We've got to have a new modern farm bill, and this is the Congress to do it.

We just hope the Senate can find a way to get it out of committee, get it to the Senate floor, pass it, and then go to conference, figure out the differences between the House and the Senate bill at that point, find something in which people can support and get that thing across the finish line. On that note, just to take a quick pause here, we mentioned that the House's version is called the Farm Food and National Security Act. What all is wrapped up into that Farm Bill? The House bill is a good bill. It is the work of its chairman, Glenn G.T. Thompson from Pennsylvania. It comes from agriculture, knows the story of agriculture and the needs of farmers and ranchers well after traveling the country and hearing about the programs that need to be improved, need to be modernized. This farm bill picks up where this provision last year called the... One Big Beautiful Bill provided some additional safety net provisions for farmers and ranchers across the country. The Farm Bill legislation that the House has passed builds on that, improves some areas that were not addressed in the One Big Beautiful Bill. And Farm Bureau likes it. We supported the House version, and we hope that it has an opportunity to go to conference with a Senate version. to come out with what we can now consider the new Farm Bill, which is a full five-year Farm Bill that we've not had since you said in 2018. What do producers in West Texas look for from the Farm Bill? What are you hearing from your members out here? There's a lot of provisions that have to do with the economic safety net for farmers in West Texas. There are certain provisions related to crop insurance, loan rates, cost provisions that give some certainty, some predictability, not just the farmers that utilize it, but the lending institutions that provide them the financial resources year to year. There's provisions related to conservation. There's provisions related to a lot of elements of agriculture that are needed in today's economic situation. It's a difficult time in American agriculture for roe crop producers, particularly. Many times they're producing a crop right now that is more expensive to produce than what they're getting in return when they sell it. And some of the provisions that are in the farm bill traditionally help. provide a safety net, a floor of some of that economic risk. We think it's important. American agriculture is part of our national security. Food security is national security. We must have some of this predictability that a farm bill brings, and Congress for too long has just been not able to get a new farm bill done. This is our chance, and we're hoping that the Senate and the House can finally get it done before this Congress ends at the end of this year. What would be the on-the-ground impact of not passing a farm bill?

Well, if you're talking about what happens at the end of September, if the current farm bill is not reauthorized or just goes away, then you've got some provisions that are scary, that are important. There'll be a lot of positioning farmers and ranchers will need to be talking to their local FSA office and some of the programs that they participate in that they count on as part of their business model and their economic safety net. they'll need to be addressed. We hope we don't go there. We hope that there's a political will to get this through and get it done before that end of September timeframe. And we're counting on the leadership, not just in Texas, but the leadership across the country that is committed to this outcome that they find a way. But all of agriculture is saying, please, the timing is now. No more delays. We have to get this done. Is the Farm Bill too big? Does it have too many ingredients to pass in the current political reality? And if so, could it be trimmed down to a point where it could be passed? Well, it's an interesting question. Historically, the Farm Bill has been structured in a way in which you can draw support from both rural members of Congress and urban members of Congress. Some would say don't call it the Farm Bill. Call it the food bill because 85% of the spending. in that legislative package is actually related to food assistance programs to help those that are in need. And that oftentimes is becoming the political football between the parties associated with these programs. It's not so much the production agriculture elements that are important to farmers and ranchers directly that draw the most criticism and most attention. A lot of times it's the food assistance programs. It's makeup. It's eligibility. State responsibilities versus federal responsibilities. All those dynamics are now what's at play in terms of this farm bill. So that's where the issues really have to be resolved. And it's unfortunate that it's come to that. But the pairing of both the food assistance with the production agriculture provisions has traditionally been the way how you get. 218 votes in the House and get 51 votes in the Senate because you have something in that bill for those demographics. Was there something in the new farm bill that wasn't part of the 2018 law that your constituents were particularly waiting on? The new farm bill has some elements in it that are... updated that are new in terms of based on current data, not older data, in which the old farm bill was utilizing in 2018. So I would characterize it as important updated information, new production practices. There's new areas for specialty crop growers that are become more parent now since the last farm bill was passed. And even guaranteed loan rates in which farmers and ranchers can participate financially. Some of that information that is in the 2018 Farm Bill dates back all the way to 2012. So that's important that raising loan limits for producers is important in today's modern agriculture.

Another important provision in this farm bill, it allows for a year-round voluntary sales of what's higher corn-based ethanol blends or what's called E-15. And that's important for every corn grower because it improves the amount of demand on the corn that's produced in our country, creates additional value, and will help the prices of corn because of that year-round E-15. So that was an important new provision in this farm bill as well. Gary Joyner is a spokesman for Texas Farm Bureau. Mr. Joyner, thank you for your time. My pleasure. I appreciate your interest, and let's hope for the best in September. American farmers grow a lot of cotton, but not as much as they used to. Cotton is more expensive to grow these days, and the rise of synthetic fabrics has also tamped down demand for it. There is a plan to try to reverse that trend, though. Harvest Public Media's Michael Marks reports. For most of cotton's history, people have only wanted more of it. The world's textile mills demanded more cotton every year until 2006. That was the peak. You know, you'd have to look at it and say over the last 20 years, we haven't, we actually haven't had any growth. That's Hank Reichel, CEO of staple cotton, a marketing co-op that exports American cotton around the globe. He says the stagnation is because clothing makers replaced cotton with man-made materials like nylon or polyester. Those are easier to work with and often cheaper. Certainly what we've seen over the last 20, 30 years is a big increase in synthetic textiles versus cotton. During that time, the whole U.S. cotton industry has downsized. In 1991, the U.S. Department of Agriculture counted more than 1,500 cotton processors. Now there are just over 400. This trend has caught the attention of people in Washington like Agriculture Secretary Brooke Rollins. Now we are working to reverse course. Today, USDA is announcing our new great American cotton plan. The plan is a multi-part strategy by the department to increase demand for the fiber and profits for farmers. One piece is to support a bill called the Buying American Cotton Act, which would offer tax breaks to manufacturers for using U.S. grown cotton. What the act does basically is it says, okay, look, even if you're a Chinese mill. and you're sourcing and using U.S. cotton, to the extent you're using that in your product, you come back, you get a tax credit. That's Darren Hudson, Agricultural Economics Professor at Texas Tech University. I can bid more for those U.S. bales because I know I'm going to get a tax credit on the back end. It's an exciting prospect for folks in the cotton business like Seth Stevens, General Manager of United Agricultural Cooperative, a farm service company in El Campo, Texas. It has a whole trickling effect across the industry. I mean, prices, you know, have a good shot to rise. More acres are going to be put in the ground. And that's going to equate to more cotton to gin, right? So the effects of it will be large. The bill is still waiting for hearings in the U.S. Senate and House of Representatives, but has dozens of co-sponsors from both parties. But that's not the only effort to revitalize American cotton.

Cotton boosters are trying to claw back sales they've lost to synthetic fibers by suggesting those fabrics aren't healthy for you. With every step, every breath, every heartbeat, microplastics escape from our clothes into the air. This is from an ad by the National Cotton Council. It's part of a new campaign called Plant Not Plastic, which portrays cotton as a safer alternative to man-made fabrics. It has the backing of the USDA. Choose cotton. What you wear matters. Plant, not plastic. Microplastic pollution is the cotton industry's counter argument to synthetic fibers, and the message is starting to gain some traction, according to garment makers like Marta Miller. We're finding big demand currently. with people wanting to have a cotton-based activewear brand. Miller said some of her clients have concerns over the health effects of synthetic plastic-based fabrics, but it remains to be seen if cotton can serve the purpose of something like nylon or spandex. Miller's trying to make a cotton fabric that has the same kind of stretchiness. It fits when we first put it on, but after six hours of wearing it. it kind of loses the ability to stay tight on the waist or something like that. So we've been working on figuring out the exact way to mill the fabric. Cotton growers hope that those kinds of advances, along with some help from Congress, will help keep their industry healthy for a while longer. I'm Michael Mark's Harvest Public Media.

With students returning to classrooms across the big country, state and local transportation officials are reminding drivers to stay alert and obey school zone laws. KACU's Allison McCall tells us more about the effort to reduce crashes in school zones. When students return to their classrooms each year, the yellow lights begin blinking on top of school zone signs to alert drivers that they need to slow down when the kids are coming and going. But not every driver gets right back into the habit of slowing down and being extra careful around schools. Last year, drivers had 877 crashes in Texas school zones. That's a 12% increase over the year before. Two people died in those crashes. And according to TechSdot, those crashes were primarily caused by speeding and distracted driving. Transportation officials across Texas are hoping to turn that trend around. Jill Christie, an Abilene Traffic Specialist with the Texas Department of Transportation, says drivers should be especially cautious during drop-off and pickup when children may be crossing unexpectedly. They're excited to get back to seeing their friends at the beginning of the day, right? Or at the end of the day, maybe they're ready to get home. Or maybe they see their parent or caregiver across the street and just take off. And so as you are driving through a school zone, whether you're dropping off your own kid or picking up your own kid or just driving through, just slow down and pay attention. Christy says drivers should also expect school traffic patterns and drop-off procedures to change from year to year. Last year, there were 15 crashes in school zones across the Abilene District, a reminder of why drivers need to stay alert. We talked about this earlier, but the most common factors contributing to crashes is distracted driving and speeding. And it is against the wall to be on your phone in a school zone. And it is costly to break the rules in school zones. Drivers caught using their phones in active school zones face a $200 fine plus court costs. Speeding fines range from $200 to more than $500. And passing a stop school bus can cost the offending driver more than $1,200. While TechSOT is focused on drivers, Abilene ISD is preparing its transportation system for the new school year. And Tina Jay Jones, Transportation Director for Abilene ISD, says they need families to complete the district's new transportation application. Lots of school districts are going toward the direction of a transportation application, just to help in the processing and planning and making sure we have an adequate amount of bus drivers and deciding on routes. AISD has posted the application on the transportation page of the district's website. The population is always shifting, and that means adjusting routes. But officials say that there's not a significant influx of new students tied to the temporary data center workers that have arrived in the past year. Tina Jay Jones says that parents can also help keep everyone safe by preparing their kids before the first day of school.

I would also say a good thing to do would be to go out and practice with the students where their bus stop is and practice letting them know this is what it looks like. This is what you need to do. Don't run out in front of the bus. This is where you need to stand. That advice applies to families with students at public and private schools. 7th grader Piper Pyle, who attends Abilene Christian schools, says she uses the safety rules that she learned when she was little. I look left, right, left, just to make sure that there's, like, no cars coming. Pyle says she rides to school with her dad each morning and believes drivers need to be especially aware around schools because they're sharing the road with students and other families. Text dots, Jill Christie says that whether you're dropping off your own child or just driving through a school zone, every decision behind the wheel matters. Drive like your kids are crossing the road. As students head back to school, officials say a little extra patience behind the wheel. Keeping your hands on the wheel and your eyes on the road and a little preparation at home can go a long way toward helping reduce the number of crashes in Texas school zones. I'm Allison McCall in Appalene.

Protein is the it girl of the grocery store these days. No longer confined to yogurt and meat and dairy aisles, shoppers are looking for ways to maximize the protein in everything from snacks to coffee. And that's sparking investment in an agriculture facility a couple hours southwest of Abilene. Plantable Foods is expanding its operation in Alderado in Schlecker County by five-fold. Plantable co-founder and CEO Tony Martins joins us to talk about this expansion. Tony, thank you for being here. Thank you for having me. First, tell us about the piece of the market that Plantable aims to fill. Who are your customers and what are their products? Yeah, I think we're working with a bunch of customers ranging from baked goods to confectionary applications. But we're now also entering sauces and dressings, for example. So obviously we're seeing a lot of demand and a lot of pull from companies to increase the amount of protein in their formulations. But what we're also simultaneously seeing is that a lot of brands are realizing that a lot of the ultra-processed ingredients that they've been using. and are causing a lot of health damage to consumers and therefore they want to swap those out and that's also where our protein can play a critical role What is Ruby protein? Can you give us some context? How much protein, like maybe compared to eggs? Do you get out of the limna? Yeah, it's a great question. So, like, let's start with Ruby, which is a cute abbreviation for Robisco. And Rubisco is actually one of the most abundant proteins on the planet. So every time you eat a little bit of kale or you eat a little bit of spinach or lettuce, for that matter, you're eating Robisco because Rubisco can be found in every leafy green. And that's why it's so prolific, of course. But when we started plantable, we started to look for the most prolific and most efficient source of Robisco, which we found in a plant known as water lentils, but also known as lena, which is what we grow. And so, Rabisco, why are people so excited about this protein? And because it's been considered the Holy Grill proteins for the past 80 to 90 years. And the reason why it's considered to be the Holy Grill, is because it has the right set of amino acids to be perfectly tailored to the needs of the human body. It's a complete protein, so it contains all of these amino acids, but also it's very bioavailable and digestible by the human body. And I think what we're seeing right now is, you know, you see this trend of GLP1 where people are starting to reduce their portion sizes, but therefore need to max the amount of nutrients in their portions. that bioavailability or digestibility is becoming a critical component. And so your question about, let's say, hey, the amount of protein, you know,

We have, let's say, a protein purity of around 90%, which is superior to that of, let's say, eggs, for example, on par with way. But what's even more interesting is that if you think about, let's say, eating, let's say, 20 grams of protein, for example. Not always do you absorb 20 grams of the protein that you're eating, right? But the benefit of Robisco is that you actually absorb and digest all of the protein. and therefore it's super efficient if you want to increase the amount of protein you need on a daily basis. And what's the demand that you're hoping to ramp up to meet with this investment? Yeah, well, funny enough, like the facility is completely sold out. We actually had one of our customers doubling their order like two or three weeks ago for 27. And so now we're thinking about like, okay, it's great that we're, let's say, increasing our capacity fivefold, but we both likely need to increase it tenfold given the doubling of the order we received. Yeah, that's a challenge we have to solve for in the next couple of months, I guess. Now there's already a facility in El Dorado. What makes El Dorado an attractive place for this investment and expansion? Well, so the way we grow our plants, like we grow them in greenhouses, right? So each greenhouse is, let's say, 100,000 square foot. And the plants that we grow are aquatic plants. So they float on the surface of water. Now, obviously, if you grow something in water, you need to make sure that you have access to flatland in order to stabilize the flow of water. And so why is the El Dorado super interesting? First and foremost, there is a lot of land available. It's predominantly flat. I would argue the climate is pretty good. So we've had our fair share of rain this year. I don't know what it's been like in Abilene, but in El Dorado, we had a lot of rain, which is not really good for obvious reasons. But if you're building out more greenhouses, it creates like quite the muddy construction environment. And so what we've seen in El Dorado that we like is that the weather is relatively good. The land is abundantly available. And I think there's just a very eager community that wants to innovate and improve economic growth for the region. And so all of that combined have created a very favorable environment for us to expand. And what will this mean for the local economy? Are you adding a lot more employees? Yeah, it's funny. It's like last year, I think the Texas Census Bureau published their economic data for 2023, which is when we started our first year of operations in Texas. And what you could see in Schleger County, which is where we're based, is that the median household income grew by 65% year over year.

And last year it kept steady. So the median household income is still at that same pace, a place that we were able to hit in 2023. So it's exciting to see that there's apparently a correlation between our presence in the county and increase in median household income. At the moment, we have about 50 people working at our site. And over the next, let's say, a year, year and a half, we hope to grow from 50 to about 70 to 80 people. Well, there's a lot of focus right now in West Texas on water resources, and this is going to be, as you said, an aquafarm facility. Right now that region is not experiencing drought, but this state and that piece of it does see a good deal of drought occasionally. How much water on a monthly or annual basis does this facility need? Yeah, it's a great question. So I think what you have to realize is that we use water as a body to grow our plant in. the main pieces of water loss are either evaporation which we minimize because we have an enclosed greenhouse facility and the other form of water loss is by consumption of the plant right and so but because we have a close loop system so the greenhouses are on the same plot of land as our processing facility we actually recycle the water from the processing plant back into our greenhouses. So we're able to recycle almost 90 to 95% of the water that we use. So if you then look at it from a water per per kilo of protein perspective. we use about 90% less water per kilo of protein compared to eggs and about, let's say, 50 times less water per kilo of protein compared to dairy proteins. And that's because even though, yes, you need to use body to grow the plant, but the actual water loss is minimal because you can reuse the water over and over and over and over again. Tony Martins is the co-founder and CEO of Plannable, which is working on a major expansion of its water lentil production facility in El Dorado. Tony, thank you so much for your time. Thank you for having me, guys. It's time for West Texas Roots.

During the 1920s, automobile racing was becoming a defining pastime in the U.S., and the same was said in Abilene. Marianne Vadne reads a newspaper article on how Abilene's own racetrack became a debated topic, and she tells us all about the river that flows underneath the city. So we used to have a racetrack that was over in what is now known as Rose Park. before it was the fairgrounds and then the zoo and now the Rose Park. But it was quite a spectacle back in the day. So that photo is our local Abilene Racetrack way back in 1927. So this article comes from that summer in a letter to an editor. In a complaint to the Abilene Reporter News about the dangerous races, what was suggested as an alternative entertainment in 1927? A, a book club, B, prop playing races, C, a roller coaster, or D, a bathing suit contest. Well, guess what? It was a bathing suit contest. Now again, this one really likes to bury the lead. Because in a letter to the editor, Ian Kirby, yes, the Kirby, the Kirby Lake is named after, urges an end to the automobile races in Abilene. He wonders why the paper would not have the moral courage to come out and condemn these practices with all the power and force they possess instead of whipping the devil around the stump by advocating the raising of the standards of this damnable practice. Citizens should center its effort on something in the way of entertainment that is constructive, not destructive. These murderous death-dealing sports must go. But it has proven the greatest destroy of life ever known to the human race, war not accepted, and will continue to be ebid with all the precautions and safeguards we can throw around it. At the very end, he notes, you know, the bathing review at Galveston drew a much larger crowd, I am told. And most everybody got a thrill out of it. Why not have it here? Little Beach is ideal, and it won't kill anybody, surely. So, my question, reading this in retrospect, is, did he really have a problem with the races, or did he just really want an excuse for a bathing suit contest?

In fact, we have a river under us. From nearly the first time we started building in Abilene all the way forward. There are multiples of articles of different places like the Grace Museum's renovations were halted because of river. The old Abilene Reporter News building was supposed to have a basement, but then they found River. And it has been a plague on the different construction crews in Abilene for a while. The first state bank on Chestnut actually decided to use the water in an inventive way. James Hurley, who was in charge of the building's air conditioning, had the idea to use the water to fuel the bank's cooling towers. Instead of the overflow being drained into the street, which caused flooding, it was pumped into the evaporative system that heats and cools the building. At the time, it was pumping on average a thousand gallons of water daily. And this is in 1986. So... The river is still here, depending on the rain and other factors. It has been noted at different levels below the surface, different amounts of water. But generally speaking, it kind of goes around the middle north of Abilene and then even extends in this direction a bit. Back in the day, I actually attended Lincoln, and if you went down to the basement level, sometimes if there had been a lot of rain, there would be water that you could hear flowing through the cracks in the foundation. I always thought that was pretty cool. And there was even one article talking about that's why our trees in the downtown area grew so well was because their roots were in the river. We recorded Mary Ann Badney's stories at Abilene Flashback, Weird and Wacky Stories in Abilene Heritage Square. This is the West Texas Dispatch. Coffee shops used to be a place to fill up on caffeine and maybe read or meet a friend. But these days, coffee shops are offering experiences that go well beyond comfy seating and Wi-Fi. One of those shops, Majestic Coffee on Pine Street, has become a gathering place for seniors, musicians, comedians, and students, with its partnership with Neon Parrot Live, helping bring live entertainment into the space. KACU's Allison Diaz has more on how Majestic has become a cultural hub for Abilene.

Every Tuesday afternoon at 1.30, local seniors gather at Majestic Coffee for karaoke, giving them a chance to sing, socialize, and spend time together. Good for Mr. Hammond. All right. Up next we have... Jane Starkenberg Cook says she first found Majestic through other seniors she met at the Rose Park Senior Activity Center. And it's a social thing. And so it's just amazing what it's done for the whole people at the Rose Park started to come over here and ask about karaoke. And so now everybody's talking about it, you know, and everybody's getting involved. Starkenberg Cook says even those who are hesitant to take the stage eventually find themselves joining in the fun. And even from the most shy person can get up there. And once they start stepping out, their personalities just totally changed. They start being more outgoing and not worrying if they're not hitting the right notes. Research backs up some of what Starkenberg Cook sees firsthand. A 2020 study by researchers at Japan's Reichen Research Institute found that regular karaoke training was associated with improvements in executive cognitive function, as well as some measures of respiratory and physical function in older adults. The researchers say singing can also provide a form of light physical activity while giving older adults a fun, arts-based way to stay engaged.

Senior karaoke is just one part of what happens inside Majestic. Probably the original was being a place for live music and for theater. Owner Sam Wolfe says the experiential approach to his coffee shop grew out of his earlier work with Neon Parrot Lounge. We hosted live music on the regular, had touring bands coming through, and then we hosted Headwig in the Angry Inch. Over time, that live entertainment expanded to include karaoke, songwriter open mics, and other events. Wolf moved away from the bar side of the business when COVID hit in 2020, and some of those events disappeared. But the songwriter's open mic resumed when Majestic Coffee opened in 2021. Now Majestic and Neon Parrot Live worked together to give local artists and performers a place to share their work. Majestic is the bread and butter entity that allows for community and allows for the space to be open to the public every day, almost all day. And that's essential for cultivating community and being a spot or a third space for people to gather. A 2025 survey by the American Association of Retired Persons found that 40% of American adults of all ages reported feeling lonely. And over the last several years, people have sought out places where they can linger with low financial obligation and not feel rushed to make room for the next customer. While some can enjoy sitting in a park or library, others seek out third spaces where there's an activity that helps facilitate that social connection. Laughter is a great tool for breaking tension and bringing people together. What we do is we typically give five to ten minutes, depending on how many comedians are here, allowed them to do their bit. work on their skills. This is the place to do it. So we appreciate y'all being here tonight. And of course tonight, I don't know, we may let you go for two hours, Tim. You got two hours in you? Tate Ellison hosts the bi-weekly comedy night. He says it's a great chance for someone who's always wanted to try to make a room full of people laugh. And so I wanted to give people an opportunity to come up here, hone their skills, and be better comedians, and they could go out and do a bigger show elsewhere or here or, you know, just become better comedians. Franks and Audrey, D. Martin, you know. This is not as scary as I thought it was going to do.

Campbell Hoslik is a manager in training and has absorbed the welcoming mission of the shop. Majestic in itself is very community-centered, and so I've learned from Sam, the owner, he wants it to be mostly community-based, a place where everybody feels comfortable to come and hang out and just be themselves. One of the first lessons in improv is the yes and response to any suggestion. Sam Wolfe implements that approach at Majestic, bringing together coffee and conversation, karaoke and comedy, a space where people can just be, and a venue where local performers can share their talents. I mean, we look for any way of what we can do to use our space to do that, to support. the culture of Abilene is just being open to saying yes. That philosophy keeps majestic and neon parrot live open to new ways to support the people who come through the doors looking for community, not just coffee. I'm Alison Diaz in Abilene.

Thanks for joining us for the West Texas Dispatch. We're here each Wednesday at noon. We hope you'll join us again next week. And if you miss an episode, you can always catch up with the West Texas Dispatch podcast, available on Apple Podcasts and Spotify and on the KACU mobile app. Our executive producer is Heather Claiborne, and we had help from producers Shayla Conley and Caleb Lege. Calvin Claiborne is our digital editor. Special thanks to J.C. Gamble, who wrote our theme. I'm Nathan Bernie Sanders.