www.welcomehomergv.com
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We’re connecting the dots. Welcome Home just WINTER TEXAN • • • March 16, 2022
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We’re just connecting the dots.
VOLUME 8 • ISSUE 1 • October 12, 2022
VOLUME 7 • ISSUE 22 • March 16, 2022 • • • your official connection to the rio grande valley • • •
hello hello FROMKRI KRISTI FROM ST I
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can’t tell you nd just like howthis happy I amlast that OctoberHome that, is the Welcome is here! While mayseason! be a bitIt has Winter Texan of itthe been winter, earlyaforwonderful some of our Winterand we have enjoyed it with you! Texans, I dosharing know that many have already arrived and that, I’d likewe to know take it, thisour opportunity to before parks invite youfull to again! stick around, will be That’s to extend your stay a few days, weeks, not to sayfor we ever stopped. months... or even indefinitely! The Our summer was filled with fun keeps coming; we keep dancing, fellowship fun.fun Weall atesummer our dining, and and having way and through Texas ourjoin long, we’dSouth love to haveatyou Summer Supper Club, and we us. even went on a few day trips. wasmust full of If Our you office feel you go,life I’d like to all summer long,usplanning invite you to help spread the word about South Texas to everyone you new events, initiatives, and meet alongtours the way andofthose exciting for all you. you see every day planned back home. them to We also out Invite our single join you next season! We would love activities, starting off with toahave them us. Thefor more the supper clubjoin especially merrier! singles, kicking off October 30. We brought back our All This September, we will host our Roads Leadsotoannual Texas (thanks Tour second, not to the and had a ball touring the Reunion pandemic), Winter Texan Midwest, hosting Tour, so we’d also events like to and invite you gatherings from Sioux to join us at one of our Falls stops. Stay to Davenport all points tuned as we and announce ourintravel between. We were tourists in plans. your back yard, saw as many It hasasbeen a real and pleasure sites possible, ate asto serve you this cheese year. Weaswill work throughout much possible! I the summer months on days all of our have to admit, the cool programming so received! next season will be were very well evenI can’t betterwait thantothis seeone! you all and show you what we’ve worked Safe travels, Y’all! • so diligently on, all in an effort to welcome you home! We’re just connecting the• dots,
Kristi Kristi
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e v e t S t u o b A l l A
Story and photos by Eryn Reddell Wingert
There was an election last
Winter Texan season, not at all contentious but, rather, very cute and loads of fun. At stake: selecting an animal from the Gladys Porter Zoo’s adoptan-animal program. The voters: residents of Llano Grande Resort and Golf Club in Mercedes. The candidates technically hailed from across the globe, even though they are all residents of the zoo. The ballot looked like
this: a kangaroo, a camel, a galago (a small, wide-eyed nocturnal primate, also known Special to Welcome Home as RGVa bush baby), a bat, a radiated tortoise, andt aseems pygmylike hippo named Steve. we only yesterday The pygmy hippo was dubbed were celebrating the long-awaited Steve by Llano Grande resident return of so many of our friends. Jim Holycross, who campaigned Now, here we are bidding hard for the stout creature. He you farewell and safe travels.into All of says the name just popped his at head, and he ran with RGV it. us Welcome Home look Holycross became a campaign forward to your return. Plans are manager of sorts, even creating WINTER TEXAN SEASON t-shirtsFAREWELL with images of Steve’s CONTINUED ON PAGE 4 >> chubby face. “He’d drive around the
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neighborhood in his golf cart yelling, ‘Vote for Steve! Vote for Steve!’ says zoo docent Phoebe Holland. Well, Steve won by a landslide, becoming the poster animal, so to speak, for the resort’s fundraiser to support the Gladys Porter Zoo. Holland and fellow zoo volunteer Michelle Randolph pitched the fundraiser idea, and it was welcomed with overwhelming support by Llano Grande Resort management and residents.
ALL ABOUT STEVE CONTINUED ON PAGE 2 >>