10 Years of Tex Appeal
A look back at some of our favorite covers
By JANNA ZEPP | Photos from the Tex Appeal archives
I know a mama is not supposed to have a favorite baby, and with my twin daughters this is certainly true. But here at work, I have 10 favorite “babies,” most of which are not my own.
Deciding what our magazine cover photos will be takes up a great percentage of Tex Appeal’s editorial meeting time each week. Mrs. Mayborn is the deciding factor in what our cover will be for each issue, but we pick out a broad variety of great options from which she chooses. Those covers that make the Mayborn cut are what “clothe” my “work babies.” And to be completely candid, putting a magazine together is almost like having a baby from start to finish, up to and including the pre-pharmaceutical labor pains.
I’ve only been with Tex Appeal three out of these last 10 years as of this issue, but the magazine means everything to me as if I had been editor from the very first issue back in 2012. We recently took a good long look at the last 10 years of cover photos, and from that, I chose 12 covers I love the most in chronological order. They are as follows:
December 2012: I love glitz and glamour. I love dressy holiday parties and attending formal dinner and dance events. This cover has all of that. It is timeless in its elegance. A black backdrop makes brighter col-ors pop, especially gold.
February 2013: This is the first issue of Tex Appeal I ever picked up and read long before I became editor. It is the issue that made me think the magazine would be a fun place to work, not realizing it was eventually a self-fulfilling prophecy. It helped that the couple on the cover was Teresa and Jay Adams. I had the honor of working with Jay back when he was Major Adams, an active-duty, commissioned U.S. Army officer in the III Corps Public Affairs Office at Fort Hood. Bias played a part in choosing this cover. I adore Teresa and Jay personally. They throw great parties and they are genuinely sweet people.
February 2014: I cannot resist a cover with an animal on it, and this Yorkshire Terrier puppy won my heart. I have two small dogs myself. Fidel is a long-coat Chihuahua who was born a dignified elderly gentleman. His nicknames include El Jefe and El Patron because he is the boss in an eloquent and understated way. Daisy is our other small dog. She’s a micro-dachshund I found wandering around our neighborhood in Killeen about 13 years ago. She is the cleverest idiot I know and loves everyone. She likes to eat copies of Tex Appeal Magazine from time to time, giving the phrase “reader’s digest” a whole new meaning.
October 2014: Chef Kanesha Roberts on the cover draws me in with her 1,000-megawatt smile and a plate full of delicious food from one of her grandmother’s recipes. I’m a foodie. I’m especially fond of food with family history. Also, all that pink for the October issue reminds me of breast cancer awareness too. My mother is a 31-year survivor and my maternal grandmother survived breast cancer some 25 years before she passed away at age 75. Previous editor Catherine Hosman knocked it out of the park with this cover.
July 2015: Anjna O’Connor, who was the operations project manager for the Central Capital Region Office of the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers at the time, stands on a dam platform overlooking Belton Lake. It’s striking to see a woman in a hardhat in person, let alone on the cover of a magazine. The safety vest in her hands in shocking OSHA yellow and orange with retro-reflective tape lends a bright pop of color to the neutral-tone background of the photo. The different typefaces used in the cover blurbs are a design risk. The OG term for this is “Mac-tacky,” referring to the multitude of fonts made available by the ancient Apple Macintosh personal computer for public consumption by the general public, but for this cover it really works. A professional designer made it great, knowing the design rules but breaking them anyway. Gotta love a maverick!
April 2016: This cover reminds me of another magazine’s style: Texas Monthly. It’s so Texan it looks like it almost smells like old leather, fresh cut hay, and sweet feed. Local longhorn rancher, Judy Hundley stands, smiling, with her bovine buddies, looking elegantly Texan in an indigenous cultural design wool wrap and boots. Though my father was not a subscriber to TM as he did not approve of folks from the East Coast running a magazine about Texas and Texans, I bought a subscription a month after he passed away. I’m pretty sure Daddy’s percolating like mad in his funeral urn, but I like the writing, the art, and the photography even if I do occasionally throw it against the wall for misinterpreting what is truly Texan and Texas. They do, however, have David Courtney, The Texanist, who is from Temple. Courtney is my favorite of their writers. His style is highly educated and earthy, which speaks to all of my Texas generations from which I descend. He also unwittingly teaches me much about Bell County in his column. That, alone, is worth getting haunted by the anti-Yankee spirit of my late father.
January 2017: There’s a horse on the cover. I’m sold. I have been “sitting a horse” since I was old enough to sit up. I never pass up a chance to ride. My mother’s sister and my Aunt Mary formally taught me to ride when I was about 8 years old. She and her best friend, Tina, taught my daughters to ride right up until Aunt Mary passed away at age 72 in 2017. I have a deep and loving relationship with horses, even though I no longer own any. If you’ve got a horse on the cover of your publication, there’s a real good chance I’ll pick it up and read it.
February 2017: The cowboy couple, Amanda Loggins and Cooper Terrill. I think they’re just precious together. While the whole cowboy culture is not something I regularly indulge in, it is deeply ingrained in me by my heritage and I will always gravitate to it. Living in Central Texas lo these almost 20 years, I have been drawn into it more than I ever imagined. So much so, that I now own western boots in metallic colors to match my evening wear when I go to formal events. Yes. I succumbed to it in spite of my intense Southern/East Texas upbringing which dictated no western boots at a formal event. Central Texas is reinventing Cowboy Couture and I just love it.
August 2017: Here again, we have a horse on our cover, but this time with a bride. The horse has flowers in its forelock and the hooves are painted. The whole image turns me 13 years old again. Of course, the bride is stunning. The whole image is a total fairytale fantasy. I really need to get back in the saddle soon.
Fall 2021: This is my final favorite cover from our previous 10 years. Vanessa Vargas of PHI Air Medical in Temple looks so glamorous in front of that helicopter. We are close in age and she’s why I now own a treadmill that I use daily to get back into my pre-quinquagenarian shape. Fred Afflerbach wrote about her for our autumnal Healthcare issue and he really captured her life as a paramedic and flight nurse, to include some pretty funny tales from the job told by Vargas and her pilot, Jami Mills. My favorite of their stories is about the snake-bite victim they picked up. Mills, with Vargas on board, flew to the scene. Despite Vargas’ best efforts at consoling the woman, she wouldn’t calm down. Mills said the victim was screaming in fear so loudly he could hear her above the din of the whirling helicopter blades. But upon arrival at a Waco hospital, the woman wrapped her arms around Mills and thanked him for a safe ride. “The lady had completely forgotten about her snake bite,” Mills said. “She told me she’d never flown before and was scared to death.”
I hope y’all enjoyed this trip down the happy trails of past covers as I have. I look forward to seeing what’s ahead for Tex Appeal. It’s always a joy to bring y’all stories about your friends and neighbors. If you have a great story tip for me, let me know at editor@texappealmag.com. You can also call me at 254-774-5266 (office) or 254-449-6106 (cell), but email is best because I have it in writing in front of me. You never know, but your story might end up on our cover and eventually, one of my favorites.
