Thursday, May 1,1989
The Battalion
Page 13
fPopular Snook bakery
entices hungry Aggies
'James A. Johnson
FEATURE WRITER
a I
■ 1 While larger cities in Texas con-
^ Binue to boast of their inviting tourist
Bttractions, smaller, more isolated
Eommunities often go unnoticed.
But for 20 years, a thriving bakery in
earby Snook has overcome that
mall-town stereotype by giving Ag-
ties a tasty reason to travel 14 miles
est to satisfy their sweet tooth.
Whether students make a pit stop
on the way back home from an out-
bf-town school event, or whether
they merely have a craving for fresh
Btolaches (Czechoslovakian pastries),
her the Snook Baking Company has
lured people from the Brazos Valley
nd beyond since it opened in 1968.
The bakery, which was founded
iy Charles Sebesta, had the distinc-
ion of existing for four years before
nook was even declared a town,
ourists and students agree that
[juspinook’s population of 450 people
ight seem misleading after seeing
he bakery’s daily number of loyal
ustomers.
Lydia Faust, who bought the bak-
lery in 1983 after working there since
iota-fits opening, said she remembers
igirpvhen coffee was served for only a
daj-Biickel.
: hv I: “We thought, what better way to
onff bring industry to the area than to
nals lbpen our own bakery,” Faust recalls.
‘L..
P'Since A&M was pretty close, I knew
lit was a perfect opportunity.”
| Faust, who baked her first cake at
age six, proposed the company’s first
frecipe for its famous kolaches before
it opened. Although breads, cakes,
pies, cookies, donuts, streudel, noo
dles and other lunch items are popu
lar attractions, the kolaches, by far,
are the No. 1 seller to date, she said.
In addition to utilizing strictly
hand-made techniques, the staff uses
only fresh fruits to which they add
sweetening for a flavor that has kept
|ustomers returning for more.
“We stress quality because it has to
be worth the drive coming here,” she
ibeiij says. “That’s what we try to originate
pai-
through our business with the local
and traveling publics.”
Students and out-of-town motor
ists could easily save time and gas by
driving to larger city bakeries closer
to home, but most prefer traveling
the extra miles to absorb the down-
home warmth available in Snook
and its bakery.
Valerie Bartay, a sophomore po
litical science major from San Anto
nio, says she often travels out of the
way to buy the bakery’s pastries.
“Every time I head back to school
after vacations or holidays, I make it
a point to stop off at Snook to get
some fresh kolaches,” Bartay says. “I
have to travel a few extra miles, but
it’s worth it because the setting is a
lot more relaxed, not pushy like the
ones (bakeries) in larger cities.”
Faust said former A&M students
who used to visit the bakery when at
tending college still make surprise
vists, either for old times’ sake or
simply to “renew old friendships.”
“It’s been said that Snook’s hospi
tality attracts people from everywhe
re,” Faust says. “Some want to meet
their friends here to catch up on the
latest new's. And since agriculture is
a big source of income or interest for
farmers and Aggies in the area,
farming techniques are often a hot
topic,” she says with her southern
Czech accent. “Yes . . . we’ve got it all
right here.”
At the top of the company’s prior
ity list is satisfaction. If a finished
product does not pass the staffs
evaluation, Faust says it never
reaches the shelf.
“Most agree they haven’t eaten
anything so good,” she says while
watching the many smiling, eager
faces waiting to indulge in her tanta
lizing creations.
“They’re really surprised how
good our items are considering the
bakery’s size and how small the town
is that they come from.”
Despite being the size of a small
convenience store, the company’s
staff produces enough kolaches and
pastries every week to feed a town
ten times its size. Faust said it is not
unusual for them to distribute 500 to
600 dozen each week, particularly
around the first of each month when
customers get their pavchecks.
The company employs six bakers
each day, and when additional help
is necessary (which is quite often),
Faust simply calls some high school s
students to support the typical
Snook teamwork approach.
Each day at 5 a.m. (except Sun
day), Faust and her dedicated staff
begin a productive workday.
Through combined efforts, em
ployees comment and offer helpful
suggestions to one another with
hopes of providing services that pas
try connoisseurs who visit the bakery
for the first time will rate high in
quality.
Angie Valdez, a senior zoology
major from Houston, says she re
members hearing faculty and stu
dents make a fuss about how good
the bakery’s kolaches were.
“I decided to go there and see
what all the hype was about,” says
Valdez. “The first time I went there,
I noticed all these cars with A&M
bumper stickers parked in front.
“At first, I didn’t know what the
deal was,” she recalls. “Then I re
membered there was an Aggie foot
ball game that afternoon and every
body was obviously stocking up.”
Faust’s kolache recipe won the
1988 state championship in the pro
fessional division at the annual Ko
lache Festival in Caldwell. The festi
val, which attracted 25,000 people
last September, drew contest entries
representing all regions of Texas.
But the competition Faust and her
associates generated proved too
much for their opponents.
Faust said there are numerous
reasons why new customers become
regular ones.
“The curiosity for something eth
nic and different plus the fortunate
popularity of the bakery’s reputation
have both played a big role in our
success,” she says. “It’s nice to be
known in a community for giving
the people outside of Snook a reason
to keep visiting our town and its ba
kery.”
Warped
by Scott McCullar
tLlS FOK SDMEWE
KEALL7 POWERFUL AVP
CWN, GEORGE-
DONATE THI5
ONE FOR THE
GJPPER.
08, PLEASE
I'VE HEARD
ENOUGH OF
THAT ONE
TO LAST ME
LIFETIME,
JACKIE.
Waldo
by Kevin Thomas
Adventures in Cartooning
by Don Atkinson Jr.
Guitarist Summers
releases new album
son?
ASSOCIATED PRESS
Andy Summers, best known as
the guitarist for the rock group
Police, is now making new-age
music. “The Golden Wire” is his
second album for Private Music.
“I don’t like rock ’n’ roll very
much,” Summers says. “1 never
felt very comfortable with it. If
you’re going to be in rock and
going to be uncomfortable, you
might as well be famous as well.
“There’s nothing wrong with
being famous as long as it’s the
product of your doing something
really well. The idea of being
well-known for your ‘well-known
ness’ is not a very appealing idea.”
He recalls: “When I started in the
business, I wanted to ‘make it.’ I
think that translates into getting
recognized for being good at
what you do. I started out as a kid
playing guitar for the sheer love
of it.”
According to Summers, “The
Golden Wire” is an evolution
from last year’s “Mysterious Bar
ricades.” He says: “The new one
is a much more rhythmic record
and more extroverted. The gui
tar takes a much higher profile
on this record than the previous.
It is clearly there.
“I’m very concerned with the
flow of one track to another.
Some flow directly from one into
another. There are little bridges
that hook the end into the begin
ning of the next feed. I try to con
ceive of the album as an entire
picture, a whole piece.
“There’s a mood that pervades
the entire album. They’re not all
the same tempo or rhythm, but
I’m not going to do Dixieland in
the middle of an album like this.”
Titles of tracks include “The
Golden Wire,” “Island of Silk”
and “Journey Through Blue Re
gions.”
Summers says: “I don’t say,
Tm going to make a dream land
scape.’ But I think I have a fairly
cinematic sense as far as music
goes.
“I wrote the whole album first.
I set up the basic structure along
with the co-producer David
Hentschel.In his producing role,
Summers says, “I think one of the
key words is keeping perspective.
You have to write and be able to
play well. And you want to re
move yourself from it, so you
know how it really goes.”
“Piya Tose” is the only vocal
track, sung by Najma Akhtar. It’s
a song Summers says he has loved
for years, from the sound track of
“The Guide.”
“The problem was finding
someone who could sing it. It’s in
Hindi in seven-four time.” Sum
mers heard Akhtar on a tape. He
sent her the song and she made a
demo record. “I was very
knocked out,” he says. “We flew
her over from London. It was as
simple as that. It came out beauti
ful.”
“The Golden Wire” is the fifth
album that Summers has pro
duced or co-produced. He made
“I Advance Masked” in 1982 and
“Bewitched” in 1984 with Robert
Fripp. In 1987 he made “XYZ,”
which he calls “kind of an ad
vanced form of rock ’n’ roll.” He
put that band together and sang.
It isn’t his favorite.
“I suppose I’d had a certain de
sire to do that and a certain pres
sure on me to do stuff like that. I
think it was a very good record. It
put me back in the rock scene. I
found it was an arena I didn’t
want to be in any more.
“That record finished that
whole scene for me. If you want
to get to grips with something, if
you have a hands-on experience
with it, then you can decide. I
prefer now to make instrumental
records.”
In 1987, Summers moved to
Los Angeles, where he has been
working on sound tracks.His
next, “Heat Wave,” will be out in
July.
“I wrote the title song but you
never know with these guys. Ev
erybody loves the song at the mo
ment. They might decide to put
somebody else’s song in. I’m
philosophical about it at this
point.”
Summers says: “There’s no
question my dearest love is mak
ing my own records. I feel I make
my statements there.”
Summers toured for a month
last summer with Tangerine
Dream, appearing on stage alone
— a first.
He says: “It took guts and a lot
of equipment. I had been work
ing up this thing of playing tape
loops. You play three or four sec
onds of music into a digital ma
chine. I can lock it so it’ll keep re
peating. I can produce three or
four of these, get them going at
once and improvise over the top.
That’s the main core of what I
was doing on that tour.”
The guitarist says he doesn’t
know what listeners seek in his re
cordings. “I don’t think about the
market an awful lot. I keep most
of my thinking to the actual music
that I make.
“I know the kinds of things
people like. I’m not stupid. I’ve
been around long enough. Also, I
like to feel pleased I did some
thing good at the end of it, maybe
better than what I did before. I
think this is a fairly accessible re
cord as instrumentals go. I think
it’s a very beautiful record. The
world is the judge of that.”
Austin student struggles to recover,
faces painfrom 12-year-old accident
ASSOCIATED PRESS
Nursing student Kathleen Mc
Henry understands pain.
The 35-year-old Austin woman
suffered severe facial injuries in a
car accident on Christmas Eve 1977,
underwent 31 operations to repair
the injuries and spent so much time
in the hospital she called herself “a
professional patient.”
She rebuilt her life, even as plastic
surgery rebuilt her face, and re
turned to school two years ago, be
coming one of the top students in
Library
(Continued from page 11)
back to the paper’s founding in the
1890s. There is also a modest collec
tion of cadet uniforms dating back to
the 1890s.
The archives has 95, thousand-
foot microfilm rolls of captured
North Vietnamese documents from
the Vietnam conflict. The docu
ments range from supply-road maps
to personal poems written by cap
tured soldiers. The film was origi
nally recorded for distribution by
military intelligence to learn more
about the North Vietnamese army.
Although there are about three mil
lion documents on the film, most of
them are not written in English.
Another lesser-known depart
ment is special collections, which is
located on the second floor of the li
brary. Full of rare books and collec
tions that have been donated to the
library, the materials in the special
collections department are treated
with extra care to make sure they are
not stolen or damaged.
The books and collections are
kept in a temperature- and humid
ity-controlled room to protect the
books. The special environment
helps keep books such as the 1640
book “The Theater of Plants” and
the 1644 “Herbal and Flora Book”
from deteriorating.
Even though some students don’t
know it, A&M has one of the most
complete collections of science fic
tion books and magazines in the
United States.
Kathleen Grumpier, a library as
sistant in special collections, said
people from all over the country call
for information about the science
fiction collection. The department
has complete collections of such
well-known science fiction mag
azines as “Amazing Stories” and “W-
eird Tales” from the 1920s.
The department also has a paint
ing of the Alamo that John Wayne
Austin Community College’s divi
sion of nursing.
Instructors marveled at her ability
to comfort the sick and critically ill
people she saw on her rounds as a
student nurse, dispensing not only
medicine, but the mercy and under
standing so vital to patient care. Her
instructors said McHenry, never one
to indulge in self-pity, could often be
seen clutching the hands of bedrid
den patients, silently urging them on
with the same upbeat spirit that car
ried her through the many months
of agony after her accident. She
brought the human touch to a field
gave to Squad 14 of the A&M class of
1963. The painting was used as a
background for the credits in John
Wayne’s movie, “The Alamo.” Past
A&M president Richard Coke’s per
sonal desk and rocking chair are lo
cated in the reading area of the spe
cial collections, and the department
also houses a special display case
showing Sterling C. Evans Library’s
millionth book, which was donated
in 1976.
The microtext department, lo
cated on the second floor of the li
brary, also offers students unusual
information. If you wanted to learn
what a 1780 British citizen thought
of the revolt in the American colo
nies, or what a New York yankee
thought of the attack on Fort Sumter
at the beginning of the Civil War,
you could look up a 1780s edition of
the London Times or an April 12,
1861, copy of the New York Times.
Although original papers aren’t
available, there are photographic re
cords of the London Times back to
the 1780s and the New York Times
back to the 1850s. In addition to the
New York and London papers,
there are 29 other papers and hun
dreds of magazines on film in the
department.
Kathleen Kenefick, a third level
clerk in the microtext department,
said it’s fascinating to go back to the
London Times and other papers to
look up the records from World War
I and II to see what was on the front
cover on a particular date.
There are some other unusual
things to be found in the microtext
department, she said. There are em
bassy records from every nation in
which the United States has an em
bassy, including CIA reports on ac
tivities in those countries. Some em
bassy records are from the 1800s
from China and the pre-revolution
Russian embassy records.
Kenefick said it amazes her when
a student asks for an obscure piece
of trivia such as the size of a partic
ular screw, and the student is actu
ally able to find the information.
dominated by machines and the lat
est high-tech gadgetry.
She was due to graduate this
month.
McHenry was severely burned
Easter Sunday when her parents’
house on Lake Travis caught fire
while she was sleeping in an upstairs
bedroom. She was engulfed in
flames by the time she was awakened
and could throw herself out a sec
ond-story window, suffering a bro
ken elbow and second- and third-de
gree burns over most of her arms,
legs and hands.
McHenry is hospitalized in the
burn unit of Brooke Army Medical
Center in San Antonio, where she
can sometimes hear the screams of
other injured victims, including U.S.
Marines injured in a helicopter crash
in South Korea.
Once again, she has undergone
skin grafts to heal the damaged
areas, and doctors have told Mc
Henry, her family and friends the
rehabiliation will be lengthy.
And painful.
McHenry’s arms and legs are
patchwork quilts of the skin grafts
taken from other parts of her body.
Her right elbow is held in place by
“two steel pins and a piece of figure-
8 steel wire.” Last week, doctors re
moved about 100 staples from
around the injuries.
Her room is warm to the point of
being hot, kept that way by overhead
heating lamps. McHenry recently
began to feed herself, and her diet is
supplemented with fruit drinks,
milkshakes and other sweets to keep
up her strength.
McHenry speaks in a halting voice
and her arms shake at times. But she
tries to keep her sense of humor.
“When I was first being taken into
surgery to get skin grafts, I was hurt
ing so bad, I said, ‘Oh Lord,’ ” Mc
Henry said. “One of the doctors said
I sounded just like Janis Joplin, so
me and the doctors sang a round of
‘Oh Lord, won’t you buy me a Mer
cedes Benz,’ ” from the Janis Joplin
song, “Mercedes Benz.”
McHenry’s family said she pos
sesses another trait necessary to
overcome adversity. She’s tough.
“That’s the only reason she’s alive
today,” said Mike Akin, McHenry’s
brother-in-law. “She’s mentally
tough and she’s physically tough.
Those kinds of qualities are going to
make her an extraordinary nurse.”
Carolyn Morse, one of McHenry’s
nursing teachers at ACC, called her
an “inspiration” to other students
and faculty.
“She’s very compassionate and
very caring,” Morse said. “When she
was working with patients, (as a stu
dent nurse) she could get them to
open up and share their concerns
with her. For her, no task is too small
if it will help with a patient’s care.
She’s the kind of person you’d want
to be your nurse if you were in the
hospital or had a loved one in the
hospital.”
Working as a nurse is the only job
that ever really appealed to Mc
Henry, her family said. Even as a
student at Travis High School, she
worked in area nursing homes, and
after graduation enrolled in Temple
Junior College to study nursing.
On December 24, 1977, McHenry
lost control of her car on Interstate
35 near Riverside Drive after she
swerved to avoid another vehicle.
Her face hung outside the car as it
slid on its side for more than 40
yards.
Her life was on hold, and Kath
leen McHenry would spend the next
seven years in and out of the hospital
as doctors performed plastic surgery
on her, eventually re-creating half
her face with skin and cartilage
taken from other parts of her body.
School was out of the question, so
she supported herself with odd jobs
and by working as a carpenter for a
couple of her brothers.
When she recovered sufficiently,
she returned to studying nursing.
Although her latest setback means
she’ll have to do a lot of cramming
for final examinations, ACC officials
said they will do “everything in our
power” to make sure McHenry grad
uates.
Several of McHenry’s classmates
and instructors visit her regularly in
the hospital, and the college is ready
to take final examinations to her
room, said Keith Ragsdale, chair
man of ACC’s division of nursing
and allied health sciences. ACC Pres
ident Dan Angel, who praised Mc
Henry’s “courage, grit, guts and su
perhuman effort to graduate,” said
the college plans a special commen
dation for her.
McHenry has a job waiting at St.
Mary’s Hospital in Galveston, and
officials there have told her they will
hold the position for as long as she
needs to recover. She plans to work
as a registered nurse in the intensive
care and critical care units, assisting
patients who have undergone major
operations or who are recovering
from traumatic injuries.
“She is going to be just an out
standing nurse,” Ragsdale said. “She
is extremely gifted in her care, al
ways has something joyous to say to a
patient and is one of the most com-
assionate people I’ve ever met. She
as deeply affected the teachers and
other students just by coming in con
tact with them.”
A fund has been set up to help de
fray the costs of McHenry’s medical
expenses. The Kathleen McHenry
Benefit Fund is at Austin National
Bank, 8108 Mesa Drive, Austin,
78759.