The Way I See It: October 2026

PUBLISHER’S LETTER
Robin Rogers, Ed.D.
October 2026

I’ve always looked a challenge straight in the eye. If I wanted to accomplish something, I figured I had to work for it, learn what I didn’t know, and keep moving forward—even when I wasn’t entirely sure what I was doing.

In my early 20s, I started my family, which is by far the best thing I have ever had a part in. I also bought my first business: a couple of vending machines. I was convinced snacks and sodas would supplement my income (pay for embroidered dresses for my girls) while I taught classes and managed babies. By the time I had earned enough to pay off those vending machines, I sold them. Apparently, vending machines were not my calling.

In my mid 20s, I began writing stories and copyediting a little newspaper tabloid owned by a friend. A couple of years later, I bought Four States Living Magazine.

I was an adjunct English instructor. I had two children under 5. I had a bank loan for the business. And I didn’t have the first clue how to read a profit-and-loss statement or do my payroll taxes. (About six months in, a federal tax agent called me and explained that payroll taxes had to be sent to the government regularly. It was one of those things that I didn’t know until I knew.)

There were a lot of hard firsts.

I remember a businessman looking at my business plan and telling me, “In order for your business to break even, you have to sell $12,000 in advertising the first month.” The previous owner had never sold more than $10,000 in a month.

It all seemed crazy.

But there is nothing quite like the frantic feeling of do-or-die. That first month in business, we sold $12,500 in advertising, and I felt like I had written a bestseller. I had asked nearly everyone I knew to believe in my idea and advertise, and thankfully, friends and local businesses took a chance on me.

Somehow, I lucked into a career I have genuinely loved. Four States Living has given me the freedom to learn about our communities, know the people who make things happen, and become part of the fabric of Texarkana. It has also given me something I never expected to love quite so much: history.

Three years ago, I was fortunate to volunteer on a TXK150 team that helped put together a musical program celebrating Texarkana’s history for our sesquicentennial. With the help of historians, volunteers, the Texarkana Symphony Orchestra, and Judge Josh Morriss III, we dug into the people, places, railroads, and businesses that helped build this community. Judge Morriss, owner of Silvermoon on Broad, knows a tremendous amount about Texarkana history. I loved listening to him connect names, dates, and stories to the city I thought I already knew. Then I discovered something particularly fun: both of us could trace our families back to the 1800s.

My great-great-great-grandfather Henry F. Briley came to Texarkana in the 1800s and opened Briley Dry Goods on Broad Street. Judge Morriss’ great-grandfather F.W. Offenhauser arrived in Texarkana as a young man in the 1880s to work for B.F. Smith’s Dry Goods, serving the men who were building the railroads. Both men worked in retail on Broad Street, at the same time, right in the middle of the bustling, Wild West railroad town of Texarkana.

By all accounts, Henry Briley was a good businessman, but Fred Offenhauser was exceptionally industrious. Through a series of events, he became the founder of Offenhauser Insurance, a company still thriving today.

Texarkana took a chance on Fred Offenhauser, and Fred Offenhauser took care of the people in Texarkana who trusted him. That simple exchange of trust, hard work, and keeping promises became a legacy.

When I think about Henry Briley and Fred Offenhauser, I like to imagine them as friends. With only a few thousand people living here at that time, surely they knew one another. I have scoured old newspapers from the 1880s and discovered that both Briley Dry Goods and Offenhauser Insurance were doing their regular share of advertising with the local daily newspapers. That tickles me. After all, my own business has flourished because businesses still need to advertise in print, even in 2026.

H.F. Briley was the only generation of my family to work retail on Broad Street. His offspring were sheriff deputies, real estate businessmen, and oil men. Now, there is a publisher in the family. There is something powerful about being able to trace where you came from.

When Texarkana celebrated its sesquicentennial in 2023, Four States Living published a history issue that received rave reviews. With 2026 marking our nation’s 250th anniversary, it seemed only fitting that we return to history. And when we started thinking about the cover, one man kept coming to mind: Fred Offenhauser.

Four generations and over 120 years later, the Offenhauser name remains on an expanding insurance company, with descendants and community-minded partners continuing his legacy. Fred Offenhauser could never have imagined what his name would mean all these years later. That is the magic of history.

When I think about Texarkana families whose roots run deep and whose service has touched this community in countless ways, the Offenhauser-Morriss family immediately comes to mind. Boy Scouts, United Way leadership, Chamber presidents, museum boards, community honors—the list goes on. But what moves me most is not a list of accomplishments. It is the idea that one young man arrived in a rough railroad town, saw an opportunity to make it better, worked hard, kept his promises, and left something behind that continued long after he was gone. The Offenhauser descendents inherited more than a name—they inherited an example to follow, in more ways than one. That is legacy.

Looking backward doesn’t mean living in the past. It gives us perspective for moving forward. As we celebrate 250 years of our nation, I hope we remember that every great community was built the same way—one person, one business, one family, one promise, and one act of service at a time. None of us can know what our future holds. We simply do our best work, keep our promises, serve our people, and hope that what we build will matter to someone who comes after us.

Look to the past when planning your future. History teaches us wonderful lessons.

I hope you enjoy all of the great stories of community stalwarts we share in this special issue, and as always, thanks for reading FSLM.