When news broke that Tracy Lawrence would headline a show at Front Street Plaza, it sparked a wave of excitement around Texarkana. The concert, organized as the capstone event of the 2025 Veterans Day celebration, quickly became one of the region’s most anticipated fall events.

Comfort can take many different forms. Sometimes, comfort comes with a wagging tail and a heart full of patience. At the Texarkana Children’s Advocacy Center (TCAC), a yellow Labrador retriever named Yoshi is offering children a kind of comfort that words can’t provide.

On February 9th, 2023, Lisa Moore was diagnosed with stage IV metastatic breast cancer. Five months later, her scans showed significant improvement, and by September, she was in remission. Lisa attributed the healing to her faith in the Lord and the cutting-edge treatments in immunotherapy.

In April 2023, then–42-year-old Brittanie Cooper-Stone made a mammography appointment, just to get her husband off of her back.

“I was like, ‘Keith, really? They said I was fine [at my last mammogram], so I’m not really worried about it,’” she recalled. “But he just kept pushing and kept pushing, so finally I called and scheduled.”

Emma Grace Beck was a typical college student at Texas A&M–Texarkana, studying early childhood education. She took 15 hours of classes, attended sporting events, spent time with friends and family, and made the most out of life at 21 years old.  Everything was going according to plan.

Four-year-old Bexley Crouch is growing up with a guardian angel—one who happens to have four legs, a wagging tail, and a nose powerful enough to outmatch medical technology. His name is Harvey, and he is a loveable golden retriever who works as a diabetic alert dog. He is her safety net, medical partner, shadow, and of course, best friend.

In the United States, weight dominates conversation and culture. Diets, wellness trends, and fitness regimens drive a multi-billion–dollar industry, and media often promotes an unattainable standard. Social media intensifies the pressure, and high weight is often treated as a moral failing rather than a complex issue with systemic and biological roots.

In 2023, Jennifer and Trey Cole found themselves entering a new season of life. With all five of their children out of their home and venturing into the big, bright world independently, the couple felt it was time to lay a new foundation for their next chapter. Together, they embraced the challenge of building their dream home.

It’s in the places where people find community that they feel inspired to better their skills. Nevaeh Marshall, a senior at Texas High, is quite familiar with this concept.

Life-threatening illness is a facet of reality that seems inescapable. Heart disease and cancer are the leading causes of death in the U.S. While it would be convenient to imagine these as things that come for us in old age, after a life well lived, most of us are all too aware that a person could come face-to-face with something like cancer at any point in life. When it happened to Melissa Hanneman, it almost seemed as if she’d finally met an inevitability.

As you move into womanhood, choosing an OB-GYN is a daunting rite of passage. It’s a highly personal and vulnerable decision, and you need someone you can trust and feel comfortable sharing the most intimate details of your life with. For me, choosing Dr. Tom Wilson was a no-brainer—there was never even another option considered.

The annual Four States Living Magazine Fabulous 40 & Under issue has been a staple of the community for 19 years. Each September, 40 young people from Texarkana and the surrounding area are recognized for their outstanding achievements and community service, and this year is no exception.

At 71, Kay Thomas is busier—and bolder—than ever. A lifelong artist, educator, provocateur, and national arts integration specialist, Kay doesn’t show any signs of slowing down. In fact, she seems to be hitting a new creative stride.

“I’m at the top of my game,” she said. “I know how to build pretty much anything I want to build. It’s just—do I have the strength to do it? But I never expected my career to explode with such success at age 71.”

For Camille Sherman, the world got pleasantly smaller when she welcomed a 15-year-old boy from Denmark into her home. In 2022, Camille and her husband, Kevin, had flown out from their hometown of Atlanta, Texas, to join a business trip with Kevin’s boss. During the trip, Camille recalled, the boss was completing paperwork to host an exchange student and asked if he could list the Shermans as a reference. “The very next day, the coordinator called and talked to Kevin,” Camille said. “He asked if we would be willing to host. So we got our first exchange student in the school year of ‘22 to ‘23. His name was Alexander Bodholdt, from Denmark.”

A love for educating children comes naturally to local teachers Daniela and Samuel Tirrito. On a given weekday, they spend time with a diverse range of ages, from Daniela’s elementary-aged pupils to Samuel’s high school students. Between them, Daniela and Samuel have a combined 30 years in education. Instructing, listening, supporting, soothing—an educator’s daily to-do list—all continue after the final bell, as they parent four young children of their own.

Over Monica Washington’s 20-year career as an English teacher, one activity she developed stands out as particularly revolutionary: “Pie Chart of My Perspective.”

Monica would present a given topic or issue and then ask her teenage students, “Where do you get your information? What gives you your belief? What percentage is family? What percentage is reading? What percentage are your friends?” The exercise changed the culture of her classroom.

There’s an old camp song that ends with, “Camp Mystic, I will pledge my true and faithful love to you.” As locals share stories about the beloved summer camp they called home for years, it is clear that the pledge is more than a lyric. This blissful summer haven was struck with tragedy when floodwaters rushed through in the early morning of July 4th, 2025. Usually, the Guadalupe is calm and clear, gently lapping the edges of centuries-old cypress trees that grow alongside its banks. Many summer camps dot the landscape along Highway 39 in Hunt, approximately 18 miles outside of Kerrville, Texas. Camp Mystic is one of those camps, set to celebrate its 100th birthday in 2026.

As August begins, so do preparations for the incoming school year: gathering supplies, buying clothes, and memorizing the new schedule. On top of that, seniors have to prepare for the end of their high school journeys, and for some, their journeys as athletes. For Pleasant Grove High School’s Lynleigh Henderson, this month represents all of that and more.

Before most of their peers have even stumbled out of bed, the White brothers have already mowed half a neighborhood. What started as a remedy for boredom during the memorably sluggish summer of 2020 has snowballed into six seasons of lawn care for Jeb, Chapman, and Harrison White. “We mainly mow, but we do [also] offer light landscaping and bed work,” Chapman said. “We started doing yards with our parent’s lawn equipment but have since invested about $7,500 in purchasing our own equipment.”

Brody Fincher fell in love with art as a child and has pursued it relentlessly since. Currently a senior at Queen City High School, he has made a name for himself on campus through his artwork. 

“Beautiful things always captured my attention, and I was drawn to the subject [of art],” Brody said. He also has several family members who were involved in the arts who helped to encourage his interests. In particular, his mom, who is a painter and interior decorator, has influenced him to grow his art from a hobby to a professional skill. They now work alongside each other to transform spaces with new art and interior design.