| Pamela Arnosky |
| “Pamela is the hardest working person I know”. We have heard this many times from many people, and it’s probably true. But she also takes time to home school our four kids, and is a world-class fabric artist, piecing together incredible quilts and doing single-strand embroidery. One of her pieces (Frank’s wedding shirt!) features balloon sleeves embroidered in botanically perfect wildflowers--all in brilliant colors. “It’s a museum piece”, we’ve been told! |
| Pamela has a degree in biogeography from Texas A&M and did graduate work in Canada. In 1979 she hiked to Pacific Crest Trail from Mexico to Canada, and for several summers, she and Frank led high school conservation crews for the Student Conservation Association, doing trailwork in the Sangre de Cristo mountains of New Mexico, and Mount Rogers, Virginia.xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx |
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Frank Arnoskyxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
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| A city kid from Detroit, Frank had never been west of the Mississsippi. He loaded everything he owned into a beat-up old truck and moved to Texas in 1982, bound for graduate school at Texas A&M. Frank sums up his first day in Texas: “It was late August, 104 degrees. I’d never been so hot in my life! Driving southwest from Texarkana I hit a new blacktop road, and from the sound of it, I was sure my tires were melting! I drove down the road to Corsicana with my head out the window, checking my tires! When I finally got to College Station I drove around town to have a look. There were 4 horses tied to the railing at the Dixie Chicken, just off campus! Texas was living up to it’s reputation!”xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx |
| A couple of months and a few Shiner beers later, Texas was in his blood, and he’s here for good. He has a degree in Horticulture from Michigan State University along with graduate work at A&M. He has worked in the Horticulture industry in Texas for over 20 years. In 1986, with little planning, he rode his bicycle from Texas to Raleigh, North Carolina to stand up in a buddy’s wedding. In late 2004, Frank will have lived more that half his life in Texas, and will officially declare himself a “Texan”, and dare anyone else to challenge it! |
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| Both of us have been active in the promotion and education of cut flower growing, serving separate terms as board members for the Association of Speciality Cut Flower Growers. We have hosted many educational tours at our farm and have been asked to speak nationally at a number of farming conferences and events. We continue to be involved with our monthly column in "Growing for Market". |
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Dancing
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Dancing at the 2001 Inaugural Ball,
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Washington, DC.
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| Dancing has always been part of our lives. We knew each other in passing at Texas A&M, and we re-met at a polka dance in Austin in 1988. As Frank puts it: “Pamela was dancing all evening with another friend of mine. I could see that she was the best dancer there. The last song was a waltz, and I knew I had to ask her to dance. I ran across the dancefloor and slid to her on my knee and asked for a dance. We’ve been dancing ever since.” |
| Music and dancing are threads that have held rural Texas together for decades. We have danced in historic dance halls across the state. In 2001 we danced at the Presidential Innaugural Ball in Washington, D.C. |
| We were married at the historic Agricultural Society hall in Cat Spring, Texas. Look at the back of Robert Earl Keen's record "No Kinda Dancer" for a picture of the hall. It’s a great record, too. |
