I’m tremendously proud to be a Texan.

When I was a little girl, my dad would sing to me the words:

The eyes of Texas are upon you,

All the live long day.

The eyes of Texas are upon you,

You cannot get away.

Do not think you can escape them,

At night, or early in the morn’.

The eyes of Texas are upon you,

Till Gabriel blows his horn!

But instead of just referring to them as his alma mater’s song, he told me about all of the people in his family that had worked early in the morning or late at night just to do the work that allowed me to have the life I take for granted every day. He said that the eyes of Texas meant the people of our state's past, present and future all look at us each as individuals who have the responsibility to make a difference, to make our state into the kind of place we want each other’s grandchildren to live.

I keep a photograph on my desk of my 28 year old grandfather (Joe C. Thompson, Sr.)who was at his age one of only two people to have served on the city council’s for Dallas, Oak Cliff (when it was a separate city) and Highland Park.

During that time he was in the midst of fighting the Ku Klux Klan in order to integrate the State Fair of Texas. They had put him in charge of “Negro Day” and he therefore made a lot of friends with the African American community who would later work beside him when he began building Oak Farms Dairy via his company, "Southland Corporation" in honor of the land he lived in which grew to birth the 7-Eleven Corporation. He made many arguments against segregation and the Klan routinely terrorized his family, lighting crosses in their yard and gathering in groups of 20 to 40, all in their white cone hats and robes, threatening him to back down. But he didn’t. Instead both he and my grandmother, Margaret “Peggy” Philp Thompson, were willing to risk their lives for years and the lives of their children, to fight for what they believed was right. Today, I live four blocks away from the old Thompson family home. The very fact that I can do this, let alone even be in an interracial marriage, is due in large part to the sacrifices made by people like my grandparents. When I feel discouraged, I ask myself ‘How many people would risk their family’s lives to fight for human rights?’ and I feel a kind of fire inside that I know was lit by generations before me.

That fire fuels my belief in humanity’s ability to evolve into a society consciously aware of how it is creating the culture future generations will inherit. I call being this, being a “conscious cultural creator”. Dad called it living while knowing that the eyes of Texas are upon me. For when we know that internally, we can’t escape the responsibility we each have to be the best version of a human being we can. Why would we want to?

Instead grab that heritage and derive strength from it! Sure, we say “ya’ll”, but we’re also the home to the entrepreneurial spirit, to the innovator, to the dreamer, to the aspiring leader - progressive or conservative- I’ve got both in my family, and everyone says the same thing to each other,"Fine. You believe that, you stand up for that, but you better be the best damn___(fill in the blank with the person’s aspirations)__ you can be.”

In other words, “The eyes of Texas are upon you,Till Gabriel blows his horn!”

You minus well be forewarned: Southern women are passionate about their state. In fact, it plays almost as big a part of their identity as belonging to the United States does. Talk to any one of them and they will know their history up and down, swear their state has the best bar-BQ around, and that their family has the best stories, their state birthed the best blues and that their grits are better than any other place on earth. And like all of those fine southern women, I'm in love with my part of the South...

This webpage is intended to be a celebration of Southern Women and southern culture and while it will contain Mary Ann's personal stories, it will not provide specific information. If you want to learn more about Mary Ann Thompson-Frenk, then please go to her webpage at www.MaryAnnThompsonFrenk.com)