State travel counselors get taste of Burnet hospitality
Lee and Nancy Kinard wore 1950s fashions during the ‘Back to the 50s Street Dance & Dinner’ Wednesday in Burnet, given in honor of 17 state tourism counselors visiting the area.
Lee Kinard carries a slide rule students used to make calculations more than 40 years ago.
BURNET — Gray skies and a bone-chilling wind did little to numb the enthusiasm of hundreds who attended the “Back to the 50s Street Dance & Dinner” Wednesday showcasing local hospitality for state tourism counselors.
More than 260 residents and visitors attended the celebration along Main Street between Jackson and Washington streets on the west side of the Courthouse on the Square.
“I think it was very well received,” said Sam McLeod, owner of the Tea-Licious restaurant at 216 S. Main St.
Tea-Licious hosted the outdoor event for the benefit of 17 travel counselors from the Texas Department of Transportation, the Texas Transportation Institute and AAA Texas who stopped in Burnet during their study of several tourist attractions in the Hill Country.
The counselors came from 12 tourist information centers across Texas, including Amarillo, Anthony, Austin, Harlingen, Langtry and Orange.
The counselors will write reports on the destinations they visited to help formulate state tourism initiatives.
“This whole party is to honor them for all the work they do to promote tourism in the state,” McLeod said.
Tea-Licious staff served typical 1950s fare — hamburgers, French fries and vanilla milkshakes — during the open-air party, while disc jockey Richard Miller played hits from the 1950s, including “Good Golly Miss Molly” by Little Richard; “Great Balls of Fire” by Jerry Lee Lewis; “The Great Pretender” by The Platters; “Hound Dog” by Elvis Presley; “Summertime Blues” by Eddie Cochrane; and “Rock Around the Clock” by Bill Haley and the Comets.
“It’s great,” said Burnet resident Butch Turner. “It does bring back some memories.”
Several attendees donned clothes favored by countless teenagers during the 1950s, including poodle skirts, letter jackets, sweaters and one wore pony-tailed hair tied with colorful scarves.
Retired engineer Lee Kinard from Wolf Creek Ranch sported the smoky gray letterman sweater he earned as a student at Temple High School, and his wife Nancy wore a fire-engine red poodle skirt.
Lee Kinard earned letters for band and slide rule at Temple, he recalled.
“Those poor football players only got one letter,” Kinard quipped.
raymond@thepicayune.com