Lone Star State anti-litter campaign just one success in the life of writer/marketer Terri Schexnayder

After 51 years living large in Austin, Terri Schexnayder now generates big ideas from her tiny home in Kingsland. “Living large,” “big ideas,” “tiny home” are her own words about her journey from a single mom selling radio station ads in the 1970s to managing the “Don’t Mess with Texas” ad campaign in the 1980s and ’90s to becoming an instructor and retreat facilitator in memoir and grief writing for all ages. 

“I’m a big believer that when I hear the universe say, ‘Go, do, take that side street,’ I do it,” the 75-year-old said. 

Schexnayder (pronounced Chex-NIDER) uses “texnayder” as her email address, a fitting tribute to her involvement in the award-winning “Don’t Mess With Texas” anti-litter campaign. Before that, she was selling ads for radio stations. After that, she published a coffee table book, “A Majestic History: 100 Years of the Paramount Theatre” (Austin Theatre Alliance, 2018), and a memoir, “Selling Radio & Raising Katie in 1970s Austin” (Tiny House Publishing, 2022). 

The memoir tells more than her personal story; it walks readers through the iconic Austin of the 1970s: “the legend, the myth, and the folklore.” 

“… I wanted to write about ‘my Austin’ because this was the place I moved to fresh out of high school in 1969, a pregnant 18-year-old newlywed who was clueless about so many things in life,” she wrote in the book’s preface.

Primarily, she said, she wanted to capture the experience for her daughter, Katie McGillicuddy,who grew up watching her mom tackle a male-dominated industry that thought of women in business as secretaries, gofers, and the brunt of sexist jokes. 

“I want Katie and my grandchildren to understand the courage and willpower it took for me to achieve a better life while constantly battling the ‘Who do you think you are?’ voices in my head,” she wrote.

She started with a little-known station,KRMH (called Karma), before moving to a bigger market. She went to work for Pioneer Broadcasting, which owned KNOW-AM and a new station, KCSW-FM. Adult contemporary and the FM band were on their way to dominating the airwaves, and Schexnayder was there to help make it happen. By 1979, KCSW-FM held the No. 1 position in sales, and Schexnayder was its No. 1 sales rep. 

She went on to a long-term career with GDS&M, the powerhouse Austin ad agency that launched the still-impactful “Don’t Mess With Texas” campaign. Schexnayder started as second-in-command of that account but soon took charge. She managed the advertising juggernaut for over 10 years, working closely with what is now the Texas Department of Transportation.

In the mid-1980s, Texas was paying around $20 million a year to clean up the highways—a neverending task and expense. 

“The trash just came right back,” she said. “We needed a way to change behavior.” 

They hired a research group to count litter along 100 one-mile stretches of highway across the state. Reports included the amount of trash, what kind of trash, and who was throwing it. The culprits, they discovered, were mainly young men, especially those in pickups.

“We needed something tough-talking that would get through to the tough guys,” she said. “They told us in focus groups that they just didn’t care, that someone else was going to pick it up.” 

The famous four words that did the trick came from Tim McClure, the M in GDS&M—the others being Steve Gurasich, Marian Darilek, and Roy Spence.

“As (McClure) tells the story, he was walking around his neighborhood, shaking his head at all the trash on the ground, and said, ‘This is a mess,’” Schexnayder said. “And then, the light bulb went off. He’s the one who came up with it.” 

The campaign began with bumper stickers in 1985 and TV commercials in 1986. On TV, Lone Star State celebrities including Stevie Ray Vaughn, Willie Nelson, George Strait, and the Dallas Cowboys’ Randy White and Ed “Too Tall” Jones looked straight into the camera and said the phrase that came to be more than an admonishment against littering: “Don’t Mess With Texas.”  

“It became a cultural symbol,” Schexnayder said. “It became about state pride and having a tough, independent attitude.” 

The positive results were quick. 

“The first year, we went from 28 percent (reduction in trash), then 35 percent, then 50-something,” she said. “Within five years, we were over 85 percent.”

“Don’t Mess with Texas” was inducted into the Advertising Hall of Fame as America’s favorite slogan in 2006, its 20th anniversary.

“This was a statewide advertising campaign that won a national award,” Schexnayder said. “It was recognized nationwide. Everybody knew it and what it meant.” 

This year, the slogan celebrates its 40th anniversary with an ad featuring native Texan and singer-rapper Post Malone. Other recent ads featured actors Matthew McConaughey and Eva Longoria. 

Schexnayder still works with another favorite GDS&M project, the Christi Center, a nonprofit grief counseling organization founded in the late 1980s by Susan and Don Cox, whose daughter, Christi Lanahan, was killed by a drunken driver in 1985. Lanahan was a junior at the University of Texas at Austin and a graduate of West Lake High School.

This time, Schexnayder collaborated with the G in GDS&M: Gurasich. The agency gave the grieving couple office space and turned the project over to Schexnayder. 

“It was such a huge story,” she said. “My daughter was 15 at the time. It really hit home. Now, 40 years later, I’m still involved with them, doing volunteer work.” 

She continues to hold independent grief-writing support groups.When she moved to Kingsland six years ago, she began hosting twice-a-year grief-writing retreats around Lake LBJ.

“We know through research that writing, yoga, and the arts are good, cathartic releases for those grieving,” she said. “I’m not a counselor, but writing has helped a lot of people.”

She spends her summers teaching writing to third- and fourth-graders enrolled in Badgerdog Creative Writing camps hosted by the Austin Library Foundation, a job she has held for years. She leads memoir-writing workshops, recently holding four weekly, one-hour sessions at Lakeshore Library in Buchanan Dam. 

She also volunteers at Sharing the Harvest food pantry in Kingsland and with the Kingsland/Lake LBJ Chamber of Commerce. She worked as the marketing specialist for the chamber for three of the six years she’s lived in Kingsland. 

The decision to move from Austin to Kingsland was tough but necessary. 

“I got priced out of Austin,” she said. 

Keywords in a search engine led her to Lisa Morgan and Mike Leamon of Highland Lakes Tiny Homes. Leamon handles short-term rentals, while Morgan sells the around-400-square-foot homes. Schexneyder rented one for a weekend writing retreat, which led her to purchase a 399-square-foot jewel of a home and set down roots in Kingsland. 

She sometimes misses the city that taught her so much, but the community she loved has mostly disappeared. 

“When I come back from Austin, sometimes I just pull over when I hit that dam in Buchanan,” she said. “That’s when I feel it. Wow, I’m almost there. I pull over. The sky is over-the-top gorgeous, and you don’t see that in Austin anymore.”

A book club from Houston asked her to speak to the group when the members met for a long weekend in Kingsland. 

“I asked them what they planned on doing, and they said, ‘Nothing! We are going to sit on the deck, look at the lake, read, and talk.’”

Schexnayder also enjoys an evening sunset on the porch, but doing nothing is not how she rolls. In her first few days as a new resident of Kingsland, she signed up for a library card and joined the chamber. She also set out to meet people.

As a chamber ambassador, she regularly met with business owners and members of the media, establishing connections and networking opportunities. 

She stays active in the lives of her four grandchildren, vowing never to miss a special event.

“I gave up so much of my daughter’s life because I was working,” she said. “I’m not going to do that anymore.” 

Schexnayder will continue writing, volunteering, and promoting Kingsland, its businesses, and lifestyle. She is a storyteller at heart and the living embodiment of the person “who never met a stranger.” 

“My granddaughter asked me one time, ‘Why do you always talk to everybody?’” she said. “I said, ‘Because there’s always a story there. Everyone has a story.’”  

Schexnayder certainly does, and this is just a tiny piece of it. When you meet her, ask her for her business card. Check out her slogan on the back: “Big ideas from a tiny home.” ’Nuff said.

suzanne@thepicayune.com