Alexis Jackson, The 007 Of Celina Texas

Ron Lyons (00:00):

Welcome to CelinaRadio.com recorded right here in Celina, Texas, a quiet little dusty sleepy town that has absolutely nothing going on, Guys. I am so totally kidding about that. Of course, this is Celina, Texas, and we have everything going on here. Now I'm Ron Lyons. This is CelinaRadio.com and we intend to have a good time. So put on your seatbelt and let's get started.

Alexis Jackson (00:42):

Anything James Bond, Daniel Craig, James Bond, Daniel Craig's character, James Bond. His passport has April 13th is his birthday, which is my birthday. So as a young kid, I wanted to be a spy. I thought I was gonna be a spy as Nancy drew read all those. So love James Vaughn, all the old ones, but Daniel Craig is my favorite. So

Ron Lyons (01:12):

All right, guys, welcome back to CelinaRadio.com. And that voice you just heard may not have actually become a spy in real life, but she did become the director of the Celina economic development corporation. Her name is Alexis Jackson, and she is one of the most influential women in the city of Celina. We're gonna talk to her all about the EDC, and we may just learn a little bit about her James Bond fascination, but before we get to that, let's talk about this crazy week that we just had.

Ron Lyons (01:55):

All right, guys, this last week was somewhat crazy and very hectic and mostly in a good way. When I say mostly in a good way is because we got through our election process. I wasn't real sure there for a minute if we were gonna make it, but we did. And we elected some new people to the city council and the school board. And I just wanted to take a moment and tell you something about these candidates. And I'm referring to the ones who won their races and the ones who didn't every single one of these candidates. All eight of them were amazing people. They all have hearts of service and they all subjected themselves to something that most of us would never do all in order to take a leadership position and try and help guide Celina to a better future. And of course, while all the election thing is going on, Celina was also having their Cinco de Mayo celebration downtown Celina on the square.

Ron Lyons (02:58):

Now, if you miss, let me give you an idea of what you missed. First of all, there was fantastic music. There was a lot of live music and street dancers. Some of the coolest street dancing I've ever seen. It was just, it was a very impressive display of some Mayan culture dancing and stuff like that. It was just great. You also missed out on some really, really good authentic food and just a great experience. Celina puts these events on in grand fashion. They do a fantastic job, and this was no different than the others that were just amazing as well. And we've got so many more coming up in the future. As a matter of fact, this Saturday may the 14th, we've got Cajun Fest and Cajun Fest happens on the square from two until 9:00 PM. Now there's different things that are be going on.

Ron Lyons (03:53):

There's a, a big concert by John Michael Montgomery. That'll be taking place at Cajun Fest. There's gonna be live alligator shows. There's gonna be inflatables for the kids in like a whole kid zone area. There's gonna be carnival rides, lots and lots of vendors, food, you name it. It's all gonna be there. Now you can do different levels of experiences as a Cajun Fest, starting down at my level, which is called the free level, which is where you just show up and have a good time. The next level above that you would

actually buy a ticket for the crawfish boil. And then one more level above that you would get a VIP experience that involves a V I P lounge set up and some front row stuff around John Michael Montgomery, and just a, a, a big VIP experience. So you can kind of decide what you want to do.

Ron Lyons (04:47):

And you can go online to life in Celina, tx.com/cajun Fest. And you can get a much better idea of all of the different events and the tickets and all that stuff. When you visit that website. So come on out this Saturday, may the 14th try to find me. I'm gonna be walking around with a, a video camera and doing all my typical stuff, but I'd love to meet you say hello. Tell me what you think about Celina, radio.com. But most of all, let's just go have a good time. Now until next weekend, I've got a special treat for you that I think you're gonna really like. And it all involves this girl who grew up thinking that she might want to be a spy, but instead it became the director of the Celina. EDC. All right, guys, I am here with Alexis Jackson, and we're gonna get into a little bit about who she is in just a moment. But first I have to ask you, how many times a day do you get called Alexa?

Alexis Jackson (05:57):
A few in my life. Most people have some in some ways nicknamed me, lots of variations of Alexis, Alex L

Lexi Alexa. So, but Alexa, definitely more thanks to Amazon.

Ron Lyons (06:12):
So, so that brings up a really good question. Do you have any of those Amazon devices in your house? I

do. And how often and how unnerving is it when Alexa responds? Because someone's calling you

Alexis Jackson (06:26):
It's, it's annoying. It happens. It's annoying. Sometimes I just unplug her.

Ron Lyons (06:30):
Yeah. Yeah. Don't you wish we could sometimes do that to people as well.

Alexis Jackson (06:34):
And I think I read that you can rename her, but I'm not even that tech savvy to call her Bob or

something.

Ron Lyons (06:41):
<Laugh>, you know, that would be really great. It'd be like Bob play classic music or, you know,

whatever. That'd be awesome. I may just try to rename mine.

Alexis Jackson (06:48):
I think it, I think it should be male instead of female anyway. Right.

Ron Lyons (06:52):
So tell everybody who you are.

Alexis Jackson (06:56):

I am the executive director of the Celina economic development corporation. It's a very obnoxious title. I'm not even into titles. A lot of times I say, I just work for the Celina EDC, or I work for the EDC.

Ron Lyons (07:10):

So give me an idea. So EDC, that that's a whole separate entity in and of its own. That's not people always say, well, yeah, you work for the city, but it's not. How, how is an EDC actually structured? And, and how is that different from the actual city?

Alexis Jackson (07:25):

Great question. We are a subset of the city. What we are our own corporation, the way that it works about, I think it was around 1979, the state of Texas allowed what we call type a and type B 5 0 1 C three S to organize all around Celinaes tax. So how it works is the eight and a quarter Celinaes tax that the state charges 6 cents of that goes to six and 0.2, 5 cents goes to the state. 2 cents, goes to the city, a half cent of the 2 cents comes to the EDC. And then the the city also has a CDC. We do have a five member board appointed by city council. We meet once a month on Tuesdays at 3 0 2 west Walnut street.

Ron Lyons (08:15):
So give me an idea of how long you've been doing this job

Alexis Jackson (08:19):
About four and a half years. I'm coming up on my five year anniversary in November.

Ron Lyons (08:23):

Okay. And I know from personal experience that you're amazing at what you do. Thank you. And, and I just wanna say just on kind of as a side note, thank you for everything. I know that with the growth of Celina right now, that's not gotta be the easiest job in the world. And I have a feeling that there's a lot of stress involved with this. So give me an idea of what's a typical day in Alexis. Jackson's life like with the EDC,

Alexis Jackson (08:50):

There are a lot of meetings. A lot of people want to talk to the EDC and specifically me I serve external and internal cus customers. So what that means is external. We have a lot of developers, a lot of businesses that have Celina on their radar. We have, we are the fastest growing we've Dallas business journal ranked us the fastest growing three years in a row. And with that comes a lot of attention. And so it is really my primary job and responsibility to field, all inquiries. Anybody from you, name it from small businesses to large businesses that want to know, hear more about Celina. That's what I do. I, I sell Celina from that standpoint, meaning, you know, I give them lots of facts. I give them demographic data. I'm pulling marketing information constantly because the, the businesses are making their decisions based on numbers.

Ron Lyons (09:51):

So essentially I'm out there all the time and I'm talking to people and especially with political season going on right now, I've talked to all the candidates. And one thing that comes up quite often is the drinking, the Kool-Aid. And I think we determined yesterday. The Kool-Aid must be orange Kool-Aid. So I

I'm thinking right now that you play a large part in creating the Kool-Aid would, would you agree with that?

Alexis Jackson (10:14):

I do agree. And I'll tell you a story. So my background is actually more in community development than economic development. So when I first got to Celina, I attended the ICSC, which is the international shopping center council. It's a huge conference in Las Vegas, every national retailer attends. And so I attended, and it was very obvious that my predecessor, Corbit Howard had done an amazing job at making relationships establishing relationships with everybody. Walmart, what a burger, you, you name it. They all knew where Celina was. Thanks to Corby's hard work. However, their site requirements are, they want any community to be about 40 or 50,000 population. And four years ago, we were nowhere near that. And after listening to the retailers, knowing that they're coming at one at, you know, one day, once we were closer to that population, my personality is like, well, what do we do in the meantime?

Alexis Jackson (11:16):

There's a lot we can do because of our downtown. So that's quite honestly where the downtown redevelopment started everything in city work and city planning and community development starts with a vision. And so the vision was and it had been for a while. It just needed, it needed some more love as I say it needed. So really somebody that was gonna cheerlead and champion the effort and the zoning and the code, you know, backs up all of those efforts too. And so the city and the EDC took a look at all of the policies and programs related to the downtown, started working with the business the business owners as, as well as the property owners to establish what you see today. But that took a lot of effort in rolling up the sleeves and, and again, creating a vision, you have to have a plan, you have to have a pretty picture. It, it sounds like I'm, I'm boiling it down, but I'm not. You have to have a pretty picture that says, this is what Celinaon is going to be. This is what the downtown's gonna look like. And then I took that pretty picture to developers and business owners and said, Hey, you know, now's the time to start investing in Celina. And I believe that we were very successful at that.

Ron Lyons (12:25):

So would you agree with me that maybe a lot of people who live here don't actually know just how amazing the plans are for this city? So part of that is we're seeing that people are, they're finding out about Celina and it's that, that small town, and it's the, the football traditions and it's the schools. And it's all these things that draw people here. But, but many times they don't even know about this amazing thing that's going on. So speak to that just a little bit, what, what all is going on right now? <Laugh>

Alexis Jackson (12:55):

Well, and a lot of people, it's a great question because a lot of people think that downtown is just the square. And we realized because of the existing grid street network, if you look at the map from an aerial standpoint, oh, we've got great grid street. And that lends itself to something that's very walkable and very pedestrian oriented, which we know, you know, from other communities that have been successful. That that's, that's a great opportunity. So having short blocks, having the historic character already there, but adding to that was really a lot easier than starting from scratch. A lot of people do, Frisco is a great example. They're downtown. They tried to create something added nothing and you just get a different flavor. So all of the bones, the elements were already here. We just needed to you know, create a plan.

Alexis Jackson (13:45):

And so we started with the square itself and really the downtown plan, the very first thing was a community survey. We did that straight off the bat just to make sure that we were checking in with the community because resoundingly, everyone loved the downtown. However, if we were gonna make a huge investment in the downtown, we wanted to make sure that that's what the community was on board for. So we did a community survey and then we had a lot of community meetings related to the downtown early on. This was about three, four years ago. And we came to a consensus, had a downtown master plan and started to implement that. But again, that area of the square goes so much further. And so the next step was that entertainment district. So we got a lot of interest in restaurants, shopping and dining specifically, you know, with an alcohol side to it.

Alexis Jackson (14:39):

You know, there's a, there's fairly friendly and with an alcohol twist to it in a lot of successful downtown. So we, we saw roller town wanted to come in and little one in penguin contributed to that. So that area all over on that side of the, the the railroad is, is what we consider our entertainment district. So we're constantly looking at the whole downtown and making sure that all of the infrastructure is there. I know, hear a lot about flooding. The city has a plan and has implemented that things all just take a lot of time and a lot of money. And so just know that there is a plan, there's a vision, the businesses, the building owners, a property owners are all behind it because quite frankly, we asked them before we even started any of this.

Ron Lyons (15:28):
So it's going to be absolutely phenomenal. And, and where might somebody go if they wanted to learn

more about what's up and coming? Are there any resources that you would wanna share?

Alexis Jackson (15:38):

There are a few resources, the city website, so Celina dash, tx.gov. If you navigate to the planning department they have all of the, anything related to the downtown ma master plans or any of the visioning related to that. Also the Celina edc.com under business, and then site selection. We have a lot of the, the commercial projects that are coming up out of the ground. We try to put as much information as we can, if we know that's up and coming, we started a marketing campaign at the beginning of this year. So it's, we have coming soon as a resident of Celina. And I constantly drive by different places when I see something under construction or something changing. I want to know. And a lot of times there's no sign outside. So as the EDC, we're trying at our best to inform the community of what's coming, whether it's literally, they just broke ground <laugh> and there's nothing there other than dirt being turned, or you actually see it going vertical.

Alexis Jackson (16:39):

As we say in my, in my role you know, that's when it starts to get exciting and that you're like, there's definitely something coming there, but there's so much rapidly changing in Celina. So I think the Celina, Facebook, EDC, Facebook page and the city's Facebook page websites also, I will say life and Celina, tx.com. A lot of people don't know about that website. It is the city's live, work play, but it's got a ton of resources, especially under play related to the downtown and, and just all of the events and everything going on.

Ron Lyons (17:14):

So tell me this five years ago, when you first kind of broke into this whole thing and in Celina was, was lying ahead of you so to speak. Did you think that today it would be where we are? Did you have that vision already, or has there been surprises that, that make you go, wow, I didn't see that.

Alexis Jackson (17:37):

It's both, I'm a self confessed city geek, so I love to travel and I love to implement ideas from other cities that I've been to. So a great example would be Nashville. I traveled to Nashville and I, I saw all of the, these amazing murals and how, how they added to the ambience of the area. And I also saw a lot of millennials standing in front of the murals, tagging themselves. So I wear lots of hats at the EDC. So one of them is marketing. And so I knew that if, you know, we implemented murals in the, in the downtown area, that a they're just great. They tell the story of Celina, but B from a marketing standpoint, when you see your friends, you know, standing in front of a cool wall on social media, and then they geotag where they are. They're like a lot of times they might say to themselves that we hope, Hey, where's the Celina.

Alexis Jackson (18:30):

And that's a really cool mural. Let's, let's go to that. So it's, it's both I'm, I'm surprised, but also unpleasantly surprised that all of the hard work that a lot of people have put in the vision is, is becoming a reality. I have a, in my pre some of my presentations, I have an article from the Collin county, a Collin county periodical. It was like 2011. And it said, you know, the growth is coming. And that was 2011. It was a picture of a rendering of our square. And it was very identical to the renderings of the square that we have, you know, in, in 20 20, 20, 21. So just know from, you know, ours standpoint that these plans have been, have been in place for a very long time, but a lot of, a lot of the success is related to what I like to say.

Alexis Jackson (19:19):

The stars have aligned for Celina. So in order for all of these amazing things to be happening, you have to have the city leadership, you have to have the mayor and the city council and the EDC board and the staff all working together. If there's a disconnect on any of those Le on any of those levels, it makes it much harder. So right now, thankfully I'm, I'm very thankful every day that we are, we are aligned. We, we asked the community, the, the, the leadership said, we trust the staff, the staff has been implementing it. So from a city geek standpoint, that's like a dream. That's a dream job come true because you've got all these great creative ideas to implement and, and use in the community and the leadership saying, okay, okay, go for it. And that's exciting.

Ron Lyons (20:08):

That certainly makes things much easier. So in speaking to that and having been in the area for a long time, I think that we being Celina have the advantage of learning from some of the cities to our south that have gone through their own growth and that sort of thing. So, would you agree that maybe by the time the growth is now getting to Celina that we actually have an advantage because we, we have case studies, we can literally look backwards and see how everybody else has done it and maybe even do better.

Alexis Jackson (20:40):

Exactly. And that's what we, what we did when we started this process is we talked to all of the surrounding cities because as I say, we're not reinventing the wheel here. We're borrowing what works and we're leaving behind what doesn't work. So we did exactly what you said. We talked to Plano, we

talked to Frisco, we talked to McKinney, we talked to prosper. We continually check in with all of, all of those communities and asked them, you know, what would you do differently? You know, Frisco, 20 years ago, we've talked to George per Purefoy and he's given us some great ideas. We learned from Frisco where they were not concentrating on their east west corridors. They did it too late. Once the population was already there and the roads were already suffering. So we learned that from Frisco and we've implemented, as you can see frontiers under construction, we learned that, and now we're implementing those ideas.

Ron Lyons (21:32):

That's, that's awesome. And I love that. I love all of that about Solan, and I love everything you're sharing with us, but I know you do this quite often. You you and I sat down, gosh, I dunno, what was it a couple of years ago now and did a little video and so much has happened in those two years. And I know this is a point in time as well. We'll be able to get together again, sometime down the road, and there's gonna be all kinds of new stuff, new information, new things that have happened. But what I would like to do in order to kind of break ranks with everybody else who sits down with Alexis Jackson, is I'd like to talk about you personally a little bit, and you've graciously agreed to do that. You may regret that, and you may knock me out before I leave, but I've had so much fun with all of the candidates asking them these personal questions and some of them, and the, the answers are sometimes very entertaining and fun. So do you mind if we do that a little

Alexis Jackson (22:26): Bit?

Ron Lyons (22:26): Sure. Okay. All

Alexis Jackson (22:28):
Right. Get ready. I don't mind. <Laugh> we're

Ron Lyons (22:29):

We're not gonna, we're not gonna do anything too crazy. So let's I'm going to shift gears on Alexis Jackson and do something that I don't think has been done before. And I'm gonna start off with what characteristic or personality trait about yourself. Do most people misunderstand?

Alexis Jackson (22:48):

I think most people misunderstand that I can be very, very nice very friendly, very personable, but I also have a very serious business side as a woman in a very male dominated industry. I've had to be able to get along with everybody, but also manage what I like to call strong and sometimes can be difficult personalities.

Ron Lyons (23:20):
And, and that's an asset to you. And I agree. I've certainly seen that within you and, and I think that's

much to your credit. So gimme an idea of a favorite childhood memory. Alexis Jackson (23:31):

I grew up in Florida. So every time we went to the beach, it's my favorite place to be now at 47. And it's, it's, it was amazing place to grow up. On the beaches of Florida, my grandparents also lived had a home in Montana and being able to spend my summers in Montana and then at the beach as well, it was really an idyllic childhood.

Ron Lyons (23:59):
So gimme an idea. Have you gone back to any of like where you grew up in Florida? Have you, have you

gone back and, and has it changed or is it largely the way you remember it?

Alexis Jackson (24:11):

<Laugh>, that's a great question too. It's largely how I remembered it. I grew up in the St. Petersburg, Clearwater area and their downtown St. Petersburg specifically has gone through a lot of different changes. Clearwater, not so much. I, I was there maybe two years ago and it was, it was I identical to when I was there when I grew up. So I would say there are certain areas, but a lot of it hasn't changed. We're in such a rapidly changing, growing areas that when I do go back, I'm always surprised that like, that same restaurant from, you know, 20 years ago was still there. So it's interesting how different places are either or growing or not growing

Ron Lyons (24:54):

That's right. And you unfortunately have the, the burden of seeing everything through the lens of your profession now, and you're in this growing dynamic city, and then you go somewhere like that. You're like how come y'all aren't doing this? Or, or boy y'all should really do that. Yeah, you probably, you, you go through that a lot and I can only imagine, so give me an idea of something that you'd like to be remembered for when you're gone.

Alexis Jackson (25:20):

It would probably be that I was all in. I gave Celina and, and quite frankly, any community that I worked in, all of it. I, even though my title is executive director, I was sweeping the floors in the EDC office the other day. Like I don't share that I'm in any way too good or at too of a high level to not be all in and roll up my sleeves and, and do whatever needs to be done for Celina. I think I saw something on LinkedIn, what was your job title? And it was, it was whatever it takes. That's, that's my philosophy, whatever it takes. I'm very goal oriented. You give me a goal and I will go for it. I will go after it and I will get it done because per it's professionally and personally a huge sense of satisfaction for me.

Ron Lyons (26:14):

I love that is, is there. And, and we've gotta keep this as very family oriented. So, you know, some of my best answers to the question I'm about to ask you, I couldn't share right now, but if you have one, I'd be real, real interested to know. Is, is there any funny stories about you that your family just loves to kick around all the time about something either that happened or something that you did? That's that's shareable?

Alexis Jackson (26:38):

My mom likes to tell the story. I think I was probably in my, my, I was probably about my son's age. My son white is eight. I was probably about eight or nine years old. And I was playing in the backyard with my friends and my mom looked out the window. She saw me standing above my friends. My friends were sitting on the grass and I was standing over them with my arms cross. And then I started pointing

at them and I got really frustrated. And I think I stopped my foot and came inside and she said, Alexis, what happened? I was like, they weren't doing what I wanted them to do. <Laugh> and so I definitely had type a personality. I had to learn at, at an early age, everyone's not gonna play the game that you want them to play. So it was, it was, my mom talked to me about it and it was a learning, it was learning experience for me, cuz my, I think my friends, like they went home. I, they didn't wanna play with me cuz I was being bossy. You know, I was not being probably wasn't being very nice. And, and so yeah, so that was, that was a good life. My mom loves to tell that story. Yes.

Ron Lyons (27:46):

So the, the early formation of Alexis was, was actually something that's gonna benefit her later in life. But yeah, that's a great story. And, and we know that there's a million places around Len that are awesome places to hang out, to eat, to do different things. Give me a few. And it literally mean, I think I've seen you, we've seen each other out at almost every place that's here. There are no bad places, but give me a few ideas of where we might find Alexis and what you kind of enjoy.

Alexis Jackson (28:18):

It's interesting because I mentioned I sell Celina and one of the community surveys that we've done mentioned a coffee shop in downtown. So part of my role is business attraction, as I mentioned. And so I, I actively go after businesses that I fit, I think would fit really well with the vision. And I personally was a fan of summer moon when I lived in Frisco. So it was really easy for me to approach Greg Richardson, the owner, and sell Celina and, and, and share with him, our vision and how summer moon would fit really well into the downtown. And as you, as you can see, they have. So my point is that you'll find me in summer moon having them right next door to the EDC office has been amazing. So it's a little selfish from my standpoint, it's, it's selfish.

Alexis Jackson (29:11):

When I know where I like and where I like to hang out and I study all of these the 20 year olds and 30 year olds and 40 year olds, I, I can immediately go into a place and know if it's gonna work or not just from a design standpoint, even from a programming standpoint, a service standpoint, you know, the check yard and the colony. They, they knock that out of the park. So I, every place I go, I think in whether it's in the metroplex or in somewhere another city, I think will this fit into Celina and sometimes yes and sometimes no. So it, it makes my job really fun to be able to reach out to places that I know that I personally enjoy. And I personally wanna hang out when Katie and Taylor shared their idea for a little one in penguin with me early, early on I was immediately excited, but I will tell you that I, I had some reticence from other other individuals cuz they couldn't wrap their head around that type of establishment in Celina. So you'll find me at little wooden in penguin. Absolutely. <laugh> so summer moon, little wooden and penguin. I love valley vines. They, they have a dry rose that I, I just can't get past it. I have, I need to try more other wines and I, I only keep drinking. I keep going back to the wine. I love anywhere that Tim urban is playing. I will say that or I, I, you will find me there too, cuz I think Tim urban is amazing.

Ron Lyons (30:30):

That sounds awesome. So, so where might I, well let me go back first to the summer moon cuz I'm, I'm kind of intrigued. What are you gonna drink when you're at summer moon? What's your drink of choice there?

Alexis Jackson (30:40):
It's typically a large half moon latte with O milk. I know it's so obnoxious. My coffee order is like the

most high maintenance thing ever, but that's where we're at at 47.

Ron Lyons (30:53):

I'm just waiting on the day when you get your coffee cup and it, and you don't have to tell 'em your name, but then whenever you sit down it says Alexa, <laugh> not Alexis. Yeah. So I'm sure that's coming. Where, where do you like to eat around town?

Alexis Jackson (31:07):

Every everywhere really. I, I like to what I say spread the love. So I try to, I try to eat everywhere. I love toasted Walnut. I love Papa ISS. I love loosies. Like every place I have a specific thing that I love bongo bows their their shrimp is awesome.

Ron Lyons (31:21):
Give me, gimme an idea of like say Papa Gaos. What are you gonna get there?

Alexis Jackson (31:25):
Usually the nachos I had the nachos last night.

Ron Lyons (31:27): Wow. That sounds

Alexis Jackson (31:29): The fi to nachos.

Ron Lyons (31:30):
Probably something I haven't tried there.

Alexis Jackson (31:31): You gotta try it.

Ron Lyons (31:32):

I don't know why, but I'm, I'm kind of like you with the, with the drink at valley vis I'm I'm the exact same way. I'm like, okay. Enchiladas and mm-hmm <affirmative> so I rarely even look at the menu, but I'm gonna give that a shot if you say it's good, great

Alexis Jackson (31:46):
Cheese to bean to be to chip ratio.

Ron Lyons (31:49):

Well see now you're making, this is ridiculous. Now I'm literally gonna walk out here and go over there right now. So let's, let's change gears one more time. And, and we're getting close to the end of this. I'm gonna ask you some really, really basic but fun questions. Favorite movie,

Alexis Jackson (32:05): Anything James Bond.

Ron Lyons (32:06): Wow. Really.

Alexis Jackson (32:07):

And Daniel, Craig, James Bond, anything. And I just found out that Daniel Craig's character, James Bond,uuhis passport has April 13th. It's his birthday, which is my birthday. So as a Leon kid, I wanted to be a spy. I thought I was gonna be a spy as Nancy drew read all those. So love James Bond, all the old ones, but Daniel Craig is my favorite. So

Ron Lyons (32:29):

Wow. That is I, that is the very last thing that I would've thought. And somebody pulled the notebook out on me the other day in an interview and it was one of the guys and that one kind of knocked me, you know, a little sideways, this kind of did the same thing. So that's awesome. I love James Bond and I think that's amazing. So would you say Daniel Craig is your favorite actor?

Alexis Jackson (32:48):
Absolutely. Yeah. Okay. He's one, he's one of them. Yeah.

Ron Lyons (32:51):
Give me an idea. What kind of music, if I, if I go get in your car right now and I turn and, and I turn it on

what, what station is on?

Alexis Jackson (32:59):

It depends. It's usually on it's I have XM. So it's usually on the, one of the country stations or one of the, I think I like the pop rocks XM, but I love rock and roll. I love Dave Matthews. I love Chris Cornell as my rock God, as they say audio slave was my favorite, favorite band was very sad when he died. It was probably the only celebrity that I've ever actually cried when I found out they, that they had passed. So yes, I'm a child of the, the eighties and nineties. So all of the, the Nirvanas and the food fighters are right up my alley.

Ron Lyons (33:39):

I like it. I like it. So if you could go back, you said you're a child of the eighties. If you could go back to your high school, age, self 17, 18 years old, maybe right in there and give yourself some advice or say something to yourself, what, what would we, what would we hear you say,

Alexis Jackson (33:55):
This is gonna sound bad, but did not listen to the school counselor.

Ron Lyons (33:59):

Wow. Okay. Is that a, is there a story there that we can share or is that probably something for a different day?

Alexis Jackson (34:07):

I, I just believe that they, they were not guiding me in the best way. I didn't know what I wanted to do at all. And even in college, when you're a junior in college, you have to declare a major. I still had no idea. I knew what I was interested in. I social social studies, for example, anthropology, I was very I'm I'm still very fascinated on why people do what they do, especially in the belt environment. You know, when you have movable furniture in a public place versus unmovable furniture, like a park bench, that's that drilled in it's very, that type of stuff is really fascinating to me even still today. So I went to the library and I had to declare a major. So I went to the library and I took out one of those career books that started at a like astronaut and then had a whole page dedicated to what being an astronaut was. I literally got to the end and it said urban planner. And I read through all of it and read through what you would do to be a, have a career in urban planning. And that's ultimately where I got my master's degree in urban planning connects to that book. So I, I, I just struggled with counselors who in high school and college who just maybe gave me like a career aptitude test and said, okay, you should be an accountant. And none of that was correct for

Ron Lyons (35:33):
Me. So I envisioned you going into the counselor's office saying I wanna be a spy and maybe that's why

they

Alexis Jackson (35:38):
Misdirected. Maybe I did. Okay. They're like, we can't help you.

Ron Lyons (35:42): So favorite color.

Alexis Jackson (35:45): Oh, it's not a color.

Ron Lyons (35:46):

It's not a color. Black is not big color. Hey, you know what, it's, I'm gonna call it a color. Yeah. I don't know if it technically is, but you see me sitting here. I'm, I'm a big fan of black. There's a, there's a ton of advantages to black and that's, that's awesome. You may be one of the few people I've talked to that also likes black. So, and of course we all love Celina orange, right? Yes,

Alexis Jackson (36:06): Of

Ron Lyons (36:06):
Course. So how many, if you had to just guesstimate a, a, a close number, how many shirts, ball caps, et

cetera, do you have that have Celina on them

Alexis Jackson (36:18):

A lot? I have a lot of city EDCs, Celina of shirts. The, the heart logo is something that the EDC really embraced. So I'm wearing a heart logo Celinaon EDC shirt today. So I would say at least 10, at least know some, some iteration of it, whether it's Celina with a wheat logo or Celina with a heart logo or a Bobcat

and fun fact. My high school in Gainesville, Florida was the be Holt Bobcat. So Bobcats and Celina are it's like coming home. It

Ron Lyons (36:47):

Was destined to be from the time you're standing over the kids in the yard <laugh> and all the way up to now, it's just destiny has unfolded for you. So we love Celina next to last question, we love Celina, but if Celina didn't exist, where would Alexis Jackson live

Alexis Jackson (37:05):

Right next to the beach? Probably a block or two from the beach so that I could ride my beach cruiser in the afternoons to the beach and take my, my family there and hang out. It's always, it's always a special place. It's always just relaxing.

Ron Lyons (37:21):
I like it. And, and I foresee somehow, I don't know how we're gonna tie a beach into Aina, but I have a

feeling, oh, right there, there may be a beach. You

Alexis Jackson (37:29):
Never know what Alexis is cooking up. That's

Ron Lyons (37:32):
Right. That's right. So, so final question. What is it about Celina in particular that you love? Like what's

your personal Kool-Aid here?

Alexis Jackson (37:41):

It's definitely the people. The fact that I have had a flat tire and had, was stopped on Preston and three or four people tried to help me was amazing. That just never happened in my life before. I don't think it would happen in Dallas or in any other city. I love that you can walk into any of the businesses and know somebody have a friendly conversation. I joke all the time that if I'm having a bad hair day, I don't go to Brookshires because <laugh> cool. Inevitably run into somebody and it's like, Hey, there's that ADC girl and wow. Her hair not on point today. So usually try to look, you know, decent at least if I'm going to Brookshire. So

Ron Lyons (38:24):

All you need to do is just say I it's Alexa, Alexa, it's that other girl that's that's right. There's, there's two of you and you get confused a lot, but Alexa, thank you so much for doing this. Thank you for sharing some time. I know your time is critically valuable and I personally wanna say thank you for all that you do. You are remarkable. You're remarkable in your job, and we appreciate you very, very much. I just want you to understand that. And I wanna ask you this, will you come back? Was this painless enough? Would you come back and do this again down the road?

Alexis Jackson (38:57):

I would love to, and I'm, I'm humbled and blessed to be able to serve this community and do what I love every day.

Ron Lyons (39:06):

All right, guys, that was Alexis Jackson and she was awesome. She really, really, really knows her stuff about EDC. And she was so kind as to give us a little bit of insight and have some fun with us about personal things in her life. I literally did not see the James Bond answer at all. Like I just completely unexpected. So that was awesome. And I look forward to having her back on the show because Celina, Texas is such a dynamic and growing city. There's always gonna be new stuff coming along, and we're always gonna want to talk to Alexis. And guys, I hope that you like this show enough that you will share it on your social media, that you'll tell your friends about it. And that you'll continue to tune in. I've got a long list of guests who have agreed to be on the show. We've got some special events that we're gonna go cover. It's just a, it's a fantastic time to be in Celina, Texas. And what we wanna do is bring everything good about Celina to you through this podcast. So until next time God bless and I'll see you on the next show.