Tough Talk with Texas Tales & Youthful Aging

Tough Talk with Tony Gambone and his guest Myra Hargrave McIlvain & Mary Black

Myra Hargrave McIlvain is a teller of Texas tales. Whether she is sharing the stories in her books, her lectures, or her blog, she aims to make the Texas story alive. She has free-lanced as a writer of Texas historical markers and had five books published about Texas history and its famous and infamous sites. Her articles have appeared in newspapers all over the country and in magazines such as Texas Highways. McIlvain lectures for all five of the OLLI Continuing Education Programs at the University of Texas, for Lifetime Learning Institute, and for other venues in the Austin area. The award-winning Stein House, McIlvain’s second historical fiction, paints a compelling family saga of German immigrants thrust into the bustling Texas seaport of Indianola between 1853 and the fierce 1886 hurricane that destroyed the town.

Mary Black is a former competitive sled dog racer, turned health nut. For 22 years I focused on training and nutrition for our canine athletes and after we sold "the farm" switched to training two-legged creatures after buying the local gym. While owning a gym was a dream, the reality was depending on memberships to make a living was a pipe dream, especially in a very small town. After networking with other gym owners I found we weren't the only ones with a slim margin. I found a way to integrate the organic supplements and superfoods I had been using personally for a year to become another revenue stream. Within six months we were generating anywhere from $1,000 - $5,000 in our appx. 100 member facility. Knowing other gyms could use a cash infusion, we closed our gym last fall in Northern MN and moved to Florida to escape the cold and coach other gym owners how to do the same without having to carry much, of any, inventory, and not creating extra administrative work.