Visit Lufkin has announced that Lufkin’s Bistro 2026, originally scheduled for Saturday, October 3, has been rescheduled for Saturday, November 7, 2026, in Downtown Lufkin.
After reviewing the available weather forecast and speaking with our presenting sponsor, participating restaurants, and key event partners, Visit Lufkin made the collective decision to reschedule Bistro in order to protect the quality of the event experience for everyone involved.
The decision was made due to ongoing weather uncertainties and the amount of advance preparation required to safely and successfully produce the event. Lufkin’s Bistro is an outdoor downtown event that requires multiple days of setup, coordination, equipment placement, restaurant preparation, sponsor logistics, volunteer planning, and street-level event operations. With so many partners, guests, and moving pieces involved, Visit Lufkin made the decision to reschedule in order to protect the quality of the event experience.
All previously purchased Bistro tickets and reserved tables will be honored for the new date. Ticket holders do not need to purchase new tickets or take any immediate action.
“Lufkin’s Bistro is one of our community’s most anticipated events, and we know how much planning goes into this evening for our guests, restaurants, sponsors, volunteers, and downtown partners,” said Tara Hendrix, Director of Visit Lufkin. “Because Bistro requires a significant amount of setup before event day, we wanted to make this decision early and responsibly. Rescheduling allows us to give everyone the polished, enjoyable, and memorable evening they expect from Bistro.”
Lufkin’s Bistro will still feature local bites, libations, live music, dancing, photo moments, and tables under the stars in Downtown Lufkin. The event remains a 21+ ticketed experience.
Visit Lufkin extends its appreciation to presenting sponsor Brookshire Brothers, participating restaurants and food partners, beverage and tasting sponsors, volunteers, downtown businesses, and guests for their flexibility, patience, and continued support.
Updated event information will be shared through Visit Lufkin’s website, social media channels, and direct ticket holder communication.
For questions, please contact Visit Lufkin at 936.633.0359.
No mistaking when Daryl Felsberg is on stage, this larger than life comic commands a room everywhere he goes. His story telling approach littered with jokes and heaps of laughs always have a big pay off. His sarcasm is as rich and thick as his brisket infused bloodstream.
Host of the new Youtube series “Daryl Eats”, Felsberg’s recent album “Truth or Daryl” peaked last #3 on iTunes and 18 on Billboard! In 2023 he shot a special for Open Bar Comedy and Amazon Prime. Sometimes known as the “Cracker Daryl” for discreetly hanging his own photoshopped antique portraits in Cracker Barrels around the country ; his videos of “installs” are nearly at a million views on social media.
His voice inflection and passion keeps people in the room not knowing what absurd humor is going to come out of his mouth. Whether it’s well crafted and precise jokes or completely improvised streams of consciousness, Daryl makes friends and fans out of all audiences.
Come connect with fellow Chamber members, make new business connections, and support El Trompo Villarreal — our 2025 Small Business of the Year!
Networking
Door Prize Drawings
$50 Chamber Drawing — bring your business card to enter!
A special THANK YOU to our Business After Hours sponsors: Naskila Casino Livingston, Pedigo Furniture, Timberwood Nursing & Rehabilitation Center, and McWilliams Heating, Cooling & Plumbing!
Invite a friend, bring your business cards, and come network with us! We hope to see you there
Karen Mitchell says her story is “actually pretty boring.” Anyone who has heard her describe a hive full of worms, or three swarms in one afternoon, might disagree.
It started with her dad’s garden in the early 1980s. The garden didn’t have enough pollinators, and it wasn’t producing the vegetables he expected. His idea: Karen could keep bees at his house, the garden would do better, and the family would get honey out of it.
She bought two hives. There was no local bee club back then, so she learned from books “and through plenty of trial and error.”
Hives in Fuller Springs and Diboll
These days Karen doesn’t work alone. A few years ago she began mentoring a friend, and the two now keep hives at the friend’s home in Fuller Springs, behind Karen’s house, and on the property Karen and her husband own in Diboll.
How many hives? That changes. Early this spring they caught so many swarms they ran out of woodenware — the boxes, frames and other parts that make up a hive — and had to order more. Then small hive beetles got into many of the hives, and they lost a lot of them.
Karen doesn’t use chemicals, and she knows it costs her. “I lose more hives than many other beekeepers,” she said. The treatments other beekeepers use are approved. Skipping them is her personal choice.
A beekeeper’s year
Ask Karen what a normal week looks like and she answers with a calendar.
January is for making sure the bees have enough food, ordering package bees and putting out pollen patties to get the queen laying before the honey flow. “If the weather cooperates, more bees mean more honey.”
Early February is the hardest stretch for a colony, and starvation causes most losses, so feeding comes first. The first pollen and nectar flow starts in February, the bees start swarming, and from late February through harvest the work doesn’t let up. Every inspection checks for a productive queen, a strong population, signs of swarming and the pest load.
March is busier still. Karen grafts queens, placing eggs in special containers with royal jelly so the bees will build queen cells. She also makes splits, dividing crowded hives to make new ones. If no queen is added, the bees raise their own. The splits have to be fed. By the end of March, supers — the boxes where bees store honey — go on the hives that need them, and from mid-March on the job is to add them before the bees run out of room.
Langstroph Hives
The tallow flow, East Texas’s main honey source, runs from May into June. Harvest can come as early as June, depending on the weather, but July and August are normal. July through September is a dearth, so the bees need a reliable water supply and sometimes extra feed. When goldenrod blooms, they start gathering winter stores, and Karen adds supers again. A hive needs at least 40 to 60 pounds of honey to get through winter.
November and December are for repairing, painting and building woodenware for the next year.
What honey tastes like here
No two harvests taste the same, Karen said. The weather decides what grows, and the bees work whatever is blooming. There’s usually a lot of clover before the tallow blooms, and that honey is lighter in color.
One year the trifoliate oranges were thick around Diboll, and the honey carried a hint of orange. “It was delicious,” she said, “but that has not occurred since then.”
Right now her bees are feasting on goldenrod.
The worst day and the best
Small Hive Beetle damage
When Karen started, nobody had heard of the small hive beetle. Years later she went to inspect a hive behind her house and noticed “a horrible, putrid odor” coming from it. She didn’t see any bees. The frames looked like melting wax was running down the bottoms, and the bottom of the box held “this writhing mass of worms.”
She called David Jones, a Pineywoods club member at the time and described it. Twenty minutes later he had the problem identified. Karen was the first beekeeper in the club — maybe in Angelina County, she said — to lose a hive to the small hive beetle.
Her best days are harder to pick. “There are so many.” The one she comes back to is working with new beekeepers as they open a hive for the first time. “The awe and amazement as they watch God’s creation in action makes my heart sing.”
Then there was a day at Diboll. They hadn’t checked those hives in a week or so, and several storms had come through. Bees tend to swarm more after rain. That day there were three swarms, the most they’ve ever had at once.
If you want to start
The two most common hives are the Langstroth, the stacking boxes most people picture, and the Layens, a single-story hive that’s longer and has deeper frames. Karen said the Layens is best for people with a physical handicap.
Either one needs a bee suit, gloves, a hive tool and a smoker. A Langstroth also needs a hive cover, boxes, supers, frames with waxed foundation, a bottom board and, if you want one, a queen excluder. A Layens needs the Layens box, frames and wax.
Layens Hives
Whichever you choose, she recommends buying at least two established hives of local bees.
What to skip? Buy the basic components and research the rest. Her example is the beetle blaster, an oil-filled trap that sits between the frames to catch hive beetles. It sounds great, she said, but the bees glue its edges to the frames. Pry it loose with a hive tool and there’s a good chance you’ll puncture it and spill oil and dead beetles into the box. Beetles also like to hide under its edges.
Honey, wax and the club
In a good year Karen sells honey by word of mouth, after she saves back enough for family and friends. Her biggest harvest was more than 30 gallons. This wasn’t a good year. A late freeze kept the tallows from producing as usual, and the drought made it worse.
Ready to harvest
She melts down the wax and has sold it and given it away for all kinds of projects.
Karen has belonged to the Pineywoods Beekeepers Association since it formed in 2001, and she’d tell anyone who keeps bees, or is curious about them, to come to a meeting. The club meets the second Thursday of every month at 6:30 p.m. at the VFW Club, 1800 Ford Chapel Rd. in Lufkin. Every meeting takes up questions from guests and members. “Even seasoned beekeepers are amazed and sometimes confused at what the bees do,” she said. Some members will mentor new beekeepers and come out to their bee yards.
Each year in late February the club holds Bee School: two Saturday classes at the Angelina County Extension Office, 2201 S. Medford Dr., and a third Saturday in a bee yard. The classes cover the parts of a hive, how to inspect one, pests and how to manage them, harvesting and getting hives ready for winter. On the bee-yard day, students inspect a working hive alongside a seasoned beekeeper. Suits and gloves are available to use that day.
For more local information, visit pineywoodsbeekeepers.org.
(Dinner at the Diamond photos by Elliott Winston and Maryane Pala)
Hey, sports fans,
What a week for Angelina College Athletics. Our soccer teams played some big matches way down in Brownsville, Texas, our softball team got off to a great start to its fall season and our baseball team is hitting spots all over the country in an effort to showcase its players.
We had softball ladies volunteering at the East Texas Forest Festival, helping promote our student-athletes and their commitment to the community.
The BIG event of this past week was our annual Dinner at the Diamond fundraiser, and our student-athletes worked hard to ensure everything wasn’t just successful, but a lot of fun as well.
The lone home game for this coming week is a big one, with our Roadrunner soccer team hosting conference foe Coastal Bend Community College in a key Region XIV conference match taking place this Tuesday.
We are AC, and we’re ready to Run ‘Em.
Here’s a quick rundown of recent events, along with what’s coming up next:
Lady Roadrunners Soccer Scores win at Texas Southmost College
The Lady Roadrunners picked up a big road win Friday in Brownsville, topping Texas Southmost College by a 4-1 final. AC’s ladies got goals from Nuria Grau (’35), Patricia Torres (’71), Lucrezia Benelli Becchi (’74) and Victoria Ibanez (’88) to earn the big conference “W.” Gisela Oyonate and Grau each added an assist in the match, AC keeper Samuela Valeri finished with four saves.
Next up for the Lady Roadrunners (4-6, 4-4) is a big home match against Louisiana State University-Eunice. Kickoff on Friday, Oct. 6 is at 5 p.m. at the Larry Phillips Family Sports Complex on the AC campus.
Roadrunner Soccer Plays Texas Southmost to Draw
In Brownsville on Friday, the Roadrunners battled Texas Southmost College to a 2-2 draw, getting goals from Angel Benitez and Kanta Maruyama.
That result makes this Tuesday’s home match even bigger.
The Roadrunners (3-2-2, 3-1-2) maintains its hold atop the Region XIV South Zone standings, but only by a single game over Coastal Bend Community College (3-3-1, 3-2-1) – AC’s opponent on Tuesday.
The match is set for a 6 p.m. kickoff at the Larry Phillips Family Sports Complex on the AC campus.
Lady Roadrunner Softball Shines in Fall Opener
The fall season is for evaluating talent in order to finalize the regular-season rosters in the spring.
Clearly, Lady Roadrunner head softball coach Kassie James is going to have plenty of options.
The Lady ‘Runners opened their Fall 2026 season this past Friday, sweeping Nelson University in a doubleheader in Waxahachie.
AC took the opener by an 11-3 final behind a three-hit day from Kinlyn Mills, who also drove in a pair of runs. Alyssa Leger also added a pair of RBI. AC used three pitchers in the game, with Alexa Beeson starting in the circle, followed by relievers Rylee Puente and Ellas Stephenson. Puente tossed three innings of scoreless relief, and Stephenson wrapped up with a scoreless two innings of work that included three strikeouts.
In the nightcap, Madagyn Boudoin’s two-run homer led the Lady Roadrunners to a 7-1 win. Four AC pitchers combined to hold Nelson to just one run on four hits. Reighlyn Jefferson started the game, and Kennadee Sheffield, Eris Aiken and Kourtney Sepulvado cleaned up in relief.
This week’s schedule will see the Lady Roadrunners at Texas A&M University-Texarkana on Saturday starting at 1 p.m.
Roadrunner Basketball Opens Scrimmage Season This Week
The Roadrunner men’s basketball team is driving straight into its scrimmage portion of the season, with AC heading to the Oklahoma JUCO Jamboree taking place on Friday in Norman, Oklahoma.
The ‘Runners get a trifecta of competition on Friday, playing Odessa College at 3 p.m., Western Oklahoma Community College at 5 p.m. and Johnson County Community College at 7 p.m.
AC’s first home scrimmage will take place on Friday, Oct. 16 against Strength ‘N Motion, with tipoff scheduled for 5 p.m. at Shands Gymnasium.
AC Athletes Assist with Dinner at the Diamond 2026
This year’s Dinner at the Diamond event proved wildly successful (again), and Angelina College student-athletes played big roles in the night’s success.
The athletes did everything from setting up and breaking down, greeting visitors, conducting contests and serving up auction items, all while mingling with their current and future fans.
Those players helped make an already-fun event even better just by being there.
Basketball Schedules Available for Viewing
We’re still a couple of months away from the start of basketball season, but the Roadrunner and Lady Roadrunner teams already have their 2026-2027 schedules in place. Visit the Angelina College Athletics website (angelinaathletics.com) to view those schedules.
Hoops season is going to get here before we know it.
For those who just can’t wait to know, the Lady Roadrunners tip off their regular season Oct. 30 in Baton Rouge against Delgado Community College, following with another game on Saturday against Baton Rouge Community College – also taking place in Baton Rouge. The Lady ‘Runners host their first home game on Nov. 6 against Southern University-Shreveport.
On the men’s side, the Roadrunners open their new regular season with a home game against Strength ‘N Motion on Nov. 2 at Shands Gymnasium.
The Roadrunner baseball team will open its Fall 2026 schedule this week with an away game against Alvin Community College. The ‘Runners and Dolphins will square off at Lamar University in Beaumont, with first pitch scheduled for 1 p.m. on Friday, Sept. 4.
Here are the fall schedules for both the Roadrunner baseball and Lady Roadrunner softball teams. NOTE: These are exhibition games, so there won’t be any live streaming available, nor will there be stats or final scores posted.
As always in East Texas, the potential exists for schedule changes because of inclement weather. We try to put out the word as soon as we get it, but the quickest way to confirm game days and times is to visit the AC Athletics website (angelinaathletics.com) to view the most updated schedules. We’ll also send out word on social media (AC Athletics Facebook and Instagram, etc.), but the on-line schedule will always serve up the most recent updates.
Live Streaming Reminder:
All AC Athletics regular-season home games are live streamed on TSBN Sports (a free streaming service for fans), with most of the conference road games also available for streaming. (This does not include baseball and softball fall games, as those are not considered official games.)
Once TSBN posts its schedules, AC fans simply need to visit the AC Athletics web site, look at the scrolling schedule in the middle of the page and click the blue “Video” link.
TSBN also offers an app great for smart phones, devices and smart TVs. (You’ve GOT to see those matches and games on the big screen.)
Reminder II: Admission to ALL Angelina College Athletics sporting events is free, as is the TSBN live streaming. Any other links offering streaming are scams.
Reminder III: For the most current schedule updates (especially for potential weather issues) visit the official Angelina College Athletics website (angelinaathletics.com). Fans can also receive updates on the AC Athletics Facebook, X/Twitter, and Instagram pages.
Upcoming schedules:
Tuesday, Sept. 29:
Roadrunner Soccer vs. Coastal Bend Community College, 6 p.m. at the Larry Phillips Family Sports Complex on the AC campus.
Friday, Oct. 2:
Roadrunner Baseball vs. Northwest Mississippi CC (11 a.m.) and Mineral Area College (3:45 p.m.) in Millington, TN.
Roadrunner Basketball at Odessa College (3 p.m.), Western Oklahoma Community College (5 p.m.) and Johnson County Community College (7 p.m.), Oklahoma JUCO Jamboree in Norman, OK.
Saturday, Oct. 3:
Lady Roadrunner Softball at Texas A&M University-Texarkana, 1 p.m. in Texarkana, TX.
For any other information, contact Sports Information Director Gary Stallard at gstallard@angelina.edu.
Join us tomorrow evening for a free small-business workshop and networking opportunity!
Whether you’re already running a business or thinking about starting one, this workshop can help you understand why businesses get stuck and how to move forward. You’ll learn practical growth strategies, ways to access funding, how to strengthen your team, and steps you can take next.
Tuesday, September 29
5:30–7:00 p.m.
J.H. Rowe Resource Center, Building 1 750 E. Gibson Street, Jasper, TX 75951
The workshop is free, but registration is encouraged. Scan the QR code on the flyer to register.
Questions? Contact Leanna Hopson at (260) 415-1700 or leanna@jasperchamber.com.
The 2nd Annual C.A.S.T. for Kids on Toledo Bend is happening September 30!
We’re welcoming 40 local children with special needs for a morning of fishing, boat rides, games, and lunch. To learn more, contact: Alissa Ross • 936‑671‑0175.
Location: Lake Tejas in Colmesneil, TX Date & Time: October 31, 2026 at 4:00 PM
Once again, if you have a fall festival, or halloween event, please email us you flyer so we can post on the Chamber Visit Tyler County website. Email to chamber@tylercountycoc.com
