Vision of the Future: Henderson EDC, Preservation Committee, and Advisory Board members address recent public outrage

Published 1:20 pm Tuesday, July 22, 2025

Members of Henderson’s Historic Preservation Committee and Main Street Advisory Board, Leon Harris and Ben Patterson, gathered with Henderson EDC Director, Bret Gardella and Director of Business Development, Retention and Marketing Shelby Jacobs to address the community’s reaction to the EDC’s contested advertising mural project currently in progress downtown.

Following the overwhelmingly negative reaction to the release of the EDC’s advertising design, members of the approving boards and the EDC spent the morning with The Henderson News clarifying much of the information shared over social media and further detailing aspects of the design. The EDC held fast to their assertion that the mural is neither a degradation, nor a depiction of the American flag, but an example of the Americana art style meant to pay homage to the level of patriotism and pride of place that Henderson residents openly display.

“I think it’s terrible that they came in here and said that the Main Street or Preservation meeting was run chaotically when it wasn’t, that they hadn’t seen the information. It was passed out in their packet before the meeting,” Gardella said. “They had every opportunity to look stuff up, read and analyze it and they chose to not do that.”

“The big thing they’re talking about is that we’re degrading the American flag,” said Gardella, of the public outrage. He offered examples patriotic banners depicting a portion of the flag’s stars and stripes, which recently dotted the downtown landscape, and locally purchased t-shirts bearing highly altered versions of the flag.

“I bought one of these at Walmart and I bought one of these at Lowes,” he continued, wondering why the public outrage didn’t extend to these designs. “Are they going go picket those stores and not shop there? If we go to their house and we find some Americana memorabilia much like this hung downtown, is there a problem?”

Patterson acknowledged that another contested aspect of the design is that it isn’t in keeping with the historical aesthetic often preferred in large scale artwork seen throughout the downtown area.

“It doesn’t have to be historical,” explained Patterson. “The bottom line is that we got the request from HEDCO to put a mural on the side of a privately owned building.”

“When they came to us we saw it like a business wanting to advertise on their wall,” Patterson continued. “Historically that’s been done. Coca-Cola, Pepsi, even in Henderson all through the years. We saw it as a business decision. It didn’t violate anything, flag laws or anything like that, or any policy so we approved it. That was done in May.”

“I’m not going to interpret art because everything has different perspectives. I saw it as a business decision,” he said. “I see that the issues for Henderson are much greater than a mural.”

“I’m President of our local Rotary Club, so we had Bowen, the superintendent come and speak to us and one of the things he pointed out was that we’ve lost either 120 or 150 students that transferred out. That has reduced our school funding by a million dollars. That’s a big issue. I think we should be focusing on bigger issues than that.”

Patterson went on to say, “This mural, am I a fan of it? I’m not a big fan of it but I’m not a professional at branding, these people are professionals at branding. They know what their intent is…who am I to criticize anyone that puts up a billboard on side of a highway, that puts up an LED sign?”

After Patterson referenced the city’s downtown district as the heartbeat of the town, Leon Harris, in agreement, said, “The downtown should be the heartbeat and that’s why we are charged with revitalizing downtown, because right now it is not the heart.”

“I think factually we need to address a lot of the lies that were told,” interjected Gardella. “We can start with the woman that went on KLTV and said we just found about it two weeks ago.”

“This was on our agenda in January. Our agendas are posted 72 hours in advance, by law, just like every other board and commission that is mandated or allowed through the city of Henderson,” he continued. “They’re posted. I think they’re probably still posted in the newspaper, so the information is out there. We started in January. I think this was first present by Shelby (Jacobs) in April, to the Preservation folks.”

“I talked about it and I also passed around my phone with a picture of what it would look like,” agreed Jacobs. “They put on the agenda for the May meeting, the approval. Also some people on the board have said that was the first time they saw it and they didn’t really have time to think about it. That’s just not true. I did pass it around for the board members that were at the meeting, in the April meeting.”

“Everyone had a packet in front of them with a picture of what it was going to look like. Everyone saw it,” said Harris. “The part about it being a chaotic meeting, it just didn’t happen,” he continued. “Ben (Patterson) said with a caveat that he would vote for it as long as we document the history. No one else made a comment. All in favor? Everyone there.”

“Six months ago this was out there,” said Gardella. “Three months ago it was presented to the Heritage folks. It was unanimously approved and seconded by the Director of our Chamber of Commerce. These are just the facts and we felt no issue with us moving forward with this advertisement, which we’re proud of and we can’t wait until it’s finished.”

“No one every says anything when they’re driving downtown and all the banners are there,” noted Harris. “We’re just trying to show patriotism.”

“It’s a piece of art that shows patriotism,” said Jacobs in agreement. “We are not painting the American flag. We are painting something that resembles the flag to show patriotism in part of our message. It’s obviously different than the American flag…intentionally.”

“It’s inspiration from our flag, absolutely,” said Gardella. “It’s patriotic, absolutely, but for us it’s about forward progress. The patriotism I’ve experienced here, especially on the holidays, where people plant the flag everywhere and I think it’s awesome. When we came in and we were creating this and I had an idea about how do we do something that’s patriotic, that’s where it stems from. Be proud. I love the fact that this city is proudly American and proudly Americana but when we get into it this is a message about Henderson, Texas Economic Development. We weren’t painting the American flag. We were painting a patriotic symbol that absolutely takes inspiration from the flag. Why wouldn’t we? It’s all around us in the city and that’s something we’re proud of.”

“I am reaching out to small businesses, including the downtown area, for ways that we can help with funding to help revitalize downtown,” said Jacobs of the group’s expanding vision. “That was another reason why we chose to put the mural downtown, is because we want to show our support for downtown and the revitalization of downtown and that Henderson, Texas Economic Development is in support of things that are going on downtown. We want our downtown to know that we are here and we can help.”

“We need to tell the truth about these things. We don’t need the hate speech, we don’t need the lies,” said Gardella. “We can disagree whether you like the artwork or not, I don’t have a problem with that. This is an advertisement for us, but let’s stop with the hate, and let’s get on with the vision of the future in Henderson.”