DAMAR -- Becky Pyle is her sister's greatest treasure hunter. Last week, Pyle walked into Fleur-de-Lis with armload after armload of figurine coin banks, Christmas decorations and door stops shaped like dogs.
"She has an eye," Jeanie Roberts said of her sister. "She can just go find anything."
Those
items were placed among hundreds of others at the newly-expanded Fleur-de-Lis
consignment shop in Damar. Roberts, who started the store with eight other Damar
natives in May 2009, made the decision to move across the street earlier this
year when the former store was filled to the brim.
"My brother-in-law owned this," Roberts said, gesturing to the new Fleur-de-Lis location. "It was just a welding shop -- cement floors and block walls."
But Roberts, with help from her husband and other family members, soon got to work, and the store celebrated its grand opening in its new location on the west side of Main Street in mid-November.
Roberts and Pyle grew up in Damar but now live in Hays. They return to Damar to work at Fleur-de-Lis, and of course, drop off their new-found treasures.
"You just name it, I think we have it," Roberts said.
That includes jewelry, baby items, Damar memorabilia in the form of books and hats, antiques, new designer purses and more. They even have a taxidermy turkey, bobcat and deer in an effort to try "to appeal to everyone."
"Every time I come in, I see something different -- and I come pretty often," said Verna Desbien, who works at the shop on occasion.
But that's not the only thing keeping Main Street buzzing in Damar.
Dana
Simoneau and her daughter, Lexi Rohr, have built a new salon on Main Street.
"Doing it together really helped us be able to expand and get a place that would accommodate both of us," Simoneau said.
Kristan Bowman also joined the team this spring, and Bowman and Rohr have added nail services to the salon.
"For a small town, it's just nice to be able to do all that so (residents) don't have to drive," Simoneau said.
The salon is open in the evenings and Saturdays and Mondays -- the only times Simoneau isn't teaching at Hays Academy of Hair Design. A Damar native, she opened her first salon in 1989. She said the new De'ja Vu location, along with other improvements in town, is a positive sign.
"It's a great little community," Simoneau said.
Down the street, the Happy Frog Pond is in its second year. The pool hall was drawing a crowd before it ever officially opened last year, and the patrons haven't stopped coming.
"Once we got our beer order in, they were ready," said Patti Snowberger. "There were still tools laying around. Nothing was cleaned up, but they were ready to start hanging out."
Snowberger and Art Normandin manage the Happy Frog Pond.
With vending machine games and a pool table, the Happy Frog Pond has become a popular hangout for teenagers after school. Snowberger and Normandin also have started serving food such as bratwursts, chili, hamburgers, spaghetti and enchiladas.
A poker tournament every Wednesday has proved popular, said Normandin, who helped renovate the building.
"It's the people that come in that make the place," Snowberger said.
Mayor Brian Newell said the efforts of local business owners on Main Street is a welcome sign.
"We don't have the big businesses, but we're just trying to keep the town vibrant enough for people to want to live here," he said.
The businesses in town have benefited from the strides the city has made to keep the community thriving. A community center on Main Street is just days from being ready to open; new sidewalks have been installed up and down Main Street with incentives from the city; and Damar was one of the first communities to receive Nex-Tech's fiber-optic line enabling better high-speed Internet access.
Through private individuals, building exteriors were remodeled to reflect the community's Canadian-French heritage in 2007 and the city park was refurbished in 2009.
"It's fun to see a lot of improvements," Roberts said.
And Damar is gearing up for quite the celebration in 2012. During Labor Day weekend 2012, the town will celebrate its 125th anniversary, while St. Joseph Catholic Church will commemorate 100 years.