The Don’t Mess with Texas Summer ’09 Interns participated in numerous statewide events and met with thousands of Texans all while starring in a reality Web series. Here’s a snapshot of the events the Interns attended this past summer. Scroll down this page to see their blogs and be sure to check out their Web series for footage from their adventures across Texas.

• Houston, TX 06/10/2009, Keep Texas Beautiful Conference
• New Braunfels, TX 06/20/2009, Schlitterbahn
• Midland, TX 06/26/2009, Midland ABC Morning Show
• Pecos, TX 06/26/2009, Pecos Rodeo, Meet Mayor of Pecos
• Midland, TX 06/27/2009, Midland NBC Morning Show
• Odessa, TX 06/27/2009, Meet Mayor of Odessa
• Midland,TX 06/27/2009, Midland Rockhounds Baseball Game
• Temple, TX 06/29/2009, Temple KWTX Morning Show, Meet Mayor of Temple
• San Antonio,TX 07/02/2009, San Antonio Van’s Warped Tour
• Houston, TX 07/03/2009, Houston Vans Warped Tour
• Dallas, TX 07/05/2009, Dallas Vans Warped Tour
• Arlington, TX 07/06/2009, Six Flags over Texas
• Dallas, TX 07/07/2009, Texas FFA Convention in Dallas
• Brenham, TX 07/16/2009, Blue Bell Icecream Partnership Pitch
• Austin, TX 07/16/2009, Meet Mayor of Austin
• Tyler, TX 07/16/2009, Adopt-A-Highway Cleanup
• Austin, TX 07/22/2009, Litter Force Show

Can you believe our summer journey has come to an end? 

It was a wild and unpredictable ride for us, but we loved every second of it.  It wasn’t always easy, however we were always up for a good challenge.  We did everything from going to the Pecos Rodeo to the Vans Warped Tour and everything in between. 

We’re proud to have been part of such a great campaign.  We’ve traveled a lot of miles spreading the litter prevention message and hope we made a difference along the way. 

Although our summer adventures are over, we will continue to do our own part in keeping our state clean and litter free, and urge you all to do the same. Every piece of trash picked up makes a difference more importantly, not throwing it out in the first place. 

This summer we’ve met a lot of great Texans, succeeded tough challenges, and traveled all across Texas serving as the brand stewards for the Don’t Mess with Texas campaign.

It’s been real, it’s been fun and we’re going to miss everyone we’ve met along the way. Continue to watch us in our remaining webisodes until August 17!

As our travels across the Friendship state draw to an end, so has our time away from our headquarters here in Austin. While on the road, we were always in good hands, staying at the closest La Quinta. In every Texas city we visited, we were greeted with warm smiles from the La Quinta staff, and treated with the utmost respect. Offering a wide range of amenities including free breakfast and comfy beds, La Quinta didn’t miss a beat during our time with them!

 
After long days of outreach and promotion on the road for the Don’t Mess with Texas campaign, most of our blogs were written while we were staying at La Quinta. Without the business centers and complimentary Wi-Fi access available at La Quinta, we wouldn’t have been able to keep our blog up-to-date for all of you.

Like all the great individuals we have had the opportunity to meet over the last two months, we will also miss our green and gold home away from home, which took care of us so well throughout our entire internship. From all three of us….thanks again La Quinta!

-Andrew

Today we had the pleasure of meeting the Mayor of Austin, Lee Leffingwell.  We were able to sit down and chat with the Mayor and his staff about some of the many ways the City of Austin is doing its part to not mess with Texas.  Mayor Leffingwell told us that there are three key components to Austin’s litter prevention: reduce, reuse, and recycle.   He told us that one of the more common types of litter he sees is plastic shopping bags.  Through initiatives that encourage reusable products, like reusable shopping bags, the city of Austin is able to reduce the number of plastic shopping bags that end up as litter.  Also, by encouraging recycling, people will be more hesitant to throw something on the ground when it is convenient to recycle. 

The city also works with its Keep Texas Beautiful affiliate to manage litter.  Keep Austin Beautiful is in charge of the Adopt-a-Street program in Austin.  The city also has crews that come out to clean heavily trafficked streets and remove litter during the night, but we should all do our part during the day and any other time.  Besides, it costs us money as taxpayers to have the city and state pick up our trash when we could simply not throw it on the ground to begin with.  We’re grateful we had the opportunity to meet Mayor Leffingwell and it was exciting to learn about the City of Austin’s bold litter prevention initiatives.

-Garrett

Yesterday was an exciting day for us!  We went to the Blue Bell Creameries headquarters in Brenham, Texas.  I grew up in Texas with Blue Bell so getting to go inside the factory was something I had always wanted to do.

We were scheduled for a tour of the factory, but before the tour we had a very important meeting with the people at Blue Bell about a possible partnership between Blue Bell and Don’t Mess with Texas.  It makes sense to have two of the most recognized brands in Texas working together, doesn’t it?

We participated in one of our final challenges to help the rest of the Don’t Mess with Texas team present a partnership pitch to Blue Bell and we did great (according to our supervisor)! We look forward to seeing it come to fruition.

On our tour we got to see how the ice cream we grew up with is produced, packaged and learned some interesting facts along the way. However, my favorite part was the ice cream at the end of the tour.  Delicious!!!

The Blue Bell tour experience was awesome. If there’s one thing you have to do when visiting the cute town of Brenham, make a stop by the Blue Bell factory.

P.S. Blue Bell’s slogan is, “We eat all we can, and sell the rest.”