Debacle at the Somervell County Expo on 10/19/2024- Triple booked events and Director Cyndi Gray cursing out paid event participants (Pow Wow)

I had heard of unprofessional conduct by Cyndi Gray, Director of the Somervell County Expo during an event held at the Expo on October 19, 2024 that involved the Intertribal Pow Pow group. Specifically, Gray was at the Expo, walked through a sacred prayer circle that was set up in one of the arenas, and then started screaming, with curse words (F**** you) at the Pow Wow participants. This was not her event, it was setup initially by Kelly Harris, who outsourced the running of the events through The Perfect Plan but also directly spoke with the Pow Wow folks. Apparently there is at least one person on social media (I am not myself on Facebook) who posted about this happening that was there in person and saw this. I was also told directly this morning from two of the participants who were there and saw and experienced this that not only did Gray lose control, was overtly rude, violate the sanctity of the event, but also did her best to obstruct the setup and running of that part of the Expo event. It was not even her event, she was to be over the Roping event.

Why is she the Director???????? Maybe the commissioners do not care because it’s entirely possible that GRISD will buy the Expo and then whoever works there will be their problem (and hard to imagine given how scrupulous GRISD is about employees, including requiring criminal background checks, that she would still be an employee if they buy it). Were this me, I would have immediately fired Gray as this action isn’t confined merely to the Expo but gives Somervell County, Glen Rose, and tourism a black eye. Why would the Somervell County Commissioners Court want to have such a rude, unprofessional person in charge of the Expo? (Have been wondering anyway about this since it is absolutely known that when Gray was hired she was on probation for felony theft and should never have been in any job that put her in close proximity to finances and money) Side note here that she is largely unpopular with a lot of people because she is extremely rude, including to other employees. Plus, and I suppose this sounds petty of me, but her salary is $80,000 a year, which is more than other qualified people in the county, including the commissioners, so certainly she ought to be extra scrupulous about deserving that taxpayer funded salary.

To be fair, there’s nothing wrong with having multiple events at the Expo at the same time. Someone might be running in an event in the conference room at the front, have something going on, such as Roping, in the larger arena, and something else going on in the smaller arena. In this case, Perfect Plan booked one of the events, Heritage and Hooch (a continuation of the Moonshine Festival in previous years) and also Intertribal Pow Wow was scheduled, with terms that there would be no alcohol or drugs. Perfect Plan would be the one to look at that should have ensured that there was no conflict in scheduling an event with booze, and the Pow Wow which, by its nature, required that it be alcohol free. Seems like for the booze event, there was no security or police, since the police only showed up when the Perfect Plan owner called 911 to bring them over.

I’m not here going to attempt to untangle what happened at the intersection of the Hooch being set up for sale outside the expo and making sure that the smaller arena was secure and the Expo personnel ensured that there were safeguards against bringing in open containers, etc, as Pow Wow not only requested but thought was part of the deal. Would be great if someone had taken video of that part of the event, but seems like the Pow Wow was attempting to wrap it up and that the Hooch sales were supposed to take place AFTER the Pow Wow ended. But I’ll leave that to “He Said, She Said” prognosticators who may have more information and actual verifiable sources. Certainly, however, assuming the schedule was that the hooch would be for sale after the Pow Wow ended, it was not unreasonable for them to ask that booze be kept away from their event in the meantime. (Adding that if anyone DOES have video or pictures of the part of the event where Gray lost control and screamed at the Pow Wow Group, send it on! )

Here’s the flyer for the Intertribal PowWow. Notice that, prominently, in the upper left hand corner, the advert shows “This is a drug and alcohol free event”.

Kelly Harris had, at some point in the past, okayed both events and was allocated money for running them. She, in turn, hired Perfect Plan to actually run the events, maybe because they had done a good job with an event at Barnards Mill. According to Jeff Harris, county commissioner, the funding of this came up in a Budget hearing during the summer. Don’t know about anyone else, but wow, it’s really tedious and difficult to find the appropriate reference for a budget item, as those sessions do not break down, as other meetings do, into agenda items. One problem was that the Pow Wow group had not funded the event for themselves until late in the game It is not clear from the below clip from the regular meeting on Oct 15 of the Commissioners Court whether all the money goes to Perfect Plan, or to the Pow Wow.

Also note that the commissioners, at this meeting, told Castillo how he needed to set up and break down some parts of the arena for the Pow Wow event. Saying that this, besides the fact that Kelly Harris had okayed the events, but also the Commissioners Court, is a confirmation that this event was taking place that next weekend, which Gray appeared to have ignored and then interjected herself into with a completely outsized reaction. Not only inappropriate, ill-informed but weird.

I find this part of the commissioners court meeting to be less than clear. For one thing, Chambers says that they will discuss and vote AFTER the executive session. But there is ZERO indication that this would be taken up in an executive session. If you look at the agenda, you will see an item for employment. Harris told me that they had discussed BOTH issues, but, again, talking about the money due to the events is NOT ON THE AGENDA. It violates the Texas Open Meetings Act (TOMA) to sort of lump in another item with an existing item that the public would not know about from the agenda and I don’t even think that talking about the payments was a legitimate subject FOR an executive session, as opposed to discussing this in the public eye. Whose responsibility to ensure that an agenda is legal and also meets requirements to inform the public? Trey Brown, Somervell County Attorney.

From the signed document on the motion, it does not show *who* the CVB money goes to. Does it ALL go to Perfect Plan and they then dole out the money to Intertribal Pow-Wow. Since Vic Castillo of the Pow Wow group was at the meeting, was part of the money to be paid directly to him? I have done an open records request asking for the invoices, receipts and payments to see whether this was a lump sum or otherwise divided, because, again, you sure can’t tell from the signed motion, nor was the discussion instructive.

Overall, the whole event, from the Perfect Plan side, seems to been fraught with a lot of errors and mistakes, including needing better attention to the planning and running of it from the Perfect Plan people and I’m sure that there will be lots of efforts to sort this out. BUT it is no mistake to have someone with no self-control on the loose, for an event she had no part over or at least appeared to have obstructed, cursing at a great event, the Pow Wow, disregarding the sanctity and meaning of a prayer circle and not taking care to ratchet down a reaction to PAYING customers by calling them m*****f*****. If Somervell County Commissioners continue to keep her on, I have to question, as I’ve been doing for months, why and whether she is holding something over their heads, as well as question their common sense and duty to the public.