{"id":7955,"date":"2025-05-13T17:32:49","date_gmt":"2025-05-13T22:32:49","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.assistanceleague.org\/houston\/?page_id=7955"},"modified":"2025-06-16T09:00:33","modified_gmt":"2025-06-16T14:00:33","slug":"books-brunch-2025-2","status":"publish","type":"page","link":"https:\/\/www.assistanceleague.org\/houston\/books-brunch-2025-2\/","title":{"rendered":"Books & Brunch 2025"},"content":{"rendered":"

[vc_row][vc_column][vc_single_image image=”7939″ img_size=”large” alignment=”center” css=””][\/vc_column][\/vc_row][vc_row][vc_column][\/vc_column][\/vc_row][vc_row][vc_column][vc_column_text css=””]<\/p>\n

Thursday, April 3, 2025<\/span><\/h3>\n

 <\/p>\n

The Briar Club<\/span><\/h3>\n

[\/vc_column_text][\/vc_column][\/vc_row][vc_row][vc_column width=”1\/2″][vc_column_text css=””]<\/p>\n

Master of Ceremonies and Auctioneer<\/h3>\n

Frank Billingsley <\/strong>has been a favorite Houston TV weatherman for more than 30 years and retired in June of 2024 from KPRC Channel 2. He was chief meteorologist and investigative reporter, starting his TV career in Virginia. An author himself, he wrote Swabbed & Found, an accounting of his journey to find his birth parents. Through his book, Frank \u201cput a human face\u201d on the science of genealogy. He was a presenter at our 2022 Books and Brunch and emcee and auctioneer last year. He still serves the community by emceeing and acting as auctioneer at other fund raisers.[\/vc_column_text][\/vc_column][vc_column width=”1\/2″][vc_single_image image=”7408″ img_size=”full” alignment=”center”][\/vc_column][\/vc_row][vc_row][vc_column][vc_btn title=”Purchase Tickets” color=”danger” size=”lg” align=”center” css=”” button_block=”true” link=”url:https%3A%2F%2Fmy.onecause.com%2Fevent%2Forganizations%2F8cb46089-f164-465d-ad93-f3e0c478b5f4%2Fevents%2Fvevt%3Aacff8b51-cdc4-4df3-bae5-b0fd79d81d37%2Fhome%2Fstory|title:Books%20%26%20Brunch”][\/vc_column][\/vc_row][vc_row][vc_column][vc_column_text]<\/p>\n

Guest Authors<\/span><\/h2>\n

[\/vc_column_text][\/vc_column][\/vc_row][vc_row][vc_column width=”1\/2″][vc_single_image image=”7929″ img_size=”large” alignment=”center” css=””][\/vc_column][vc_column width=”1\/2″][vc_column_text css=””]Jean Becker<\/strong> served as chief of staff for President George H.W. Bush for nearly twenty-five years. She\u2019s the editor of Pearls of Wisdom by Barbara Bush and author of the New York Times bestseller, The Man I Knew: The Amazing Story of George H.W. Bush\u2019s Post Presidency. Her latest book, Character Matters: And Other Life Lessons from George H.W. Bush, was released in April 2024. Prior to her post as chief of staff, Jean served as deputy press secretary to First Lady Barbara Bush and was a newspaper reporter for 10 years, including a four-year stint at USA TODAY.[\/vc_column_text][\/vc_column][\/vc_row][vc_row][vc_column width=”1\/2″][vc_column_text css=””]Russell Ybarra<\/strong> established Gringo\u2019s Tex-Mex in 1993 and it came to life when Russell had the opportunity to take over a building in Pearland that had previously housed four failed restaurants. Russell\u2019s philosophy of always serving the highest quality Tex-Mex at the lowest price possible has allowed Russell to grow a single unit to 23 locations which includes Jimmy Changas, Bullritos, The Lunch Box and Burger Libre, with four more locations in development. These establishments employ over 2,600 team members.<\/p>\n

Thirty-one years later, with annual revenues expected to exceed 160 million dollars in 2024, Russell\u2019s passion for the well-being of his team members and community is what drives him to continue the growth of his companies. He lives by his philosophy of taking care of what is important and the rest will fall into place. As the Founder and CEO of Gringo\u2019s Tex-Mex & Jimmy Changas restaurants, he considers himself extremely fortunate to serve tacos and enchiladas for a living.[\/vc_column_text][\/vc_column][vc_column width=”1\/2″][vc_single_image image=”7930″ img_size=”large” alignment=”center” css=””][\/vc_column][\/vc_row][vc_row][vc_column][vc_column_text css=””]<\/p>\n

Last Year’s Event<\/span><\/h3>\n

April 3, 2025<\/span><\/h3>\n

[\/vc_column_text][\/vc_column][\/vc_row][vc_row][vc_column][\/vc_column][\/vc_row][vc_row][vc_column width=”1\/4″][vc_single_image image=”7713″ img_size=”full”][\/vc_column][vc_column width=”1\/4″][vc_single_image image=”7701″ img_size=”full”][\/vc_column][vc_column width=”1\/4″][vc_single_image image=”7711″ img_size=”full”][\/vc_column][vc_column width=”1\/4″][vc_single_image image=”7708″ img_size=”full”][\/vc_column][\/vc_row][vc_row][vc_column width=”1\/4″][vc_single_image image=”7702″ img_size=”full”][\/vc_column][vc_column width=”1\/4″][vc_single_image image=”7703″ img_size=”full”][\/vc_column][vc_column width=”1\/4″][vc_single_image image=”7704″ img_size=”full”][\/vc_column][vc_column width=”1\/4″][vc_single_image image=”7808″ img_size=”full” css=””][\/vc_column][\/vc_row][vc_row][vc_column width=”1\/4″][vc_single_image image=”7709″ img_size=”full”][\/vc_column][vc_column width=”1\/4″][vc_single_image image=”7707″ img_size=”full”][\/vc_column][vc_column width=”1\/4″][vc_single_image image=”7706″ img_size=”full”][\/vc_column][vc_column width=”1\/4″][vc_single_image image=”7705″ img_size=”full”][\/vc_column][\/vc_row]<\/p>\n<\/div>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

[vc_row][vc_column][vc_single_image image=”7939″ img_size=”large” alignment=”center” css=””][\/vc_column][\/vc_row][vc_row][vc_column][\/vc_column][\/vc_row][vc_row][vc_column][vc_column_text css=””] Thursday, April 3, 2025   The Briar Club [\/vc_column_text][\/vc_column][\/vc_row][vc_row][vc_column width=”1\/2″][vc_column_text css=””] Master of Ceremonies and Auctioneer Frank Billingsley has been a favorite Houston TV weatherman for more than 30 years and retired in June of 2024 from KPRC Channel 2. He was chief meteorologist and investigative reporter, starting his […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":67149,"featured_media":0,"parent":0,"menu_order":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","template":"","meta":{"_exactmetrics_skip_tracking":false,"_exactmetrics_sitenote_active":false,"_exactmetrics_sitenote_note":"","_exactmetrics_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"class_list":["post-7955","page","type-page","status-publish","hentry"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.assistanceleague.org\/houston\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/7955","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.assistanceleague.org\/houston\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.assistanceleague.org\/houston\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/page"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.assistanceleague.org\/houston\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/67149"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.assistanceleague.org\/houston\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=7955"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/www.assistanceleague.org\/houston\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/7955\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":7972,"href":"https:\/\/www.assistanceleague.org\/houston\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/7955\/revisions\/7972"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.assistanceleague.org\/houston\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=7955"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}