Austin, TX
Florence is set of new movie premiering at the Austin Film Festival
New movie set in Florence
Florence, Texas, is the heart of a new movie premiering at the Austin Film Festival this weekend. It takes place at the Gault School of Archaeological Research.
FLORENCE, Texas – Florence, Texas, is the heart of a new movie premiering at the Austin Film Festival this weekend. It takes place at the Gault School of Archaeological Research.
Perhaps the most remarkable thing about this place is that, at first glance, it’s pretty unremarkable.
A creek divides the site that’s both half woods and half-open prairie. It borders next to quarries and ranches now, but take a closer look, and there is a sharp reminder of the people here first.
Even during FOX 7’s interview, Tim Brown, who is on the school’s board of directors, was picking up stones left and right. Each one had been chipped at, likely by people thousands of years ago.
“Oh yeah, you can’t walk out here without seeing this kind of thing,” said Brown. “This is probably the richest, most well-defined Clovis site in the Americas.”
The Clovis people roamed this land about 13,000 years ago. Their presence today is carved into stone.
“Blades, scrapers, all kinds of little tools that they made out of durable material,” said Brown.
Flash forward to the 21st century, and this site was almost lost.
“The owner had chosen to monetize the site,” said Brown. “He would allow people to pay a fee and come in and dig, and it was completely uncontrolled.”
In comes the main character of this story: Dr. Michael Collins.
“Without Mike, we would not be standing here,” said Brown.
Dr. Collins’ story stood out to movie director Olive Talley.
“Michael Collins overcame one challenge after another,” said Talley. “Everything from weather to money, to financing, to control of the property. He wound up purchasing the property after five years of trying to find public funding.”
And thank goodness he did.
What was under everyone’s feet the whole time would rewrite history books.
“That has produced very strong, compelling evidence of the human presence much earlier than what we refer to as the Clovis culture, which we thought was the first,” said Brown.
Collins found evidence that humans had been here long before the Clovis people.
Instead, a group likely called Central Texas home up to 20,000 years ago.
“And to think that we have a place in Central Texas that is so pivotal to the narrative of the peopling of the Americas, right here, in our own backyard,” said Talley.
This is what Olive Talley’s new movie is all about.
It’s called “The Stones Are Speaking.”
If we’re quiet enough, they have a lesson to share.
“I hope that the film is a call to action and a call for awareness, not just about the gault site but the overall awareness that cultural sites are important to preserve,” said Talley.
The movie premieres at the Austin Film Festival on Saturday, Oct. 26.
Talley is still hoping to get a contract on a streaming platform for viewers at home.
AUSTIN (KXAN) – Trevor Goosby is a projected first-round pick in the upcoming 2027 NFL Draft. The Texas offensive lineman anchors the group up front for one of the best teams in the country and was named a preseason All-American by Walter Camp.
But his football career felt in jeopardy when he was in high school.
“That was kind of my biggest question,” said Goosby. “I was really nervous because would I be the same football player coming back?”
Goosby was born with a congenital heart defect and had open-heart surgery when he was just 16 years old. He wasn’t sure how this would change his everyday life, including his football career.
“Definitely a lot of nerves just because you’re getting your ribs cracked open essentially and getting your heart worked on…It was a scary moment. I remember driving up to the hospital super nervous.”
Goosby was able to recover and become a great football player. He said not only has he become a person in learning to fight through adversity, but it helped him as a player as well with improved endurance.
Now, the star Longhorn is giving back as much as possible.
Goosby hosted a camp in Austin to benefit the Children’s Heart Foundation. The organization works to fund research on congenital heart defects.
The offensive tackle is matching all donations up to $20,000 made to the Children’s Heart Foundation through the event and campaign.
“It means a lot to me just because of the heart condition I did have back when I was 16. That just kind of changed my life. I just want to bring awareness to that.”
The camp was at Hyde Park High School in Northwest Austin. Goosby spoke about what he hopes the young campers took away from the event.
“I think it’s just more than football. Football is a big part of what I do but it’s not who I am…I just want to show all these kids that I’m just another great guy and just someone they can look up to.”
AUSTIN, Texas — Texas is getting its first major new national stock exchange in decades, and finance experts say it could create new opportunities for Austin’s tech companies and startups looking to grow.
The Texas Stock Exchange is launching this week in Dallas, with live trading expected to begin as early as Friday. The exchange began operations Monday, and it says all publicly traded stocks should be available on the platform by the end of the month. Thousands of publicly traded stocks are expected to be available by then.
Ray Perryman, President and CEO of the Perryman Group, said the launch signals Texas’ growing influence in the financial sector.
“It really lets the world know that Texas is indeed a major player in this industry,” Perryman said.
Gov. Greg Abbott called the exchange another sign of Texas’ expanding economic reach, saying, “This is another step that expands the financial might of Texas in the United States, and cements our economic power on the global stage.”
ALSO| Past and present teachers are charged with improving student outcomes in Texas
Perryman said the exchange could provide another path for companies to go public and could help attract more growing companies to Austin and the rest of the state. He said the added access to capital could have ripple effects across the economy.
“It increases opportunities for firms in the area to expand, have access to capital, to be more profitable. That means they hire more people. That means they pay more taxes. That means they buy more things in their supply chains,” Perryman said.
Texas ranks second in the U.S. for Fortune 500 headquarters, behind California and ahead of New York. With the Texas Stock Exchange set to launch, experts say Austin’s startup community could see even more growth.
Perryman said Austin-area tech firms could benefit from having an in-state exchange option.
“They’ll now have a vehicle here in Texas that will be more efficient and less expensive to register on than the traditional exchanges,” Perryman said.
Perryman said the exchange’s success will depend on how many companies choose to list on it, how much investment it attracts, and how many additional companies decide to move to Texas.
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