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Written for Tarrant Regional Water District, Fort Worth, Texas. Published March 25, 2026.

What happens when a little boy gets a very big idea? A small part of the world is transformed in a major way.

When Walker Lane’s parents asked how he wanted to celebrate his fourth birthday, he responded without hesitation: “Let’s do a Trash Bash!”

Walker has spent a lot of time outdoors at Fort Worth’s Clearfork area. His family enjoys taking walks and runs, biking, fishing and just hanging out in nature. You can find them at Clearfork often. A lot of times, they will stop to pick up trash they see along the way.

An idea taking shape

 Last semester, Walker and his siblings were studying the rivers of Texas, the water cycle and how rivers work, leading him to the birthday Trash Bash idea. He wanted to start with a dinosaur party and then head out to the Clearfork Trailhead of the Trinity River with some of his friends and family.

“Clearfork is incredibly special to our family. Over time our kids have developed a real sense of ownership and pride in keeping it clean. Together, our family has picked up more than 50 pounds of trash in that area,” Tae Lane, Walker’s mom, wrote to Tarrant Regional Water District when requesting to schedule the event.

“For his birthday, Walker has asked that we spend some time doing what he loves most,” she said, “helping take care of the river. It will just be a small group of us, but we believe every piece of trash picked up makes a difference.”

How a personal health crisis led one physician to a career dedicated to lifestyle medicine and patient empowerment. 

Daniel Chen, MD, FACP, DipABLM, was a practicing physician in his mid 30s when he suffered a heart attack. With his life in jeopardy, he spent 10 days in the hospital and ended up with nine coronary stents to restore blood flow to his heart. Today, he is a double board-certified internal medicine and lifestyle medicine primary care clinician who serves as the lifestyle medicine program director practicing in Spanish and English at Esperanza Health Center in North Philadelphia …

In just one year, the LIVELY (Lifestyle Interventions Through Empowerment and Learning for Youth) program has positively impacted the lives of Boston youth, earning the Boys and Girls Club of Boston’s Volunteer Group of the Year honor.  

A University of Mississippi Medical Center team is studying the success of lifestyle medicine delivered in a nontraditional health care setting such as a YMCA. Dr. Josie Bidwell, who leads the program, will be a featured panelist at ACLM’s annual conference, Lifestyle Medicine 2025, discussing the intersection of clinical-community health.  

Taylor Harden was in a high-flying profession when she decided to reroute to a new destination. Her successful landing into health care moved her from an exciting career in aviation and travel into the business of healing and improving the lives of others.

ACLM Fellow Dr. David Bowman experienced the power of lifestyle medicine in his own life and is now passionate about empowering clinicians and patients to transform their health as well.

2024 International Gold Winner, MarCom Awards

“Loving Long Ears Donkey Therapy & Sanctuary” feature article for Southlake, Texas, City Lifestyle magazine.

2024 Honorable Mention winner, MarCom International Awards

“Go for your dreams!” feature article for Southlake City Lifestyle magazine.

Platinum winner 2024 – Content Marketing/Blog Writing category

“Reigniting the flame: a medical student’s journey with lifestyle medicine”

https://lifestylemedicine.org/articles/reigniting-the-flame-in-residency/

For the American College of Lifestyle Medicine

Gold winner 2024 - Content Marketing/Blog Writing category

“Transforming Hospital Food From Bad to Healthy and Delicious”

https://lifestylemedicine.org/articles/transforming-hospital-food/

For the American College of Lifestyle Medicine

Gold winner 2024 – Content Marketing/Website Story category

“Hands-on service: building healthier communities by improving housing quality and safety”

https://www.unthsc.edu/school-of-public-health/hands-on-service-building-healthier-communities-by-improving-housing-quality-and-safety/

For The University of North Texas Health Science Center at Fort Worth -  School of Public Health

Honorable Mention winner 2024 - Content Marketing/Blog Writing category

“Addressing the physician shortage through lifestyle medicine”

https://lifestylemedicine.org/articles/primary-care-shortage/

For the American College of Lifestyle Medicine

2024 International Platinum Award winner, Hermes Creative Awards competition, Blog Writing category, for “Journey of Survival” article for Tarrant Regional Water District, Texas.

2024 International Gold Award winner, Hermes Creative Awards competition, Blog Writing, for “Water is Life” article for Tarrant Regional Water District.

These awards are international competitions honoring excellence in web creativity and digital communication. The competitions spotlight the role of creatives in the dynamic, constantly evolving web. Winning one of these awards signifies to employers, clients, prospects and competitors that the winner’s web and digital work is among the best in the industry.

Entries come from corporate communication departments, public relations firms, digital shops, advertising agencies and freelancers.

Crocker is a longtime writer, editor and brand communications storyteller, with a background in marketing communications for all types of organizations, including healthcare, higher education, nonprofits, the finance and retail sectors and more.

Crocker is a principal in the firm Crocker2 LLC Content Creation+Writing+Graphics

The U.S. Surgeon General’s recent advisory on the link between alcohol consumption and increased cancer risk is an opportunity to engage with patients on the avoidance of risky substances pillar of lifestyle medicine. 

Shelly Hattan remembers the days when people looked for job listings in the newspaper. This was how she found her first job with Tarrant Regional Water District. It was the early 1990s and she had completed her civil engineering degree at the University of Texas at Arlington.

She interviewed with David Marshall, Director of Engineering at the time, and the position he offered sounded really interesting. Shelly started with TRWD in December 1994. She stayed with the district for about two years, and then moved on to work for the City of Fort Worth, the City of Arlington, and went out on her own for 10 years.

Shelly moved back to TRWD in 2009, just as the district started interviewing for positions related to a huge new undertaking called the Integrated Pipeline Project (IPL), a joint water supply project between TRWD and Dallas Water Utilities. When completed, this multi-year, $2.3 billion project will connect to existing water supplies in East Texas and add capacity to the water district’s system. Instead of two pipelines, Dallas Water Utilities and TRWD will use one joint pipeline.

The miracle of animals healing people and people healing animals.

By Sally Crocker for Southlake City Lifestyle magazine, Southlake, Texas, August 2024 issue

Jules Peterson has been around animals all her life. She started riding horses at age five. During the summers at her grandparents’ home in the North Dakota Hills, she rode western saddle and always loved being on ranches and around farm animals.

Jules grew up in Minneapolis, where she became involved in English riding, or dressage. She quickly grew into hunter/jumper equestrian riding, also known as the highly competitive sport of show jumping.

An accident that seriously injured her neck and spinal cord took Jules out of the sport. She ended up on a walker and then a cane, suffering excruciating pain. But her medical treatment was only part of what helped Jules recover. She continued to love being around horses, and also children, so she volunteered for equine therapy in Arizona. Eventually, she started riding again, sitting up straight in the saddle as a rider must do, which helped to alleviate her pain. Amazingly, what ended up bringing Jules back was the very thing she loved – and it showed her the power of healing through equine therapy.

Today, Jules is founder and director of Loving Long Ears Donkey Therapy & Sanctuary, Inc. in Southlake, a 501(c)(3) nonprofit organization supported 100% through donations.

Loving Long Ears rescues donkeys that are unwanted, neglected, abused, need rehoming or are heading for slaughter. The organization rehabilitates them for donkey assisted therapies and activities that inspire, renew and heal the human spirit for children, adults, veterans, first responders and mental health conditions.

By Sally Crocker for the American College of Lifestyle Medicine

Practicing tai chi in the park. Preparing healthy plant-predominant meals to enjoy with friends and family. Taking time for mindfulness. Those are just some of the ways older adults are applying the six pillars of lifestyle medicine to remain mentally and physically engaged as the years tick by.  

The effect of healthy behaviors on both body and mind is powerful. As an example, lifestyle medicine pioneer Dean Ornish, MD, FACLM, recently published results from the first randomized, controlled trial to demonstrate that an intensive lifestyle intervention, without drugs, significantly improved cognition and function in many patients with early dementia and Alzheimer’s disease. 

By treating the whole person—considering a patient’s genetics, lifestyle and social environment–clinicians have an opportunity to support healthy cognitive aging and reduce the future public health burden of dementia. Furthermore, by understanding and addressing specific risk and resilience factors in women, who have twice the risk of Alzheimer’s disease than men, clinicians are better able to personalize treatment approaches to well-being and healthspan, concluded ACLM member Nancy B. Isenberg, MD, MPH, FAAN, DipABLM, and colleague Jessica Z.K. Caldwell, PhD, in a 2023 review on “The aging brain: risk factors and interventions for long term brain health in women.” 

“Aging is inevitable,” Dr. Isenberg said. “But how we age is not.” 

April 28, 2024

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

HERMES CREATIVE AWARDS ANNOUNCES SALLY CROCKER AS PLATINUM AND GOLD WINNER IN TWO BLOG WRITING CATEGORIES

DALLAS, TX – Hermes Creative Awards, an international awards competition for creative professionals involved in the concept, writing and design of traditional and emerging media, has announced that Sally Crocker of Flower Mound, Texas, has won both a Platinum and a Gold award for her blog writing on behalf of client Tarrant Regional Water District (TRWD).

Crocker won a Platinum award for her article “Journey of Survival” (https://www.trwd.com/trwd-employees-journey-of-survival-is-an-inspiration-in-never-giving-up/) about one employee’s longtime health struggles and his strength, positivity and will to never give up.

Crocker won a Gold award for her article “Water is Life” (https://www.trwd.com/water-is-life-trwd-employees-show-their-support-to-underdeveloped-countries-in-need/) about TRWD employees showing their support to underdeveloped countries in need. The blog talks about ways that the employees and their fellow volunteers are helping to improve quality of life in countries around the globe by helping to develop rural villages’ water systems and addressing other safe water needs in countries like Bolivia.

Crocker is a longtime writer, editor and brand communications storyteller, with a background in marketing communications for all types of organizations, including healthcare, higher education, nonprofits, the finance and retail sectors and more. She is also editor/writer for Southlake City Lifestyle, a magazine covering Southlake, Westlake and surrounding areas of North Texas.

By Sally Crocker, freelance writer for the Tarrant Regional Water District, North Texas

Blog article published April 9, 2024, to TRWD online news page (trwd.com)

“In his spare time, Chris Akers enjoys clowning around.

During working hours, Chris serves as patrol sergeant for the Tarrant Regional Water District’s law enforcement division, but as a volunteer for Shrine International – benefitting the Shriners Hospitals for Children national network that provides medical services to children in need, regardless of ability to pay – Chris is known as Kranky the Clown.

His wife and daughters are involved as well, dressing for parades, entertaining children and their families, and spreading the word about the great work of Shriners International. His youngest daughter’s clown name is Flower, his other daughter is Pom Pom the cheerleader clown, and his wife is Koko. It’s fun for a great cause, and it’s a true family affair for mom, dad and the Akers girls …”

By Sally Crocker, freelance writer for the Tarrant Regional Water District, North Texas

Blog article published March 20, 2024, to TRWD online news page (trwd.com)

“At age 76, TRWD employee Banty Blair still believes that a full day’s work does a body good.

When his shift is over at the water district, Banty heads home to his 51-acre ranch near Azle to have dinner, feed the cows and manage other chores that sometimes take him up until 10 p.m. Four mornings a week, he’s back at TRWD before 7 a.m., ready to start the day. Banty works a schedule of 10-hour days each Tuesday through Friday.

Banty celebrates his 50-year anniversary with TRWD in March 2024. He retired once – taking time to travel the country with his wife, remodeling his house and spending time with his son in Florida – before deciding to return to the place where he had enjoyed working for so long …”

By Sally Crocker for the American College of Lifestyle Medicine (ACLM)

Burnout is driving more physicians to leave the profession and contributes to a growing shortage of primary care physicians. Lifestyle medicine can help.

A lot has been reported about the stresses that physicians and other health professionals have faced in recent years. What the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) calls a mental health crisis of burnout, work dissatisfaction, and demanding and sometimes dangerous job duties, is leading more healthcare workers to leave the profession. 

In the last decade, the rates of burnout and dissatisfaction have doubled. The U.S. is running low on primary care physicians, according to the American Medical Association, with an estimated shortage of between 17,800 and 48,000 predicted by 2034.  

One report by the Association of American Medical Colleges (AAMC) says that more than 83 million people in the US live in a designated primary-care health professional shortage area (HPSA), and more than 14,800 practitioners are needed to remove the HPSA designation. The shortage of physicians can have negative consequences for patients and communities, such as delays in access to care, poorer health outcomes, higher costs, and lower satisfaction. 

Since the COVID-19 pandemic, the healthcare industry has faced more stressors, further driving this shortage of primary care physicians. But the problem didn’t start with COVID, said Amber Orman, MD, DipABLM, who has served as Florida’s AdventHealth Medical Group chief wellness officer since 2021. 

“Burnout has been a longstanding issue in healthcare,” Dr. Orman said. “Decreased productivity and increased physician turnover cost the industry around $5 billion a year.” 

Simon Shellis was born into the roofing business. His father and uncle started a London roofing company in 1968 that’s still active today.

As a young man, Simon worked in the family’s business. Everything changed in 1990, when he visited the U.S. with friends and met his future wife, Carla. He returned home, packed everything up and moved to Texas, and the two were married five months later.

Simon opened SPS Roofing in Denton in 1991. Daughter Jade now works in the business with her parents. Over the years, SPS has remained a family-owned business with many of the same crew members since the beginning. The company recently relocated to Roanoke and also maintains an Austin office. In every job and relationship, SPS puts customers and their best interests first.

SPS works about 50/50 with residential and commercial clients. The commercial business is nationwide, and the residential side covers Texas. SPS provides both commercial roofing and inspections before a building is purchased. Many residential jobs are hail damage related.

The company’s main goal is to solve a problem for the client. A huge pain point for Texas homeowners, Carla says, is being able to keep their home warm enough in the winter and cool enough in the extreme summers.

“We installed a new roof on our own home last year, and we’ve found that both heat and cold dissipate away from the house, keeping our interior temperature where we set it,” she says. 

This has been accomplished with new, metal roof tiles from a manufacturing partner in Poland.

The certifications and accolades SPS has been awarded are a strong testament to the trust customers can place in the company. SPS is Haag Engineering Certified to assess hail damage and determine if a roof needs repair or replacement. This certification is one of the most respected industry designations.

SPS also works with a proven group of subcontractors, so everything can be handled under one umbrella.

“Storms can also damage windows, downspouts, stucco and air conditioning units. We comprehensively manage claims to cover all the bases,” Simon notes.

Inspections are free, and SPS’ main focus is in securing the home and business owner. With no state licensing requirements, the risk for scams is high in Texas, and sales representatives often go door-to-door after storms. Some request payment up front, some never complete the job or can’t be reached later, and customers can get conned.

Placing your trust in SPS Roofing assures you’ll receive a certified, time-proven, trusted assessment and follow-up.

Lucie Hasek started painting with a friend about 23 years ago. As homeowners began requesting other features, Lucie added services, building her company, Creative Elements, that today designs elegant home spaces through custom remodeling.

You might say design runs in Lucie’s blood. Her father was a remodeler and custom home and yacht builder. Lucie grew up studying architecture in the Czech Republic and moved to the U.S. in search of freedom and opportunity in 1980. She first settled in Seattle, pursuing a business degree and starting a family. When her youngest child entered school, Lucie made her start in home remodeling.

Now in Texas, she serves Southlake, Colleyville, Flower Mound and other North Texas communities. Lucie still partners with some of the same subcontractors she worked with early on.

She’s big into listening and helping homeowners find a “feeling” for their home that provides a comfortable retreat and relaxation at the end of the day.

Christal Moore can tell you about an amazing number of Black inventors who have made an impact on the world.

For example, Sarah Boone, who was born into slavery and barred from a formal education, patented an improved ironing board in 1892. Housekeeper Ellen Eglin made her mark on African American history in the 1880s when she invented the wringer washing machine. Black businessman William Purvis patented an early fountain pen design, and inventor Lonnie Johnson created the popular Super Soaker® water toy. The movie “Hidden Figures” tells of three Black women who did the math that helped send the first U.S. astronaut to the moon.

Christal is proud of her history and has spent time both learning and teaching this important ancestry to children at her church.

“Black History Month has great importance, yet it means so much more than just one month a year to our American culture and growth. The more we listen and learn about where we have come from and share with others, the more we all can understand each other better,” Christal says.