May 27, 2009

Larue Barnes: Selling ‘cool stuff’By Larue BarnesCleburneTimesReview.com

While Christi Schmidt runs her shops at Nolan River Mall, her husband, Steve, travels across the nation, selling their jewelry and fashion accessories at conventions, trade shows and fairs.

“Steve’s recognized many places we travel,” she said. “When our family visited Disney World, I heard somebody say, ‘There’s the purse guy!’

“He’s also a human map. He knows his way around any city.”

Her brown eyes flashed as she smiled. She is very much at home in her shop — the business world has been familiar to her since childhood.

“My dad, Terry Lay, owned a perfume and cosmetic business,” she said. “The World Trade Center in Dallas was a part of my childhood. I was in and out of the place often, and participated in fashion shows there.

“I remember my dad trading cosmetic samples for sample dresses. All the way through college I never had to buy cosmetics or perfume. I took it for granted, I guess.”

She is outgoing by nature and said that her Papa, Leon Gibbs, who is the father of her mother, Carole, is a people person, too.

“Papa’s the famous person in our family tree. He played Western swing music for Bob Wills. At the beginning of ‘Faded Love,’ it’s his fiddle you hear. He had a huge country music dance hall named MB Corral in Wichita Falls. ‘Playing from the Heart,’ a book about him, was published by the Midwestern University Press in 2003.

“He’s still going strong. His stage name was Leon Miller, with his Miller Brothers Band. They were the main band in the movie, the ‘Last Picture Show,’ filmed in Archer City.

“I loved hearing him tell about how he had his own dressing room on the movie set. Years later, when they made the sequel, ‘Texasville,’ he grinned and said he wasn’t famous anymore. He had to sleep in his car.

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