TradersGuideofTexas.com

Group M7, headquartered on the fifth floor of the former Blackstone Hotel, just north of the historic square in downtown Tyler, Texas, is in the business of constructing professionally designed Web sites for local as well as national and even international businesses.

Mary Lingle, chief designer for Group M7, mentioned the other day that one of her favorite Web designs spotlights the lowly cupcake.

TheGreeneKitchen.com of cupcake fame is owned and operated by Elissa Greene, who lives in Plano but whose cupcake factory sits in Nocona, the town halfway between Gainesville and Wichita Falls that’s famous for its boots.

Mrs. Greene notes that the rising popularity of “cupcake boutiques” has helped her baked goods rise above the rest.

PHOTO: Elissa Greene

“‘Old-fashioned recipes made from scratch’ is our motto, and that’s no exaggeration,” she beams.

Rumor has it that The Greene Kitchen often has customers asking Mrs. Greene not to tell their mothers that her cookies and made-from-scratch desserts are better than Mom’s.

Another rumor — more than a rumor, actually — is that you can go to the Greene Kitchen Web site and enter the “Free Cookies for a Year Contest.” If you’re the lucky winner you will choose from a dozen freshly baked, homemade cookies per month for an entire year sent right to your front door.

How do you enter? Just fill out an online form that authorizes The Greene Kitchen to E-mail you notices about new items and holiday specials. (Mrs. Greene promises not to share your E-mail address with anybody else.)

To get your hands on Mrs. Greene’s homemade cookies and treats, go to www.thegreenekitchen.com for ordering and shipping details.

PHOTO: Group M7’s Mary Lingle with daughter Erin

To get your hands on a professionally designed Web site of your own, call Mary Lingle at (903) 595-3240, or visit www.groupm7.com.

To enjoy the talents of fine-arts students of the University of Texas at Tyler, you’re invited to visit an exhibit of several works of art on campus through April 20, 2007.

See the works of five students in the Meadows Gallery of the Cowan Center, 3900 University Blvd., Monday through Friday, 9 a.m. to 5 p.m.

The art department of the university also invites you to a reception in honor of the five students on Friday, April 6, from 6 to 7:30 p.m. Even if you miss the reception, you can still view the students’ exhibit through Friday, April 20, from 9 a.m. to 5 p.m. Monday through Friday.

The students are Amber Elise Berry, Allison Nicole Chew, Lecia Joy Ferguson, John Daniel Simmons and Jonathan Peter Syltie.

The students’ art projects serve as partial fulfillment of the degree of bachelor of fine arts.

A tornado hit the Oklahoma panhandle March 28, taking the lives of two Oklahomans who were former residents of Big Sandy, Texas. The couple had met at a college there in the 1960s.

In the mid-1960s Vance Woodbury was an employee of the farm on the Ambassador College campus two miles east of Big Sandy while Barbra Davisson was a student who enrolled as a freshman in the fall of 1966.

About 7 p.m. Wednesday, March 28, 2007, a tornado blew away the Woodburys’ house that had stood in a rural area near the small town of Elmwood, Okla., in Beaver County.

PHOTO: Barbra Woodbury

PHOTO: Vance Woodbury (left) and his father, Ledru Woodbury of Fruita, Colo.

Mrs. Woodbury was in the house and her husband was outside. The tornado touched down and crushed the residence and killed her instantly. The twister picked Mr. Woodbury up and carried him several yards away. He died on the way to a hospital.

Their son Curt has returned from his military deployment in Iraq for the funeral, which was scheduled for Monday, April 2. The Woodburys’ oldest son, Brad, lives with his wife, Vicky, in the Elmwood area.

The Woodburys were “wonderful people, good Christians and excellent friends,” said Joe Kirkpatrick of Portales, N.M. “I cannot remember when I didn’t know Vance as we were childhood friends.”

Mr. Woodbury operated heavy equipment for Beaver County. The Woodburys were reportedly the first Oklahomans to be killed by a tornado since April 2001.