Team

Abra is the University Archivist at Trinity University in San Antonio, Texas. Her interest in oral history stems from her time as an arts and culture reporter for Texas Public Radio. She directed the Flying Voices Oral History Project, interviewing former employees of Braniff International in the Dallas Fort Worth Metroplex. 

Abra grew up on the St. Mary's Strip.  Some of her earliest memories are eating at the original El Milagrito and listening to music at Tycoon Flats, St. Mary's Bar and Grill, Cactus Bar, and even Salute ( she remembers being squeezed in there with her grandmother one time) with her family. As a teen she found her style on the strip by shopping at places like Eclectica and Blue Moon.  As soon as she could, she was attending shows at the White Rabbit and techno nights at El Toro.  In her 20s she was always to be seen at The Mix or Limelight.  

After being away from San Antonio since 2008, she returned in 2020 to find much of San Antonio, and certainly the St. Mary's Strip, was not what it once was.  With her background in archives and oral history she immediately saw a need to document the evolution of the strip and began planning out the process. She hopes the St. Mary's Strip History Project can serve as a space for the community to share and reflect, a place to explore the complex history of the entertainment district and neighborhood, and act as a resource for future generations.

Jessica Anderson is the assistant program manager for Deconstruction & Circular Economy in the City of San Antonio Office of Historic Preservation (OHP). The bulk of her work involves administering the city's deconstruction ordinance, adopted in 2022. She reviews demolition requests, helps owners and contractors navigate the deconstruction ordinance, and assists with coordination of deconstruction contractor trainings. She also teaches the office’s popular property research workshop, Become a Citizen Historian.

Prior to joining the decon team, she was a case manager for ScoutSA, the landmark and historic district designations arm of OHP, before moving to the design review team, where she evaluated proposed repairs and modifications to historic structures as well as plans for new construction in historic districts. 

Jessica earned her master of science in historic preservation from the University of Texas at Austin School of Architecture.

Michael Cepek is Professor of Anthropology at the University of Texas at San Antonio, holds a Ph.D. from the University of Chicago, and is a former Guggenheim Fellow. For more than two decades, he has done research and advocacy with the Indigenous Cofán Nation of Ecuador. 

A Chicago native, Mike moved to San Antonio from St. Paul, Minnesota, to begin teaching at UTSA in 2007. His first night in the city, he went to the former venue Limelight and immediately fell in love with the St. Mary’s Strip and all who frequent it. Wanting to be close to the Strip, Cepek bought a house a block and a half from it in early 2008, when the neighborhood was still affordable. He continues to reside there with his wife, Amy Rushing, who is Head of Special Collections at the UTSA Libraries. Mike enjoys going for drinks and indie, punk, and metal shows on the Strip, and he spends quiet time watching movies and taking neighborhood walks with his wife and three dogs. 

For two terms, Mike was on the board of the Tobin Hill Community Association and acted as an unofficial “liaison” between neighborhood residents and Strip businesses. He took the position to make sure the Strip would long remain the cultural community he fell in love with in 2007. Mike has also written a series of articles about the Strip and surrounding neighborhood for the San Antonio Report.

Michael Ann Coker operates Tex Pop (Texas Popular Music Museum) a local community archive focused on becoming a "premier source of South Texas music history providing artifacts, information, and analysis of music’s impact on popular culture." TexPop supports the St. Mary's Strip History Project history harvest to help build their archive of St. Mary's Strip memorabilia. In addition to creating pop-up exhibits on a variety of music-related themes, Tex Pop regularly schedules one-day events with speakers, discussion panels, and documentary screenings as well as music performances.  Tex Pop is located at the Corn Pound, 6336 Montgomery Road in San Antonio.