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For the Love of Beads
By Ryan Horn
 In
a hotel ballroom with 15 tables covered in beads and tools and over 70
people laughing, talking and beading, one thing is obvious: these people are
in their element and loving it.
At the eighth annual Texas Bead Retreat in Temple, Texas, January 19-21,
women and a few men from all over the country gathered to share the love of
beads and their life stories. The weekend-long bead retreat was developed by
Sandy Pardo and Elizabeth Harkins.
 When
it all began, Pardo and Harkins had never met until their very first
retreat. Harkins started a discussion among members of an online chat group,
Bead Talk. The members discussed how much they wished there was a retreat in
Texas for them to enjoy. Harkins had already begun to make a list of all the
people interested when Pardo volunteered to be involved. Their first retreat
was the start of a friendship and many successful retreats.
The first year of the retreat drew about 35 participants. At this year’s
retreat 73 beaders came for the beading and fun from Texas, Oklahoma,
Arkansas, Louisiana, Tennessee, Arizona, Florida and Georgia to participate
in the weekend’s events.
 Attendees
enjoy taking up to two classes from a variety of choices offered at each
retreat. Volunteers teach the classes and cover everything from making a
specific project to learning new beading techniques.
Harkins and Pardo developed several other activities for the beaders
attending the retreat.
 Beaders
participated in a bead challenge, a themed beaded project, and a bracelet
swap. For the bead challenge, attendees were sent a packet of beads with a
certain number of beads and colors to create a piece to bring the retreat.
The themed project for this year was a beaded wand. According to Harkins,
next year’s project will be beaded name tags.
The retreat is not all about projects, classes and beading; it is about
socializing,
 learning
and being with people who share a love of art. David Dean was a newcomer to
the bead retreat and one of the few men attending. “The thing that brought
us all together is beadwork,” Dean said.
Dean specializes in Native American beadwork and has been
beading for 35 years, learning from a group of aunts when he was 18 years
old. Most of Dean’s work is commission work and includes costumes for Native
American dancers, belt buckles, parade saddles, traditional Native American
fans and many other pieces featuring primarily seed beads.
Dean recently moved back to Texas after 11 years and said that before this
bead retreat you could not put 20 beaders in a room. “It’s nice to see bead
workers together,” Dean said.
Royelle Giddings, also recent newcomer to the bead retreat, enjoys the
inspiration and compassion of the beaders around her at the retreat.
Giddings has been beading for over 30 years and enjoys taking tiny beads to
create something wonderful.
Like many of the attendees, Giddings spends her time teaching her
craft to others. Giddings teaches at
Beadoholique five days a week at their
two locations in Houston. “I would love to teach the whole wide world how to
bead,” Giddings said.
“I hope I’m doing it till I am 100,” Harkins said of her love of beads and
the bead retreat. At the retreat, these women shared more than just their
love of beads.
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For the Love of Women
By Ryan Horn
This year’s retreat was not just about having fun and
creating art with beads. The bead retreat offered valuable information about
a common threat to women: breast cancer.
Mary Ann Yantis, a Nursing Professor at Baylor University in Dallas, Texas,
has been has been a breast cancer survivor for five years. Until the Friday
morning of the retreat, she had never thought of combining the two. That
morning, Yantis woke up with her conscience telling her she needed to
educate the women at the retreat about breast cancer and how to survive it.
Yantis found her lump through a self breast check. She believes it is
important that women know how to perform a proper breast exam. Yantis
brought her mannequin and pamphlets to the retreat where she had a captive
audience. “It was absolutely wonderful, a perfect place for that to be
brought up,” said Royelle Giddings, a fellow beader.
“Breast cancer is the leading cause of cancer deaths in women,” Yantis said.
Yantis taught the women that the best way to survive cancer is to detect it
early. The best way to do this is to know how to perform a proper breast
exam. Yantis felt very sure that, due to her demonstration, someone at the
retreat will detect a lump that she may have never known was there.
“I have really been surprised by the response; there is a huge need for
this,” Yantis said. She plans to continue with her health education lectures
at the bead retreats from now on, discussing many other women’s health
issues. Sandy Pardo, co-founder of the retreat, agreed that discussions on
women’s health issues will become an integral part of the annual retreat
from now on. “This was a great opportunity to save lives. I’m glad we were
able to get this information out to our group,” Pardo said.
If you have any questions regarding breast cancer, you can contact Mary Ann
Yantis at mary_yantis@baylor.edu or talk to your doctor.
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