It is hard for patrons of Redbone Magic Brewing LLC to believe it now, but Roger Sheppard was not social nor outgoing in his younger days. His wife, Debbie, was the social butterfly, but Roger spent most of his time working with wood and creating illusions of magic. A lot of the things he built were never shared with the public, but he was honing a craft nonetheless.

While he was not outgoing, Roger was an athlete. He played football, basketball, track, tennis and golf. Debbie was a member of the band, a majorette and a cheerleader. They met on the playground of Hooks Junior High School and started dating during the summer of 1969.

*The Sheppard clan in 2017: (front row) Knox and Lindsey Pilgreen, Debbie, Kristin and Dane Spencer; (middle row) Logan Pilgreen and Gage Spencer; (back row) Gregg Pilgreen, Roger, and Cody Spencer.*

“Growing up in the late ’60s and early ’70s without cell phones, color televisions or computers left you with very little to do,” Roger said. “Communications were very narrow, and fun things to do were limited to school functions and sporting events.”

Roger, the quarterback of the Hooks High School football team, was recruited by many small colleges. “I had narrowed it down to SMU in Dallas and Louisiana Tech in Ruston,” Roger said. “After lots of consideration, I chose Louisiana Tech University.” Debbie joined Roger at Louisiana Tech in 1972. They were married two years later, and welcomed their first daughter, Lindsey, three years after that.

*Debbie and Roger were high school and college sweethearts.*

After graduation, Roger and Debbie both took coaching jobs in the Texarkana area, and eventually both worked at Hooks ISD so they could ride to work together each day. In 1981, their second daughter, Kristin, was born.

“The first real business we started was called Magic Profits Fundraising,” Roger said. “I had worked for a couple of regional and national fundraising companies that called on schools and organizations. I was importing candy and trinket items for organizations to sell to earn money for various reasons and was using different things to incentivize sales. Eventually, I tried using t-shirts as a motivator to sell more candy, but getting shirts printed was somewhat of a pain back in the early and middle ’80s. So, I looked into printing them myself. I quickly realized that customized mascot shirts were way more popular to sell than candy and toys.

*During the summer of 1989, Debbie and Roger took a Royal Caribbean cruise aboard the Emerald Seas with Lindsey and Kristin.*

“We started Sports Magic in the Spring of 1987,” Roger recalls. “Our shop and office were in a 640 square foot shop that I had built beside my house in Nash, Texas. After outgrowing that shop, we built a building on Kings Highway in Wake Village. After outgrowing Kings Highway, we purchased a building on South Lake Drive where Sports Magic is still located today. Our sales climbed to $1.5 million in gross sales, and we employed 14 people at the height of our business. We were printing shirts and caps and jackets for 50 or so high schools throughout the Four States area.”

Roger and Debbie’s daughters were both athletic, following in their parents’ footsteps. As Roger explains it, sports played a huge role in their family dynamic. “They were members of a coaching family, so sports became the focus,” he said. “Our relationship became consumed by coaching and watching kids participate. Much of our lives was spent crisscrossing the country watching volleyball, because Lindsey and Kristin both played college volleyball. Since they were four years apart, that meant we spent eight years on the road.”

After their daughters graduated college, each took a different path. Kristin struck out on her own, and Lindsey and her husband, Gregg, came to work with Sports Magic. “They run the business very much like we did with honesty and desire to please the customer,” Roger said. “They are beginning to run the sales numbers back up each month and have developed their own clientele.

“Since Lindsey was running Sports Magic for us, we needed something else to do after 32 years of the t-shirt business,” Roger said. “I began to entertain the idea of opening a brewery in 2017. We started Redbone Magic Brewing in 2018.”

Redbone Magic Brewing, like other endeavors in Roger and Debbie’s life, was carefully planned and researched before opening. “I had spent six years dabbling in the home brewing concept and was enjoying the science behind the method,” Roger explained. Debbie and I jet-setted around the country looking at different concepts that were in towns the size of Texarkana, and ones that were in larger towns like Austin, Dallas and Houston. We really saw an excitement at most every place we visited. I began to talk to the founders and the brewmasters in each different setting and came to the conclusion that we could use this concept to ‘Make Texarkana Fun Again.’

“After years of looking and planning, I began to do the work necessary to get the place open,” Roger said. “I studied books and watched YouTube videos showing how breweries were constructed and began to build in my shop tables and lighting fixtures that would make the place special.”

The place is, in fact, special. Visitors to Redbone not only enjoy a unique setting with one-of-a-kind fixtures, fun decorations, live entertainment on the weekends, but also enjoy being entertained often by Roger’s magic illusions. “We are very humbled at the response from Texarkana and the surrounding area,” Debbie said. “The response has been above expectations. We enjoy seeing our customers and visiting with them each day. I especially love seeing former students and their families come in, because it lets me know how much they still care for their ‘old’ coaches.”

Roger admits that entertaining others has always been important to him and Debbie. Their greatest accomplishment together, businesswise, has been being able to provide others with a fun place to be. “We’re very different from any other establishment in Texarkana,” Roger said. “We’ve used our research and development very wisely and have been able to ‘Make Texarkana Fun Again’ with live music, great food, an awesome atmosphere with friends, family and newcomers. We love meeting people from all over the United States and world; brewcations are a big thing for many people!”

The future is bright for the Sheppards. In 2020, they expect to grow distribution of Redbone’s flagship beers to other restaurants and hope to expand into other markets to host meetings and parties for businesses and individuals. “We want to become the go-to venue for live music and entertainment at Redbone Magic Brewing, and have several cooking contests planned for this year,” Roger said. “We hope to make Texarkana a festival location in the Ark-La-Tex.”

*The Sheppards began dating during the summer of 1969 and tied the knot on June 1, 1974.*

Feature Stories

A Magical Journey