After 52 seasons, the popular television show "Texas Country Reporter" is getting a new host. J.B. Sauceda is a video host, content creator and photographer. He'll take over as host in 2024. TPR's Jerry Clayton spoke with Sauceda to find out more about him and his plans on taking over the reins of the show.
Clayton: You describe yourself as extremely Texan. Explain to us what that means.
Sauceda: I just find so much joy in the kind of melting pot of experiences that is being Texan. And I spend a lot of time and spent a lot of my career talking about it. And so I think there are plenty of people who are proud.
But my hope is that, you know, when during my eulogy, people talk about my pride being kind of an extreme sport and something that I really spent a lot of time developing and perfecting.
Clayton: You've amassed almost 270,000 followers on your TikTok account, "Texas Humor." One of my favorites of yours was a couple of posts that you were describing Texas cities.
I believe you called them five best kept outdoor secrets in Texas. And in the background, there was like a picture of Lubbock but with snow covered mountains in the background. It was just hilarious. When you make fun of a Texas city, how do people react to that?
Sauceda: You know, I think that one of the things that's really unique about our culture is that there's this self-awareness, both the kind of grandiose nature of our storytelling and the size and sort of scope of our history that lends itself really well to kind of poking fun at ourselves about.
And so, that video was meant to be sort of this thing that plays into the perception that people who aren't from Texas have about our state and just the kind of varied landscape while kind of being a little bit of an inside joke for everybody who lives here that recognizes that the images of snowcapped mountains are clearly not Lubbock, and the images of Venice were definitely not the River Walk in San Antonio.
Clayton: What is it about Texas that's different from any other state in your mind?
Sauceda: I think that there is a very unique mindset that we're all sort of raised with through a mixture of just kind of osmosis of being around other Texans and some of the schooling and the history and things that we study growing up that gives people who live here a level of kind of ownership and pride that, you know, I do think is just unique relative to a lot of other states.
You know, I think there are plenty of other states with history. I just happen to think that ours is a lot cooler.
Clayton: How do you plan to approach becoming the "Texas Country Reporter?"
Sauceda: That's a great question. You know, I'm someone who really respects and loves institutions, especially those that have been around as long as "Texas Country Reporter" in Texas is nothing if not an institution.
And so I look at the "Texas Country Reporter" in the same vein and say my hope is that I can help it continue on for a long time. I grew up watching the show. And so there's a lot that I really love that I don't want to change.
And, you know, my hope is that I can be a good steward of the creative vision that Bob has set out as the founder of that show. And he and Kelley have built upon over the years.
But my job, I see it in a really simple way is to listen both to the team and to Bob and Kelli about what has made this show so successful, to listen to the people that we interview and find the really amazing stories that they've got that are worth sharing with all of Texas and most importantly, listen to the audience. You know, they, I think, are really the experts and ultimately are the feedback loop that has led to this show being so great.
