WOODVILLE – The Texas Bucket List, a popular travel show, aired a segment last Saturday featuring the Pickett House in Woodville.
Texas Bucket List host Shane McAuliffe prepares to dig in to some hearty Pickett House fare during his visit in July.
Photo courtesy of the Texas Bucket List | McAuliffe Productions, LLC
The show, which is helmed and hosted by producer/host Shane McAuliffe, whose namesake McAuliffe Productions, LLC produces the show, showcases various points of interest throughout the state, and typically features one exemplary eatery per episode. When confirmation came through that the Bucket List crew were coming to the Pickett House, the Tyler County Heritage Society, the non-profit that owns and operates the restaurant and Heritage Village, shared posts on social media encouraging the public to come out and be a part of the filming.
McAuliffe, who is based out of College Station, came to the Pickett House in July to film the segment. He and his crew spoke with the staff of the restaurant and with Heritage Village Executive Director Ofeira Gazzaway, who noted, on camera, that the restaurant is known throughout the world for its fried chicken.
The Texas Bucket List began as an idea when McAuliffe, who was a sports reporter in Austin, moved to the Bryan-College Station area to further his broadcast journalism career. A station general manager at KBTX told McAuliffe he was a great features reporter, and encouraged him to come up with some human interest stories.
He drew inspiration from Texas Country Reporter pioneer host Bob Phillips, whom he referred to as “the George Strait of Texas TV,” and began a series titled “The Brazos Valley Bucket List,” which aired monthly.
With encouragement from a growing, enthusiastic audience, he took the show idea to encompass all of Texas, beginning in the fall of 2013.
When McAuliffe and crew visited the Pickett House, they not only enjoyed the great meal they were served, but also enjoyed the ambiance of the building, which was a schoolhouse in its previous life, before Heritage Village founder Clyde Gray bought and transported it to its current location in 1965.
The circus posters on the wall, which were donated by Gray’s friend Bubba Voss in the early days, were also of interest to McAuliffe.
McAuliffe said he also has been influenced by other folksy television journalists than Phillips, such as Charles Kuralt, Ray Miller and Ron Stone. “Our goal is to feature the stops, hear the stories, and meet the people that are quintessential to the story of Texas,” he said.
“How do you define Texas? It starts with a wide open, beautiful, and enchanted land full of amazing people and places. Then there are the cities, big and small each with their own culture and way of life. When you add these things together, you have an incredible mix of personalities that make Texas what it is today,” McAuliffe said.
Along the way, McAuliffe was recognized with numerous television broadcast excellence awards including a Regional Edward R. Murrow Award; the Lone Star Emmy Award; the Barbara Jordan Media Award and multiple Texas Association of Press Broadcasters awards.
The visit to the venerable eatery was not the first time that McAuliffe and his crew made a stop in Tyler County. In 2014, the Bucket List showcased the Burger House in Colmesneil, and in that segment, McAuliffe even took on one of that establishment’s giant Bulldog Burgers.
