“It was so expensive and I didn’t care … It has become my signature feature,” Rebecca said.

And when people visit Urban Tea Town, Rebecca’s wants them to take the time to savor a custommade drink and baked good while feeding their spirit with good books. It’s her mission.

“I am a lover of the written word. I love to read,” she said.

There are a few rules regarding the books at the shop, which operates on a take a book, leave a book policy.

“It has to be a work of fiction, a story to get absorbed into. No self-help, no agenda pushed here. Write in the cover of your books so as they cycle through the shop, it will build a community in itself,” she said.

Art showing Texarkana’s building history, created by Dean Lynn, adorn the Urban Tea Town’s walls.

On another wall and shelf is the origami art of Kamrin Vega, one of the store’s patrons.

“It’s supposed to be good luck to fold 1,000 origami cranes and a wish will come true. We bought shadow boxes for some of the cranes and then put the others in glass vases so people could see them.”

Life unfolds

The path of Rebecca’s career trajectory is one of persistence and lifelong learning, having worked in the education field and earning a doctorate.

As a teenager, Rebecca attended Arkansas High School and was on track to attend college. She had applied to and been accepted by the University of Arkansas, Southern Methodist University and Louisiana State University.

But it would be more than a decade before she pursued a college degree.

“I fell in love with my high school sweetheart and got pregnant at 17. I tried to finish high school, but it was hard to do. We quit school and I immediately got my GED. My intention was to go back to college at some point,” she said.

After the young marriage did not work out, she went to work for CHRISTUS St. Michael and also worked a stint at Georgia Pacific, which is now Domtar.

At the age of 29, she attended University of Arkansas and earned an undergraduate degree in communications.

She then started working toward a master’s degree but experienced burnout after earning 15 hours of credit.

“I left that program and went out and worked in the field for about five years as a project manager for companies in the Dallas-Fort Worth area,” she said.

She went back to UA, where while earning her master’s degree in educational technology she worked as an instructional designer, completing the degree about 2004.

Upon graduation, she oversaw University of Florida’s pharmacy school’s video recordings.

“At that time, online and distance learning were coming to the forefront,” Rebecca said.

She and her daughter, Stormy, stayed in Florida only a year, primarily because it didn’t have the allure of home.

“I am a Southern girl. The entire time I worked there, no one ever said ‘let me take you to lunch and get to know you.’ They didn’t want to be friends with you. I don’t know if it was the nature of the state or several catastrophic events like Hurricane Katrina.”

Another reason to come home was Stormy’s pregnancy.

Rebecca worked again in instructional design, then as UA’s Medical Sciences rural hospital program’s online learning director. Afterward, she returned to UA to work in their information services division and ultimately became the director of web and instruction-based services.

Rebecca finished her doctorate in curriculum and instruction in 2015. Her dissertation emphasis was technology.

Most recently, she worked at Texas A&M University-Texarkana as an assistant professor of instructional technology