Kim McPherson opened a bottle of sparkling Chenin Blanc in the Lubbock tasting room of his eponymous McPherson Cellars, never pausing in his storytelling. He is the inheritor of two traditions, one deeply embedded in the West Texas caprock and one relatively new but emerging from the same soil.

Stephanie Pok went on her first cruise when she was 14. The Meeker, Oklahoma, native grew up with a mother who worked full time, leaving few opportunities for indulgent travel scenarios — but the cruise changed her world, to use her words. She said she knew that somehow she’d be traveling someday, an impressive vision and determination for a young woman surrounded by farmland and fishing holes between Shawnee and Meeker, years before the casinos showed up.