Where Are They Now?

Dublin graduate Jackie Swanner has spent most of her life in Ruidoso, New Mexico. She’s always loved the mountain views and the cool summers. Now, back in Dublin after nearly three decades away, she’s remembering the beauty of a Texas sunset.

“My husband and I sit out all the time and watch the sun go down,” she said. “If the coronavirus ever did anything good for anybody, it was to tell us to wake up and slow down because we worked all the time. We just wanted to come back home.”

Swanner grew up outside of Dublin in a family of six girls. “We were all tomboys,” she said.

Swanner herself loved classic cars, and even took classes in auto mechanics in Stephenville in her free time. She also held down a few different jobs throughout high school.

“When we were in high school, my dad raised watermelons and cantaloupes and would let us sit on the side of the road between Dublin and Stephenville and sell them,” she said. “We just loved to sit out there and talk to people and sell cantaloupes.”

She also worked at the 7-11 and K-mart to make some extra money.

Swanner would have graduated in 1983, but she became pregnant with her daughter and decided to leave Dublin and earn her GED.

After she finished school, Swanner’s daughter was born. To make ends meet she started working full time, first at K-Mart until it closed, then Charlie’s Country Store, and then on a local dairy milking cows.

She kept working in the Dublin area until 1989, when her parents moved to New Mexico. The family had often taken trips to Ruidoso together when the children were younger, so when Swanner’s parents decided to retire, they moved up full time. Since Swanner needed the extra help babysitting her daughter, she decided to move up with them.

When she got there, she took two jobs — one at a country club and the other at a real estate office. Working in the real estate office led her to identify a need in the area: since Ruidoso is a seasonal vacation town, people often had second homes there. In the off-season, those homes sat empty, and the owners needed someone to take care of them.

So, in 1994, Swanner started her own cabin watch business. “I’d clean hot tubs and do maintenance and just take care of whatever people needed when they weren’t there,” she said.

The flexible hours fit in with her schedule; she could work bar and restaurant jobs during the day, then in the evenings take care of the cabins.

She kept on juggling multiple jobs until 2004, when her daughter, who lived in Stephenville at the time, was diagnosed with stage four cancer. Swanner moved back to help her daughter get through treatments.

Miraculously, her daughter made a full recovery, and when she was cancer-free Swanner moved back to Ruidoso and started back at her cabin watch business, which she kept until this summer, when she decided to move back to Texas for good.

Now that she’s back, Swanner and her husband of 15 years, Bryan, are working hard on making a home for themselves and their 11-yearold grandson (also named Bryan), who they’ve been raising since he was born.

“We’re building a barndominium,” Swanner said. “My husband has a sawmill and we are going to try to use that for the building. God has blessed us to be able to do this.”

When they finish the house, Swanner plans on going back to work. “It’ll probably be in a caretaking type of job, to help older people,” she said. “I just want to help other people and find where there’s a need for me.”

When she has free time, Swanner enjoys spending time with her husband and grandson, visiting her daughter, Jennifer, in Florida, or visiting her sisters in New Mexico, Odessa and Oklahoma.

Swanner draws inspiration from her daughter. “[It was an inspiration] watching her strength coming through as she went through cancer, and seeing her turn into the woman she is today,” Swanner said.

Swanner also draws strength from her faith in God. She and her husband attend Board Baptist Church in Comanche. “God has gotten me through life and all the crazy things I did when I was younger,” she said. “I just know He has a purpose for me.”

“Just don’t take anything for granted,” Swanner said to Dublin graduates. “If there’s something you want to do in your life and you think there’s a way to get it, go for it. And always keep God in your life to be a guide to you.”

Editor’s Note: This column chronicles what Dublin graduates have done since high school. If you have any suggestions for other grads, email publisher@dublincitizen.com.