This month, news from Incense & Peppermints, WordSpace, Jonathon’s Oak Cliff and more …

Dreaming about building a business isn’t all that fulfilling; sooner or later, you have to pull the trigger.

Latina Style, Inc. has chosen Laura Sanchez, owner of La Calle Doce and El Ranchito, as“Entrepreneur of the Year.”

“Sanchez has been selected as the ‘Entrepreneur of the Year’ based on her lifetime achievements and her visibility as a true role model for our young women,” said Robert Bard, President and CEO of Latina Style, Inc. With almost 30 years in the restaurant industry, Sanchez’s strong work ethic and attention to detail caught the eye of this Latina-focused organization.

Latina Style, Inc. provides support and encouragement to Latina business owners and professional working women through its publication, Latina Style, its business lecture series, The National Latina Symposium of Latina leaders, and The Latina Style 50 Report, a comprehensive study of the best companies for Latinas in the U.S.

Nine people have been nominated to serve on a committee that will help the city set standards for gas drilling. Three are experts on drilling. Three are oil and gas industry representatives. And three are citizens or environmental group representatives.

The experts on drilling are Terry Welch, an attorney; Margaret Keliher, an attorney and former Dallas County Judge who is now executive director of Texas Business for Clean Air; and David Sterling, chairman of the Department of Environmental and Occupational Health at the University of North Texas Health Science Center.

Industry representatives are Bruce Bullock, director of the Maguire Energy Institute at the SMU Cox School of Business; David Biegler, chairman and chief executive of Southcross Energy GP; and Patrick Shaw, an attorney specializing in oil and gas law.

The citizen or environmental group representatives are Ramon Alvarez of the Environmental Defense Fund; Cherelle Blazer, founder of You Can’t Live in the Woods, a nonprofit dedicated to improving urban life; and John McCall, an attorney and Oak Cliff resident who is a past president of the Old Oak Cliff Conservation League.

City Council is expected to approve the nominations in a meeting next week.

Get your network on from 6-7:30 p.m. Tuesday, June 21 at Grand Bank of Texas, Zang and Colorado.

That’s the next Oak Cliff Women in Business meeting. The meetings feature door prizes, food and drinks, and neighborhood updates. It’s not an exclusive group — everyone is invited. RSVP to Heidi Maggio, heidi@kesslersimplesolutions.com.

We took a little trip to Duncanville last week to visit Pursley Discount Fashion and Cox Farms Market, the locally owned grocer that is the anchor tenant of the Sylvan|Thirty development. To check out Cox Farms without driving the 7 miles or so to Duncanville, go to the “Taste of What’s To Come” farmers market at Sylvan|Thirty from 9 a.m.-2 p.m. Saturday, June 18. And see my review of the Duncanville store at the bottom of this post.

Before I went to Cox Farms, I wanted to check out Pursley’s. It’s a dress and fabric store that opened in Duncanville in 1955 and has operated continuously in the same place since then. Ms. Pursley died recently, but her store shows no signs of closing. Most things are on “clearance”, including all the jewelry, but it’s not a fire sale. Everything is always on clearance at Pursley’s. And they still have clothes in there from the ’80s, but I don’t know if you could call them vintage. They’re not second-hand clothes. I think they’ve just been there since the ’80s.

We used to go there to buy church-y dresses and suits for speech tournaments when I was in 8th and 9th grades in Duncanville. I went there recently to look for cheap fabric. I didn’t find what I was looking for, but I was impressed with how seriously old-school this place is.

This picture shows but a sample of what’s available in the way of sewing stuff. Hundreds of plastic cases filled with buttons, and Pursley’s has any zipper you could ever need. Seriously, this is just some of the white buttons:

It reminds me of the country fabric store my grandma used to own. Across the street from Pursley’s is the Duncanville Feed Store, which is an old, country feed store. I didn’t go in there since I have no business in a feed store. But it is kind of neat.

Next, I went to have lunch at Ben Franklin Apothecary, which is almost next door to Pursley’s. Ben Franklin has a pharmacy, and it’s where we used to have to buy those gawdawful gym uniforms with the red polyester short shorts in junior high. But the store got a makeover about 15 years ago, and now it has everything: basic school supplies, gifts, souvenirs, toys, children’s books, candles. I wanted these Don Featherstone pink flamingoes.

Instead, I bought a Hello Kitty toothbrush holder and a Mars bar and then ordered lunch at the soda fountain at the back of the store. Along with deli sandwiches, they serve shakes, malts and sundaes.

Then it was off to Cox Farms, which I had visited years ago, when my parents still lived in Duncanville. If you’re not excited about Cox Farms, get excited. They carry organic and local produce that is not overpriced. Plus, they carry a ton of bulk foods and lots of other things you can’t find at just any grocery store. I bought a bottle of flax-seed oil, for example. I also walked out with a South Texas cantaloupe, an artichoke, a bag of parsnips, sugar snap peas and lots of other veggies. If you go visit Cox Farms, you will be glad Oak Cliff isn’t on the radar of Whole Foods or Trader Joe’s. We’re getting this terrific little locally owned market. We couldn’t do any better than that.

So, is Duncanville secretly cool? Nah, I can’t let my self admit that, even if it were true.

Mayor Pro Tem Dwaine Caraway and Jason Kidd gaze into one another's eyes — Councilwoman Angela Hunt has more photos of the NBA Champs' arrival on her Facebook page.

Updated 6.14: Thursday’s parade will start at the Dallas Convention Center downtown and wind its way north to the American Airlines Center beginning at 10 a.m., and the roads will be closed two hours earlier. Fans can begin arriving at 7 a.m. A special event for season-ticket holders will be held inside the American Airlines Center following the parade and televised on Victory Plaza video screens.

The Mavericks parade will happen on Thursday morning, says team spokeswoman Sarah Melton to TV news reporters.

We should have more details early Tuesday morning, Melton says.

When we do, we will post them here.

And those of you who are worried that our city can’t afford a parade, relax!

Cubes is picking up the victory-celebration tab.

Dirt Flowers’ Chris Eudaley says the store’s expansion into Downtown Dallas should be completed in July.

This innovative florist’s second location at 1517 Main will harness the same creative energy as the original, but in a larger space that is less limiting. “We chose Downtown because we love what the community is doing there with the revitalization project,” says Eudaley.

The city will reimburse a land developer as much as $129 million to build roads, sewer and other infrastructure on some 200 acres of land the developer owns near Westmoreland and Interstate 30.

Dallas-based Stratford Land pitched a development called “The Canyon” to City Council Wednesday. Roy Appleton at the DMN wrote about the proposed development last week, but that story is behind a pay wall. Stratford told City Council Wednesday the development would include apartments, retail, offices and a hotel.

Council voted unanimously to reimburse Stratford nearly $70 million, which comes to almost $129 million including interest. The money would come from tax revenues gained from increased property values.

Stratford is a land developer, which means it acquires and primes land for other developers. So it is unlikely that Stratford would actually develop the buildings that would make up “The Canyon”, and no timeline has been laid out.

Even so, lame duck councilman Dave Neumann told council Stratford would not improve and quickly resell the property. Isn’t that what land developers do?

A new creative co-op is expected to open on July 23 next to Mighty Fine Arts in the Tyler+Davis artists’ neighborhood.

According to owner Austin Terrill, Incense & Peppermints is a creative design store. “We help artists, musicians, small businesses and non-profits design logos, business cards and other branding materials, and we print and produce them as well,” says Terrill. “We also sell local, original art, screen-printed posters and shirts, and large format canvas prints, as well as some vintage movie posters, antique tin signs, tote bags, retro toys, books and other trinkets.”

The Tyler+Davis neighborhood is apparently much greater than the sum of its parts. Terrill notes that “the girls from Oil and Cotton, myself and many other business owners have started a business owners association in accordance with our local council members in order to establish and brand ‘Tyler+Davis’ as an up-and-coming, creative cultural district. Our platform for communicating with the community will be Tyler-Davis.org.”