City of Uvalde executive assistant to the city manager Gloria Resma has been chosen to lead the Main Street Uvalde program beginning Monday, Oct. 3.
After a swap with the Uvalde Area Chamber of Commerce and Convention and Visitors Bureau, the Main Street office will be in the former chamber headquarters at 340 N. Getty St.
Resma, who previously worked at the Uvalde Leader-News for 19 years, said she is looking forward to organizing her new space and working with downtown merchants. She will continue to oversee the Willie De Leon Civic Center, a task she took on while working for the city.
She said she was drawn to the Main Street position in hopes of continuing traditions and keeping the downtown area thriving, attracting families for decades to come.
“I enjoy working with the public. I really enjoyed working with our businesses when I was at the newspaper, and now seeing the city side of working with businesses, I felt that having those combinations gives me a little bit of a strong point to be able to work with and also to develop Main Street into something that everybody can start using again,” Resma said.
“I want to start building a tradition with the next generation. So they have the same memories that I kind of did when I used to go downtown.”
She noted that downtown Uvalde offers a plethora of restaurants and stores with a range of merchandise, and she hopes to help entice community members to shop local first, rather than heading out of town.
Resma was the newspaper’s graphic designer before leaving in October of 2021 to take a job as executive assistant to the city manager.
She spent nine years as a Girl Scout Troop leader and retired from that position in August. She has an Associate of Arts degree from Southwest Texas Junior College and obtained a bachelor’s degree in human services management from the University of Phoenix in 2011.
Main Street
Susan Anderson, city of Uvalde historic preservation head and planning and development director, has been overseeing the program since mid-June, and she said her office will remain over Main Street.
Anderson said there were about eight applicants for the Main Street manager position, and it was narrowed down to two finalists before Resma was chosen.
“We had the finalists do a marketing plan for an event, and we had them interviewed by a couple of the incoming board members,” Anderson said.
She said the city plans to appoint seven Main Street board members next week.
Anderson said upcoming Main Street and city plans are in the works for an event set at the civic center Thanksgiving weekend, as well as resuming façade grants for area businesses, and Shop Small Saturday, a national event intended to promote area businesses, is coming up Nov. 26.
Started more than a decade ago to help preserve, promote and revitalize the historic downtown district, Main Street Uvalde was managed by Olga Charles, who instituted many of the events still held today, then briefly by Kasie Morgan. Susan Rios took over in 2016.
Rios left on June 16, 2022, taking a job as marketing and public relations manager at Uvalde Memorial Hospital after the Convention and Visitors Bureau was dissolved and the city absorbed the Main Street program in house.
