The Thicket Podcast

08/29/2026

The county is out. The city isn’t….yet.

Please share. This video is an update to last weeks video. Kendall County voted 5-0 to drop Flock. The City of Boerne still has it - plus a 10 year, $3,158,714.65 Axon contract signed last September on the CONSENT agenda with ZERO discussion.

Both agenda forms list “Citizen Input: N/A.”

Final budget vote is September 8, 6:00 PM, 447 N Main.

Email city council, show up and make your voice heard.

Give us a follow.

08/22/2026

You have seen the petition. You have seen my posts. Here I lay it all on the line for what this Tuesday is about. Spend 16 minutes this weekend and get informed. Please like, share, and if you feel inclined, follow The Thicket Podcast. See you at the courthouse on Tuesday.

08/12/2026

Baron Wiley almost talked himself out of the job that made his career.

“I know what assistants do. They pick up laundry, they babysit the kids. I’m trying to advance my career here.”

His last objection was that he’d have to drop his professor’s class to take it. The professor’s answer: do it. “You will learn more from Sonny Melendrez than anything I could ever teach you.”

Thirty years later Baron owns Boerne Radio and Sonny’s still his best friend. They played golf last week.

Who’s the teacher who told you to go?

Full episode of The Thicket — link in comments.

08/10/2026

Congrats Boerne Little League for making it to the Little League World Series! Excellent work boys and Boerne Youth Athletic Association!

08/09/2026

Baron Wiley and his wife Shan own Boerne Radio 103.9 FM / AM 1500 — the station that calls the Greyhounds games, says your kid’s name on their birthday, and tells you where the warming station is when the power’s out and Sisterdale Road is iced over.

What most people around here don’t know is how many times it’s nearly gone dark.

Baron bought the station two weeks after the previous owner passed — with all the passwords gone with him. Lightning fried the transmitter twice in one month. And this past December the FCC sent a letter with two options: build a tower or sell the station.

They signed a lease with Cow Creek six days before the deadline.

Now comes the expensive part. Building that tower runs close to $200,000, and Boerne Radio is raising it.

If that station has ever called your ballgame, said your kid’s name, or told you what was going on when nothing else could — this is the part where it goes the other direction.

Donate here: https://www.givesendgo.com/build-a-radio-tower-to-save-boerne-radio

Full conversation with Baron here: https://youtu.be/Pt5IoZfLwNA?is=4l4GBY0dwrVY-dho

Worth your time even if you’ve never turned on an AM dial in your life.

Baron Wiley is, as much as anybody, the voice of Boerne.He and hi...

07/13/2026

Ryan Kelly failed 11th grade at Boerne High. The Marines turned him away. Twenty-one years later, he retired as a decorated Special Forces commander — Purple Heart, Bronze Star with Valor — having served in Ranger Battalion, Green Berets, and JSOC. This is the most raw conversation we’ve had on The Thicket. Ryan holds nothing back:

▪️ The Talafar gunfight where he thought he was saving his last round for himself
▪️ Hiding panic attacks on deployment because “nobody talked about PTSD”
▪️ The question that still weighs on him about the war
▪️ Why real leaders put their people first — and most bosses never figure it out
▪️ Range101, the tactical training facility he’s building right here in Texas.

Watch on YouTube below or listen on Spotify and Apple — link in bio.

https://youtu.be/nXEbhxcCPLo?si=uQ6LC_rtewSHYN-W

Ryan Kelly graduated Boerne High School in 1996 as the kid who fail...

07/13/2026

There is just something special about dogs. Their unending loyalty and willingness for adventure makes life so much better. Thank you Chad Leonard for turning me onto cockers and the genetics and training you produced with Honey.

If you haven’t already done so, check out his story and how cockers changed his life here:

https://youtu.be/THyqw2eA60Y?is=KVKu-QOHrJ6AvTYx

07/11/2026

A gr***de that didn’t go off. A round through the door that missed his face. And a thought no soldier forgets:

“I’m saving that last round for me.”

Ryan Kelly — Boerne High class of ‘96, retired Special Forces commander, Purple Heart, Bronze Star with Valor — takes us inside the gunfight in Talafar, Iraq that he wasn’t sure he’d walk out of.

His full story — from failing 11th grade in Boerne to commanding a Special Forces company, and the fight that came after he took the uniform off — drops soon on The Thicket.

Our most intense full episode on YouTube and Spotify — link in bio.

07/06/2026

Four questions Chad Leonard asks his kids every night before bed:

When did you feel most loved by me?
When did you feel least loved by me?
When did you experience kindness today?
When did you show kindness today?

What the second one taught him hit hard: his boys felt least loved when he walked in stressed about something that had nothing to do with them. They just felt it on him.

How you show up is the whole thing.

🎧 Episode 4 in the comments.

07/05/2026

His advice to anyone getting into the restaurant business? It can’t be work.

“That is my form of therapy. I need to do what I’m doing.”

For Chef Mark, every tortilla is a memory. He learned this food in his grandmother’s kitchen in the valley, and he’ll tell you straight — he lives in the past on purpose, because that’s where she is.

“It keeps me grounded. It keeps me closer to her.”

And honestly? That’s not just restaurant advice. Whatever business you’re building — if it doesn’t mean that much to you, it’ll turn into work. And once it turns into work, you won’t want to wake up in the morning.

🎙️ Episode 3 of The Thicket here: https://youtu.be/HC4AC2-is5M?is=YrhdFlhbKcB26gUD