October 22, 2026

By Mary Beth Gahan

The Summit Club of Flower Mound knows how to bring people together.

It started with a promise to not talk politics when the town was nearly split apart. More than 50 years later, it’s the smell of barbecue that’ll lure in the crowds on Halloween weekend.

The Smoke & Whiskey Fest starts at 6 p.m. on Oct. 30 at the Promenade on the Riverwalk with Flurry’s Friday Night Steakout, where a $100 ticket gets you a cooked-to-order steak, baked potato, salad, dessert and iced tea.

The main event is on Saturday, Oct. 31, with a barbecue competition where more than three dozen teams will make brisket, chicken, spare ribs, and pinto beans.

Smoke & Whiskey Fest is a state championship sanctioned by the International Barbeque Cookers Association. It’ll be judged by Outlaw BBQ Association.

Attendees will still get to eat plenty of barbecue, though. About half of the teams will be working for a people’s choice award. A $25 ticket lets you sample all those entries. Each attendee will have a coin to place in a container as a vote for their favorite.

There will also be vendors, alcohol for sale, and a whiskey corral where those ticket-holders can sample more than a dozen premium whiskeys and enjoy a cigar bar.

This is the seventh year of Smoke & Whiskey Fest. Last year, the club made nearly $20,000 that was then passed onto other groups through grants.

They’ve given to organizations like the band booster club for both high schools, Winning the Fight, Adaptive Training Foundation, and LISD Special Olympics.

Don McDaniel, president of the Summit Club, said some may wonder why they don’t just ask sponsors to write checks that are then distributed to other nonprofits. He believes “actually being in the community” is a way to make a tangible connection with residents of the town.

“We've been here for 52 years and I want us to be around for another 52. And to continue to grow our impact in the community,” McDaniel said. “That's the benefit of doing it as a festival as opposed to just collecting money and getting it back out.”

The Summit Club had its first meeting 52 years ago, but got its unofficial start in late 1973.

In September 1973, a proposal to disannex 25 percent of the town — east of Morriss Road and including all of New Town — was defeated in an election. 85 percent of the town’s 850 registered voters cast a ballot.

It was one of several disannexation elections that “split the town wide open,” according to Buddy Dwyer in Sweet Flower Mound Land.

“Friends of many years weren’t speaking to each other because of political differences,” Dwyer wrote.

Ten men met at Ranchland, a dude ranch that partially sat in Flower Mound town limits, to “rectify this intolerable situation,” Dwyer wrote. It was then that they came up with “Summit” to signify the height of the Flower Mound but also the hope that future town leaders would draw knowledge from the club.

The first meeting was held at Holiday Inn in Denton on Jan. 9, 1974 and there were 64 charter members. Dwyer was elected president.

The first bylaw states, “Any member who either directly or indirectly makes any attempt to make this a political organization shall find this to be a cause for immediate expulsion from membership by a majority vote of the board of directors.”

Still, it was “almost mandatory” for those seeking office to show up at meetings, especially before Election Day, Dwyer wrote.

Membership has ebbed and flowed since then, but the Summit Club has bucked trends affecting social clubs in recent decades.

57 percent of American adults said they were involved in a community group or organization in 2019, according to a Pew Research Center survey. In 2010, that number was 75 percent.

McDaniel attributes part of that decline to a generation scrolling on phones and not meeting their neighbors in person.

“They lose the idea that you actually have to go out into the community, roll up your sleeves, and actually do something,” he said. “The work gets done by lifting hands. It doesn't get done by clicking a button or sharing a link or writing a $10 check.”

The Summit Club has 42 paying members. Counting those who haven’t paid their dues yet ($100 annually) and recent members, the rolls are as high as 80.

The club has spent the last 10 to 15 years actively recruiting and hosting events. They no longer have a horse show, Christmas dinner dance, or chili cook-off, but the club host the Easter sunrise service on the Flower Mound and members will cook hot dogs, burgers or pancakes at events for other nonprofit organizations.

Meetings are on the first Thursday of each month and are currently held at Tour 18 from 6 to 8 p.m. They include a half-hour of socializing followed by a buffet dinner and the meeting. There is no attendance obligation.

Put simply, the club still embodies what it set out to do half a century ago: bringing the town together through fellowship.

“I think we're seeing a rebound in that,” McDaniel said. “I think we're seeing people that are realizing, ‘Hey, we've really lost something. We've lost community connectivity.’ ”