These two home grown girls Patty Hernandez from Avalon and Alice Compton from Italy prove that you don’t have to be from a big city to come up with a big idea. With a little bit of creativity, a good idea and a little bit of spunk you can make your dream a reality.

Patty Hernandez and Alice Compton recognized a need, with perseverance and hard work they came up with the answer.

The need was a place for women to put their cell phones so you always know where their cell phone is. Women don’t always have a pocket to carry their phone. It is uncomfortable to carry it in the waistband of a skirt or pants. Sometimes there is not one pocket on what you are wearing.

Hernandez explained, “It all started last year when I had to go to the Avalon High School and I had on some clothes that did not have any pockets, I had my hands full and I was waiting for a phone call so I just stuck my cell phone in my bra. Got back from the high school and took my phone out and it was all sweaty and I thought yuck, how do people do this? I thought, they need to have a pocket.”

So, Patty made a sample pocket out of paper and them purchased some material and made a prototype of the pocket, put it on, took a picture and sent it to Alice. Alice received the picture and immediately pulled out her old sewing machine and started sewing, trying all different ways to make a pocket to attach to your bra strap.

Patty explained, “We practiced and practiced and then I called my mother and asked her if she could make me a pocket. She said, well I have some old material, curtain material. She made us a pocket and she put buttons on it and we wore it and fell in love with it. We made changes and we are still making changes. But for the sole purpose of knowing where your phone is when you need it, it worked and worked well. You don’t have to dig in your purse, or try and remember where you left your phone.”

Excitedly, the girls explained, “We have a patent pending status on our pocket. We got this October of last year. It is good for one year. During the patent pending it is already documented that this was patented on that day. So we have a year to decide if this is what we want to do. We have already told them to go ahead and finish the patent. They are finishing up our patent and we already have our trademark on it. The name of our product is Patty’s Perfect Pocket. And we are good to go!”

Each pocket is silk lined and has a velcro strap to attach the pocket to your bra strap. There are several different styles of Patty’s Perfect Pocket. There’s western print, animal print, leather like and water proof. There are all sizes of pockets for all sizes of phones.

Patty Hernandez has worked for Avalon ISD for twenty nine years as Dr. Del Bosque’s secretary and also does the accounts payable. Hernandez said, “My favorite name is ‘MeMaw’ because that is the new air I breathe. I have three daughters and I now have grandchildren. I live in Avalon with my husband Tony Hernandez who is a correctional officer at the state prison in Palestine.”

Alice Compton has also worked for Avalon ISD for 29 years as the business manager. Compton said, "I grew up in Italy, graduated from Italy ISD and lived there for about twenty years. I now live in Midlothian with my husband Graham Compton. We have three children and are grandparents too.

Compton explained, “For years Patty & I have come up with lots of ideas. One of our ideas was a purse that had a light in it – but that had already been done. We wanted to come up with a product that could help people with a need. When I started thinking about the pocket my mind wouldn’t grow big enough to realize a way to do this. But we kept trying, the first ones were pretty ratty looking but we kept at it and now have this end product that is pretty good.”

Henandez said, “This just goes to show that anybody, no matter who you are, young or old, can come up with something that can contribute to society, that can help anybody. You don’t have to be a rocket scientist, you just have a passion about something that you know will work. It is an adventure for us and it is a good adventure and we are having so much fun. We are meeting a lot of people. Anybody at any age can do this. It is just a matter of what you want to do and if you want to pursue it.”

The website for Patty’s Perfect Pocket is www.pattysperfectpocket.com.