WACO, Texas--(BUSINESS WIRE)--May 13, 2026--
Spark Dealer Group has acquired Landscape Supply, a leading outdoor power equipment and landscape supply business serving Waco and the broader Central Texas market.
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Landscape Supply has built its position as the regional leader through a combination of equipment sales, contractor-focused supply offerings and consistent service for both professional and residential customers. The business serves a wide range of customers across Central Texas, including commercial cutters, contractors and homeowners.
Day-to-day operations will continue to be managed by General Manager and co-founder Curtis Goolsby, with the existing approach to customer service and product offerings remaining in place. Spark will support the business with additional resources and new product offerings, while maintaining a locally-managed operation with the existing team.
“Landscape Supply is one of the premier outdoor power equipment dealers in the country. This is a testament to the incredible organization built by Travis and Jana Yoder and Curtis Goolsby. Landscape Supply has one of the strongest teams in the industry, with a customer-first culture that permeates through the store. We are excited to add this strong operator to the Spark Dealer Group,” said Jon Salinas, CEO of Spark Dealer Group. “Our role is to support the team, invest where it makes sense and continue serving customers across the region without changing what already works incredibly well.”
As part of Spark Dealer Group, Landscape Supply will have access to centralized resources including marketing support and operational systems. Customers can expect the same level of service and reliability they are accustomed to.
About Spark Dealer Group
Spark Dealer Group is a long-term owner of independent outdoor power equipment dealerships across the United States. The company partners with local operators to maintain dealership identity while providing centralized support to strengthen operations over time.
Spark Dealer Group Acquires Landscape Supply in Waco, Texas
NEW YORK (AP) — About 70,000 Americans died of drug overdoses last year — about 14% fewer than the previous year, according to preliminary government data.
It was the third straight annual drop, making it the longest decline in decades, according to federal data released Wednesday. The 2025 total is about the same as the tally in 2019, before the COVID-19 pandemic.
Declines were seen across a number of drug types, including fentanyl, cocaine and methamphetamine. Overdose deaths fell in the vast majority of states, although there were notable increases in Arizona, Colorado and New Mexico, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention reported.
“I’m cautiously optimistic that this represents really a fundamental change in the arc of the overdose crisis,” said Brandon Marshall, a Brown University researcher who studies overdose trends.
But the number of Americans dying from overdoses is still high, and a number of things could cause deaths to rise again — including government policy changes or a shift in the drug supply, Marshall and other researchers say.
“If deaths are going down rapidly, that means they can increase just as rapidly if we take our foot off the gas,” Marshall said.
U.S. overdose deaths were generally rising for decades, but they shot up dramatically during the pandemic, peaking at nearly 110,000 in 2022. The pandemic spike was associated with social isolation and difficulties accessing addiction treatment.
Deaths declined as the pandemic waned. Researchers have pointed to numerous possible factors: an increase in the availability of the overdose-reversing drug naloxone, expanded addiction treatment, shifts in how people use drugs, and the growing impact of billions of dollars in opioid lawsuit settlement money.
Some research also suggests the number of people likely to overdose has been shrinking, as fewer teens take up drugs and many illicit drug users have died. Another theory suggests regulatory changes in China a few years ago appear to have diminished the availability of precursor chemicals used to make fentanyl.
Health and law enforcement officials in recent months have been sounding alarms about newer drugs that were increasingly detected in 2025.
Alex Krotulski is director of the Center for Forensic Science Research and Education, a federally funded toxicology lab in Horsham, Pennsylvania, that is an important part of a national illicit drug early warning system.
In all of last year, the lab identified 27 new drugs. Less than five months into 2026, the lab already has identified 23, he said.
Among the drugs on the lab’s radar is cychlorphine, a potent synthetic opioid described as up to 10 times stronger than fentanyl. Experts say it is being used as a cutting agent, added to other illicit drugs, without the buyer’s knowledge.
“The drug supply continues to change and evolve,” Krotulski said.
Meanwhile, the Trump administration has been cutting programs designed to reduce overdose deaths and infections tied to drug use. In a letter last month, the federal Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration notified federal grant recipients that the government would no longer pay for test strips and kits that help drug users see if their drugs contain highly-lethal additives.
Officials say they are shifting away from services that facilitate illicit drug use, including clean syringes and hotlines that people can dial into while they use drugs.
Last week, a group of women who lost children to overdoses spoke with reporters to protest government policies that emphasize punishment and incarceration.
Kimberly Douglas founded one group, Black Moms Against Overdose, after her 17-year-old son died.
“We are starting to see overdoses go down in some places and that’s because of harm reduction” services like those being targeted by the Trump administration, she said.
The Associated Press Health and Science Department receives support from the Howard Hughes Medical Institute’s Department of Science Education and the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation. The AP is solely responsible for all content.
FILE - Jonathan Dumke, a senior forensic chemist with the Drug Enforcement Administration, holds vials of fentanyl pills at a DEA research laboratory on April 29, 2025, in Northern Virginia. (AP Photo/Mark Schiefelbein, File)
FILE - The overdose-reversal drug Narcan is displayed during training for employees of the Public Health Management Corporation (PHMC), Dec. 4, 2018, in Philadelphia. (AP Photo/Matt Rourke, File)
