We pray Lord Jagannath to guide us through our upcoming convention. We have almost 1000 Odia families in our metroplex now. However, during 1999-2001 when we had few families, we were fortunate to have Lord Jagannath in our city. Due to passionate initiatives by few families, we could convince the then Hindu Mandir to provide space for Lard Jagannath. It was an auspicious time for our Odia community in Dallas when deities Lord Shri Jagannath, Shri Balabhadra and Devi Shubhadra along with Sudarshan were established in DFW Hindu Temple Ekta Mandir in Irving. This was the first time all our Odia community had the fortune of celebrating and propagating Shri Jagannatha culture in DFW Metroplex. The enthusiasm of greater Indian community was very palpable when we celebrated first RathaJatra festival.
Once the community grew multi folds and many of the community members resided in Plano Frisco area, there was a strong desire to have another Shri Jagannatha temple in Plano. Coincidentally Shri Gajapati Maharaja was visting Dallas and when asked by Odia devotees, Shri Gajapati Maharaja approved the suggestion to have Plano location for deity installation. Plano and the cities in the vicinity were blessed to have Shree Raghunath Temple (SRT) in Plano agreeing to provide space for Lord Shri Jagannatha installation. The JSNT (Jagannath Society of North Texas) was formed by five families and took the initiative to get the deities from Puri. On March 10, 2019 Shri Gajapati Maharaja of Puri installed the deities in Plano. All local Odia families contributed generously. JSNT collaborated with SRT to celebrate all the festivals of Puri temple. All the Puja Bidhis are followed as prescribed by the Puri temple. Currently, SRT temple priest Pandit Gopal Sastry is an accomplished Odia priest from Puri and has been specially trained in Veda chanting and Shri Jagannath puja rituals. The temple celebrates the RathaJatra and BahudaJatra in grand scale where more than 1500 devotees attended in 2024.