Columns/Opinions

by MICAH HOLCOMBE

This summer we are starting a special series with AgriLife’s Dinner Tonight that showcases Texas produce. Taste of Texas Once a month, a different a region and food of Texas will be highlighted by AgriLife Extension County agents. Did you know that Texas produces about 20 percent of the nation’s beef? Texas is also the leading producer of pecan, watermelon, grapefruit and cantaloupe Also, the Texas Red Grapefruit is the official state fruit and the sweet onion is the official vegetable.

 

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by BARTEE HAILE

After three wave-tossed months at sea, a shipload of thirsty Germans streamed ashore at Galveston on July 17, 1847 and went in search of the nearest tavern. The previous year, Prince Carl Solms-Braunfels had made the rounds of the universities in his fatherland to talk restless students into taking the Texas challenge. As a recruiter for the Adelsverein, an association of German aristocrats advocating Lone Star colonization as a way to relieve revolutionary pressures, his mission was to fire the imagination of the younger generation with glowing accounts of the New World paradise.

 

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by DAVID BARKEMEYER

We are already half way through 2015 and it wouldn’t be fair if I didn’t start this conversation by first recognizing the excellent budget performance of the county organization so far this year. We’re right on target to reach our budgeted revenue goal of $9.85 million in the General Fund with $6.5 million coming from ad valorem taxes and $3.35 million from other sources including sales tax, fines and fees. The highlight thus far has been the fees collected by the sheriff’s department housing inmates from Coryell and Lampasas Counties with over $336,000 collected throughJune, well ahead of budget and away ahead of last yearto- date when we were at about $200,000 (which we thought was very good back then). A big thank you goes out to our jail staff for a job well done.

 

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By CHARLENE OLBRICH

Thorndale Ex-Students

Association

I guess summer is finally here. Wow! It’s so hot and now, dry. Regular Texas weather. Hope you have had a good week and a better one to come. We had one of those fun calls from Bette Lee Graham Youngblood, Class of 1954 of Cameron. We just have to catch up ever so often and she just bubbles. Our thanks to her for the call. We need to keep Henry Jordan, Class of 1967 in our prayers. Henry had more surgery this past week and really needs those prayers. Thanks to Angie Schneider Becker, Class of 1965 for a heads up on this real need.

 

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