Columns & Editorials

If you’ve recently become a widow or widower, you’re obviously dealing with an enormous emotional burden, and coping with your grief can seem like a full-time struggle. Unfortunately, the business of life must go on – and the financial moves you make at this time can have a big impact on your life.

Parental involvement in education has always been the foundation of student success and achievement. Without parental input, teachers are less likely to reach optimal outcomes in the classroom. Our mid-COVID return to instruction has presented students and educators with unprecedented experiences and challenges that portend to disrupt education service provision in and out of the classroom. Now more than ever, parents must be front and center in their children’s education.

Links of the food supply chain, especially the meat supply, are regaining strength after periods of uncertainty during the early months of the COVID-19 pandemic, once again instilling consumer confidence, according to Texas A&M AgriLife experts.

Watermelons provide cooling, juicy refreshment during the warm days of summer. But while they’re most associated with summer, watermelons can typically be found in grocery stores year-round. Watermelons are members of the cucurbitaceae family, which includes other gourds, such as pumpkin, squash and cucumber. Watermelons can be considered a fruit or a vegetable. In some areas of the world, watermelons are considered a fruit used primarily in snacks and desserts. In Russia, watermelon rind is pickled, while some Asian countries stirfry or stew watermelons. To quench one’s curiosity about watermelons, the following are six facts about this beloved food, courtesy of The Watermelon Board.

Why are Christians so often defeated when trying to do something that might be used to serve the Lord? First I think we jump up and make our own plan for the project. Very often we don’t want to wait on the Lord or accept His plan for the work. Sometimes we think GOD is too slow to get the job started. Any one of those actions is a mistake because when we wait on the Lord, a blessing comes with job and the work will be the very best we can do.

Dear Aunt B readers,

I originated from some hardscrabble, ragtag, farming, barbering, honky tonkying, rough knuckled sons of guns, and that’s just my feminine heritage. There were no genteel manners, dowry chests, or office jobs bestowed upon my ancestors. There was no family money, no vast expanses of land, and no palatial summer homes. I have uncles nicknamed after farm animals and insects. That would be Goat & Spider, respectively. My Gramps played the fiddle at all the local watering holes each night, while his flat tops and baby bottom shaves were known far and wide during the day. My other grandfather had a 3rd grade education, hunted squirrels for food, and operated a bulldozer with enough accuracy to catch the eyes of the original Hunt Brothers. Long before either of my parents were twinkles in anyone’s eye, my maternal great and great great grandfathers both died after the flatbed truck carrying that season’s cotton was struck by a train near Seagoville. ‘Twas a rough life for all the Stilwells, Hitts, Pickards, and Davises. And, while we’re used to hearing gun slinging, moonshining, tobacco chewing, rabble rousing tales of the menfolk, I thought I’d switch it up today. Because, who runs this sucker? Girls, Beyonce. It’s all about the girls.

Trustees unanimously voted to lower the Crandall ISD tax rate by 10 cents at Monday night’s regular board meeting in the CISD administration building. The 10-cent reduction dropped the rate from $1.47 to $1.37 and marks the second-consecutive year board members have voted to decrease the tax rate.

I have been blessed to have seen and done a lot of things in my sixty four years. I’ve mentioned before that I have been to every state except North Dakota as well as a dozen or so countries. Sometimes my memory of places I’ve been and things I have done get a little confused. The past couple of weeks I talked about the tree I found on our property that I call the “Merlin Tree” and the email I sent to Disney to tell them about it. I talked about a distinct memory of being at Disneyland and remembering Merlin’s Castle there, although I couldn’t find any history of there being a Merlin’s Castle there. Then, a couple of days after it was too late to correct my column, it occurred to me where that memory came from.

After many years of traveling to distant destinations in search of material for my writing career and possibly to help stave a lifelong case of wanderlust for new places to hunt and fish, I have more than my share of ‘bloopers’ that, if captured on film, would definitely qualify for prime time TV! Unlucky for me, or maybe it’s my good fortunate, there wasn’t a camera rolling when these outlandish events occurred, at least most of the time! Here are a few of the more humorous outings that come to mind.

Since students have returned to instruction over the last month, there have been flurries of back-toschool activity. Buses are rolling. Many classes are open and filled with students. Many students are learning online. Sports and extracurricular activities are underway. There is a lot of activity going on in our long-empty school corridors. Amid all the movement in our schools, I often wonder what achievement looks like now and what it will look like in December and the Spring.

The whirr of wings when you accidentally flush a bird from its hiding place can startle you and give you pause. The same can be said about watching a student ”get it” and understand what the teacher is teaching. The art of teaching is tightly linked to seeing the lightbulb moments when students make a new connection.

“If you’re doing the right thing, you’ll like it and it’ll be for you to do,” says Victoria, 8. Lots of people today would agree. They say, “If it feels good, do it.”