Heralding the Future

CYANMAGENTAYELLOWBLACK

saturday, March 31, 2012 • Herald-Banner

THE FUTUREH e r a l d i n g

CSeCtion

Business & industry

SERvicE wiTH a SmilE

Grocery clerk gets a second chance at life,

loves every minute• Page C6

“We have a huge industrial develop-ment area,” said Greenville Board of Development President and Ceo Greg Sims.

one of the largest industries in Greenville is in the midst of a major expansion, and there have also been some positive developments in the local retail sector.

But for now, much of the Board of Development’s focus is on the industri-al parks. earlier this month, Sims addressed the Greenville City Council about the Board’s work plan for the coming year.

Sims said the Board will continue the effort at rebranding the three

industrial parks in the northwest part of Greenville under one name, Park West, including the creation of uniform entrance features and signage. the Board also intends to follow through on improvements to industrial Boulevard and continue a clean-up pro-gram for Park West.

“All of this area we want to develop as the Greenville industrial Development District,” Sims said.

there had also been plans to develop an area off of Jack Finney Boulevard, next to the existing industrial Air Park, as the Air Park South project, but that

Local business leaders believe at least part of Greenville’s business future is tied to the growth of its industrial parks.

By Brad Kellarherald-Banner staff

• inside •

‘Bosie’ Boswell’s flights of fancy

Page C6

artistic flair in Commerce

Page C2

Business owner makes life change

Page C5


>> see eConomiC, page c7

1C FRont

12

Bring this coupon with your last service window sticker from a competitor and receive:

*EXCLUDING STATE INSPECTIONS AND ECONOMY OIL CHANGE

$10 OFFa Conventional

Full ServiceOil Change

LUBE & TUNE


C2 Herald-Banner Saturday, MarcH 31, 2012


B u S i n e S S & i n d u S t r y

Brad Kellar / Herald-Banner

By Caleb SlinkardHerald-Banner Staff

The square in down-town Commerce recently got a little more colorful, thanks to “A Space,” an art gallery that is the brainchild of Ashley and Paul Bryan. With a new exhibit every month and a variety of workshops and meetings planned, A Space will provide Commerce with an artistic rendezvous.

“I earned my MFA in Commerce last May, and we’ve been residents here for about four and a half years,” Ashley said about her experience at Texas A&M University-Commerce. “We were sticking around because Paul works at the universi-ty, and I needed a place to make art. I also saw a need in Commerce for cre-ating somewhere for peo-ple to display art off cam-pus and a place for educa-tional resources for art and crafts.”

Currently, A Space fea-tures a different artist each month and is also the meeting place for a cro-chet club. Ashley is inter-ested in bringing in art that is both visually appealing and unique to the Commerce community.

“We wanted to make a place for exhibiting art, workshops and weekly gatherings,” she said. “We’ve had two exhibi-

tions, beginning with Max Fields. Currently we are featuring Mary Benedicto, a Texas A&M University-Commerce alumna. We’ve been hosting Crochet Club once a week, an offshoot of Art Club at the university where we get together late at night to watch a film or TV series and crochet, knit, or do whatever any-one wants to do.”

The gallery has a close relationship with the University Gallery, located in the Art Building on the A&M-Commerce campus.

“We have a lot of amaz-

ing artists on campus, but nobody really gets to see their work,” Paul said. “this is an outlet for them to promote their work and send people back to see our campus gallery. Our relationship with the university is a key part of A Space.”

While the Bryans have big plans for the gallery, which include expanding to other areas of the building, they’re also cog-nizant of their limitations.

“One thing we’re trying to do is grow slowly enough to be sustain-

able,” Paul said. “As people get excited about it and they come in, it will grow. We don’t want to bite off more than we can chew. I think it’s important for the community to have consis-tency in an organization.”

The Bryans hope that the changing scenery in the square will attract more businesses.

“We have a two-year lease with these guys, and

we’re planning on staying at least that long in this location, and I think that having new art every month for downtown Commerce will be good,” Paul said. “Hopefully more organizations will come down here and more res-taurants will open up. I’m very impressed with how well City Frozen Yogurt is doing.”

On April 10, Ashley will

be holding a workshop on book binding. For now, the window gallery of A Space is open from 7:30 to 10 p.m., while the main gal-lery that individuals can walk through is open from 1 to 5 p.m. Monday through Wednesday. For more information about upcoming exhibits and workshops, visit www.aspaceart.com or find A Space on Facebook.

PrOFile On

Paul and ashley Bryan

Owners of art gallery add color to Commerce

caleB SlinKard / Herald-Banner

Paul and ashley stand in front of a Space, located on the square in downtown commerce.

CYANMAGENTAYELLOWBLACK2


C3Herald-Banner Saturday, MarcH 31, 2012



Thirty years in the business of cleaning, pressing and singingBy Brad Kellar

Herald-Banner Staff

Chuck Allen has helped Greenville residents stay cleaned and pressed for more than three decades.

As manager of Southern Fashion Cleaners, Allen has tackled just about any kind of stain or wrinkle possible.

He also is known for his singing voice.

“Thirty years in, I’ve probably seen most everything,” Allen said. The same can be said of the dry cleaning business, which has undergone a lot of changes since he started.

He didn’t intend to get into dry cleaning in 1980.

“I just needed a job,” Allen said.A friend referred him to an opening

at Southern Fashion, which had at that time was located in a strip shop-ping center in the 4700 block of Wesley Street.

Over the years, Allen learned all he could, found he had a knack for it and eventually took over the business.

“I still don’t know anything,” Allen said. “It was a lot nicer when I start-ed.”

There is less of a call for pressing these days. There were a lot more suits and dresses being worn by employees at local companies back then, before the trend to more casual outfits in the workplace.

The types of stains which he encounters have also changed, as have the rules for dealing with them.

“For example, now we don’t touch

blood,” Allen said.When he came on board, the clean-

ers were owned by Robert Stevens.“He had been in the business in

Greenville since the ‘40s,” Allen said. “He taught me everything I know. I still use it every day.”

Southern Fashion merged with Parisian Cleaners in 1995 and moved to its present location at 6305 Wesley Street.

Allen isn’t sure what the future holds for his industry, which has seen many of his former competitors fold, while multiple businesses offering fewer services have cropped up, even as there continues to be a shift away from formal attire.

“We are the old style cleaners,” Allen said.

In his spare time, Allen lifts his voice in song, whether performing “God Bless The USA” during the Audie Murphy Days activities, or join-ing Charles Sivley during the Christmas Eve services at United Presbyterian Church.

“I’ve been singing since I was in the second or third grade,” Allen said. He has been a regular at Wesley United Methodist Church since 1981.

“I used to sing at a lot of wed-dings,” Allen said. “ I sing at a lot of funerals.”

Singing is going to be a part of Allen’s life, no matter what happens to the dry cleaning industry in the future.

“I can’t quit that,” Allen said. “I enjoy it too much.”


chuck allen has been in business with Southern Fashion cleaners in Greenville for more than 30 years.Brad Kellar / Herald-Banner

a premiere downtown renovation under wayBy Brad Kellar

Herald-Banner Staff

Work continues on trans-forming what had been one of Greenville’s grandest movie theaters into a new entertainment venue.

Barbara Horan of Austin has been responsible for the renovations underway at the Texan Theater down-town and says the plans for the project are almost com-plete.

“They are pretty close,” Horan said. “We are just about to the point of going to the city and getting their stamp of approval.”

Workers with Del Rio Construction Services had all of the asbestos removed from the interior of the building by late January, with demolition work on some of the inside walls underway as of mid-March.

Horan has envisioned an intimate dinner and enter-tainment experience, any-thing from a movie to a small stage production, for about 250 people when the renovations are completed sometime next year.

“When we get the final paperwork filed, it should be a year to a year and a half from then,” Horan said. “It still looks like next spring or summer before we have a really big party.”

The Texan was where the locals watched “Gone With the Wind” in 1940, where June Allyson was on hand for the premiere of “The Stratton Story” in 1949 and where generations of Greenville’s children and adults caught everything from “Old Yeller,” to “The Exorcist,” “The French Connection” and “The Shootist.”

The Texan is included among the League of Historic American Theaters and at one time was one of four downtown Greenville movie theaters, also includ-ing the Colonial, the Rialto and the Rita. The Texan was the last to close, sometime in the 1970s.

Work has been completed on the theater’s marquee, which Horan intends to

light for special occasions until the gala opening event.

As for that “really big party,” Horan hopes to have the same type of premiere that marked the Texan’s glory days.

“With a red carpet and flash bulbs going off and everyone dressed up,” Horan said. “Who knows what Greenville celebrities will show up?”

Horan Hopes to Host ‘really big party’ for texan opening in downtown greenville


the marquee of the historic texan theater on lee Street in downtown Greenville shone for the first time in more than 30 years during the labor day weekend last year. Plans call for the building to reopen as a dinner theater some time in early 2013.


Barbara Horan, center, greeted some of the dozens of individuals who came to downtown Greenville last summer to see the marquee of the historic texan theater relit for the first time in decades. Horan is behind an effort to renovate the building into a dinner theater, with hopes for a grand opening sometime early next year.

PrOFile On

PrOFile On

BarBara Horan

CHuCk allen

chuck allen has seen a lot of changes in clothes, and cleaning since starting with Southern Fashion cleaners in Greenville more than 30 years ago. allen is also known locally for his singing talents.

3






Walk into the Greenville Chick-fil-A location around lunchtime, and you’ll see one of the busiest noon destinations as people line-up to taste their unique chicken sandwich. But Chick-fil-A, and the location’s owner/operator, Cathy Miner, are about more than just chick-en. One of the best examples of this is their Spirit Nights, where organizations can part-ner with the restaurant to receive a percentage of sales from a specific night.

“We want to be in the com-munity, and doing things for children is a big deal for us,” Miner said. “We have a lot of churches who have spirit nights for mission trips, and the Paris Junior College nurses program came and did a spirit night because it promotes their community as well as ours.”

Groups which take advan-tage of the Spirit Nights include local churches and charities, like the Hope Center of Greenville.

Miner has been with the company for 16 years, operat-ing a mall unit in Plano before coming to Greenville three years ago.

“I knew I didn’t want to be in a mall unit my whole life, and this location came open in 2009,” she said. “Chick-fil-A asked me if I wanted to come out. My deal was, I like smaller communities. I like being away

from the Metroplex, the busy-ness of things, and that really inspired me to come out here.”

In Greenville, Miner found

exactly what she was looking for, although initially the con-struction on the service roads along I-30 westbound was an

issue.“The toughest part for us

was the construction, at first,” she said. “The sales were okay,

but now that the construction is completed, we’ve seen our business almost double.”

As Greenville grows, so may Chick-fil-A, according to Miner, potentially even expanding to the local colleges.

“We’re hoping to build the business as far as we can, and we would like to do a multi-unit eventually,” she said. “I don’t know where we would put it – that’s up to Chick-fil-A – but I would like to expand to other places in the communi-ty.”

The quick service industry itself is becoming more and more difficult, but Chick-fil-A has been able to stay ahead of the curve.

“The industry is very com-petitive, so we have to stay a step ahead of the competition,” Miner said. “Chick-fil-A has a great brand and a great pres-ence in the nation, and we’re growing by leaps and bounds.”

Miner’s Chick-fil-A provides jobs for dozens of local individ-uals, many of whom have never had a job before.

“You want to hire individuals from the community because that helps them grow as peo-ple, and gives them an opportu-nity to learn what the business world is really like,” she said. “Sometimes, this is their first job, and they don’t have the skills they need. We can instill in them manners, character and customer service, all while being in a Christian environ-ment.”


It might seem surprising, but while Bulldog Transmission owner Jarrod Buck now spends his time repairing cars, he was initially planning to do a very different kind of surgery.

“I really thought that pre-med was the route I wanted to go,” he said. “I learned that I wasn’t very passionate about it, so I decided to pursue what I knew how to do and knew that I loved.”

Before beginning his own business, Buck had worked for his dad, who owns a transmis-sion shop in Greenville, for almost a decade.

“I’ve always loved helping people, and this is an industry where there is a lot of that going on, and of course, there’s good money in it,” he said. “I worked for my dad since about 2001, which is how I got started. I didn’t want it to be perma-nent, but I’m really good at it for some reason.”

Jarrod decided that he want-ed to branch out, but didn’t want to take business away from his father, so he opened a store in Royse City.

“I got to brainstorming on how I could continue to do this and make more money, but not directly pull from my dad, so I decided to open up in a differ-ent market,” he said. “My dad and I partnered up, and it’s a win-win situation for us both. It brings in new business to us both, but it doesn’t interfere with his established business, and he’s got me for help and I still have him for help.”

Jarrod opened his store last June with the help of his broth-er.

“It took a lot of time, blood sweat and tears, but it’s really worked out and each month it’s grown,” he said. “My brother

has been with me since the get-go, and my stepmom and dad from the other shop come in and help me now and again.”

While business started off slowly, it’s steadily increased over the past 10 months. Jarrod does everything from transmis-sions to motors, breaks, tune-ups and installing stereo equip-ment.

“At first, it was pretty slow,” he said. “My dad would feed me some work from the Greenville store, but the only advertising I had was a sign. It was like I closed my eyes, and then opened them again and I was busy, and I haven’t slowed down since then. I do every-thing except for tires, and I specialize in transmissions.”

Jarrod relates his success to the help of his family and his

honest approach.“I’m pretty honest and up-

front with people,” he said. “I try to do what I say I will do, so the word of mouth has helped me grow pretty quickly.”

Jarrod envisions Bulldog Transmission growing into a leader in the Royse City com-munity as it continues to expand.

“I want it to grow into the mom-and-pop shop for Royse City,” he said. “That shop is non-existent, and I want my business to be a hometown store, a place you can trust and get a good, honest, and quick job done. Eventually, I want to move into a new building, Lord willing.”

Trust and faith are important for Jarrod, who believes that having a strong local store will

be more beneficial to the com-munity than a large chain store.

“You should trust your

mechanic as much as the peo-ple you drop your kids off with,” he said. “I think having a shop like that is crucial for a town that’s going to get big-ger.”

While the automobile indus-try has had some severe set-backs in the past decade, Jarrod is confident that the industry will survive.

“My dad’s theory has always been that for every year they make a car, the industry will stay alive for 10 to 15 more years,” he said. “I see the industry getting a little more difficult because of newer tech-nology, but I have always caught up so far, so I think I’ll be fine.”

Though it was risky at the time, Buck is glad that he changed from pre-med.

“My dad said that there is a difference between a job and a career. A job is something you do because there is something to be done,” he said. “A career is something that, if you’re lucky enough, you can choose and enjoy it and hopefully pro-vide for your family. In a per-fect world, you should try to find something you enjoy doing.”

PrOFile On

PrOFile On

CaTHy MinER

Jarrod Buck

dishing up chicken while serving the community

Transmission shop owner follows in his father’s footsteps

caleB Slinkard / Herald-Banner

Jarrod Buck tests various wires to try and find the source of a car’s electrical problems.


Jarrod Buck stands in front of his shop in royse city, next door to royse city Hardware


More often than not you can find Miner working right next to her employees at the front counter of the store.

4C






It’s not unusual for individu-als to get into a rut working the same job day after day. What is unusual, however, is someone doing something about it.

Shelly Corrales, owner of Express Signs in Greenville, had a career as an educator for almost two decades before tak-ing on the challenge of running her own business.

“I worked in education for 18 years, and I decided I wanted to own my own business,” she said. “This one happened to come up because I’d done some business with the previous owner.”

Corrales took over the busi-ness without any previous experience working with signs or computers.

“I knew nothing about it, and the previous owner worked with me for a month,” she said. “For about a year after than I called her every day.”

But Corrales soon learned the tricks of the trade, and has an organized and efficient sys-tem in place, thanks in part to her one employee, Jarred Donnenwerth.

“I’m very organized, and Jarred is great,” she said. “I shoot things through from the computer, and he is already taking care of it.”

Corrales does everything from signs and banners to T-shirts and car wraps. For larger T-shirt order, she sends her work to a printer in Terrell.

“We do a lot of banners because we have a four-foot printer,” she said. “I prefer to do my own artwork, but some-times it’s faster if people send me their own. We do a lot of shirts with our heat press, and we do partial wraps on cars.”

Coralles’ customer list is long: she provides signs for Celeste ISD, Quinlan ISD, and the Hunt County Sheriff’s Department, whose cars were partially wrapped by Coralles.

“When people see their art-work on the final product, they think it’s cool,” she said. “Every now and again, someone is dis-appointed, but we try to make everything almost perfect.”

While the economy has hurt most businesses in the United States, Express Signs has not been strongly affected.

“There are more signs in the world than people,” she said. “The economy hasn’t really affected my business because

people always want to adver-tise, especially when they’re not doing well. There are some slow months, but usually it’s pretty steady.”

While Corrales is very busy with the current size of her business, her dream would be to expand it one day.

“It would be great to have a bigger space with more employ-ees and a garage, since we do a lot of work in the heat,” she said. “Right now, I’m so busy I can’t do it all. Sometimes I have to turn people away, if they’re wanting something done imme-diately.”

The risk of beginning her own business was one that Shelly didn’t take lightly

“I’m not a risk-taker, so doing this was a big risk for me,” she said. “Depending on your cir-cumstances, sometimes it’s good to take a risk and change your life. Sometimes you feel like you’re in a rut and you get up everyday and do the same thing. If you are wanting a life change, it’s a good idea.”

PrOFile On

Shelly CorraleS

Small business owner sees signs of the times


Shelly corrales stands next to examples of some of the various signs she can create.

corrales works at her computer, where she accepts orders, completes artwork and prints banners.

5





By Jim HardinHerald-Banner Staff

It’s likely that Robert McCutchen will be a part of your shopping experience at Brookshire’s Food Store in Greenville from the time you enter the store until the time your groceries are inside your car and you‘re ready to drive away.

As you enter the store, he may greet you with, “Hey buddy.” You may get a handshake with that greeting. And he will smile.

While you’re shopping or standing in the checkout line, McCutchen may give you a one-thumb-up sign, which he said means, “Cool, man.” And he will smile.

If you’re a frequent customer and he delivers your groceries to your car, you may not have to direct him to your car, or describe your car, or tell him where you’re parked. He already knows.

As he is carting your grocer-ies to your car, he’ll talk to you. He may even pull his latest Special Olympics medal out of his pocket and show it to you. And he will smile.

As a courtesy clerk at Brookshire’s Food Store on Wesley Street, the 49-year-old McCutchen will bag your grocer-ies and cart them to your car. But he doesn’t believe he has completed his job until he has seen each customer smile.

“I like to smile,” McCutchen said recently while sitting at a deli table in the store. “People like to see my smiling face and it puts a smile on their face. I like that.”

The store director and cus-tomers said he is good at what he does.

He’s been doing it for 22 years.Henry Ellis, a longtime cus-

tomer, said McCutchen is

“always up.”“He’s always smiling,” Ellis

said. “I believe he smiles even when things are not going so good for him.”

“I like my job and I like the people,” McCutchen said of the reason he’s a smiling employee.

Store Director Joey Akin said McCutchen knows the custom-ers and the customers know him.

“In the community, he talks up Brookshire’s. He praises Brookshire’s,” Akin said. “He believes in doing a good job and he treats customers like he would want to be treated.”

McCutchen agreed with Akin and several customers who

described him as a good employ-ee, a hard worker.

And why does he have that type of work ethic?

“I want to keep my job. Yes sir,” McCutchen responded.

He also has an explanation regarding how he has managed to stay on the same job for so long.

“I keep my nose out of peo-ple’s business. That’s how I keep my job,” he said. “And I try to do a good job.”

He wants to keep his present job as long as he can.

“I want to do good work. I want to work hard,” he said. “I don’t want to go anywhere else.”

McCutchen said he learned

how to sack groceries at the old Safeway store in Greenville. When he went to work for Brookshire’s, he said, somebody wanted to show him how to sack groceries.

McCutchen responded: “I know myself and I will show you. Cans on bottom, boxes on top.”

Special Olympics also is a pas-sion in McCutchen’s life. He’s been a Special Olympics com-petitor for more than 20 years and is a champion bowler.

He’s one of the state’s top bowlers, said longtime Special Olympics volunteer Rick Kohn of Greenville. In recent competi-tion, he said, McCutchen won the bronze medal for his third place finish in state competition.

“He is everything you look for in an athlete,” Kohn said. “He exhibits great sportsmanship and he has compassion for other competitors.”

McCutchen refers to many customers as “buddy,” but Kohn

said, “he is my buddy.”“He’s one of my best friends.

We hang out together,” Kohn said. “And if I’ve had a bad day and I’m down, all I have to do is spend 20 minutes with Robert and I’m back up again.”

The people of Greenville love McCutchen, Kohn said, and they want to show him -- even with anonymous acts.

Quite often they will go out to eat, Kohn said. And many times somebody anonymously has already picked up the tab for their meal before they get a chance to pay.

He’s been married to Sandy for more than 14 years and has three step-children and four grandchildren.

While he smiles at customers all day, he has a “smile for the Lord every morning.”

McCutchen said he was hit by a car in 1987.

“But I was not ready to die,” he said. “The Lord gave me a second chance.”

JiM Hardin / Herald-Banner

robert Mccutchen wheels two shopping carts of groceries out of the Brookshire’s Food Store in Greenville. Mccutchen has worked at the store for 22 years. Store director Joey akin said Mccutchen knows the store’s customers and “everybody knows robert.”


this is the winning smile of robert Mccutchen, a courtesy clerk and sacker at Brookshire’s Food Store in Greenville for 22 years. Mccutchen said he likes to smile because it makes customers smile. He’s also quick with a “Hey, buddy” greeting to most customers and a thumbs-up sign, which means, “cool, man.”

PrOFile On

RobeRt Mccutchen

By Carol FergusonHerald-Banner Staff

Most Hunt County readers know Evault “Bosie” Boswell through his weekly birding col-umns in the Herald-Banner, but writing books was a late-in-life career move.

He published his first book at the age of 70, and 10 books later at the age of 83 he says he’s still “piddling around” with another project.

Boswell has actually had four career stages in his life, he explained — working for the F.W. Woolworth Company for 18 years; 20 years of “knocking around” with various jobs in building, real estate and news-paper work; 17 years managing a Baptist encampment in south Texas; and last of all, writing books.

Born in Farmington, Mo., he attended Flat River, Mo., Junior College studying journalism, but instead of going into that field he went to work for Woolworth’s. The company sent him and his wife, Jackie, all over the Midwest, and finally in 1959 to Greenville.

In 1967 he resigned and went into home building and real estate. “I was working for Ken Davis and at a planning session for promotion on the Turtle Creek area I had a meeting with someone in the ad department at the Herald-Banner,” he said. “Matt Sheley (the publisher) called me the next day and said they had an opening in the sports department.

“I became sports editor, and wrote six columns a week,” he

recalled. “I did it part-time; I was still in real estate and we had Boswell’s gift shop down-town so I worked from 4 to mid-night at the paper. I’d cover 12 different football games a week — junior high, freshman, YMCA, Little League, and I enjoyed it.”

Boswell said he had volun-teered for 20 years with Baptist Men and had worked with Royal Ambassadors, the youth program, and “because of that I was recommended for the posi-tion at Zephyr Baptist Encampment near Corpus Christi.

“It was a complete life change,” he said. “We had a two-story home in Kellogg, and we sold the home and our car — burned all our bridges — and went down there. We both felt it was where I was sup-posed to be. Everything I did until I went to the camp pre-pared me for the job. Construction, property manage-ment, retail — they were all skills I could apply to the camp. This was the most satisfying thing I’ve ever done. We didn’t do the young people’s pro-grams, but we were involved in providing the food and hous-

ing.”He resigned in 1997 and

worked as a fund-raiser or advi-sor for several camps in north-east Texas. On the basis of his experience, he also wrote three manuals on camp management, covering safety, fund-raising and operations.

Back in Greenville again, Boswell started writing books and eventually his Sunday col-umn, “Birding With Bosie.”

“My first book was ‘Texas Boys in Gray,’” he said. “I had found a 1912 book, ‘Reminiscences of the Boys in Gray,’ and I took that book and edited it into ‘Texas Boys in Gray,’ writing an introduction to each man. I picked out the more interesting stories, several hun-dred of them, and did chapters on what they had to eat, what prisons and hospitals were like, etc. It was more an editing job than original writing.”

His second book was on bird-ing. “The publisher that did ‘Texas Boys in Gray’ was a regional publisher who had a series on things to do with chil-dren. So next I did ‘Birding Texas with Children.’

“I tell people that book sold from coast to coast, one in New

York and one in California,” he joked.

Early on in his birding experi-ence he asked a friend who was a birder the name of the bird in his back yard that kept saying “kiskadee.”

“It’s a kiskadee,” his friend replied. “It’s trying to tell you its name.”

A grandson also picked up on Boswell’s interest in birds.

“We had green jays nesting in our back yard, and my grand-son wrote a paper on it and got a bad grade. His teacher said

there was no such thing as a green jay; they were blue jays. He had to bring a book to school to prove there were green jays.”

Boswell’s third book was “Quantrill’s Raiders in Texas.” His intense interest in the Civil War era followed his discovery of Bruce Catton’s “This Hallowed Ground” (an account of the war from the Union per-spective).

“It intrigued me, so I began to

PrOFile On

‘bosie’ boswell

We ask:

What does the future of birding hold?“The downside of birding’s future is that we’re destroying

the birds’ habitat with all the developments. However, as for interest, the big change in recent years is that more young people are becoming interested in birding so I think that will continue to grow.”

We ask:

What does the future of your industry hold?“I want to keep doing good work and working hard.”

carol FerGuSon/Herald-Banner

”Bosie” Boswell prepares to load one of the bird feeders in his back yard, where he and his wife often enjoy watching their feathered visitors.

>> See ‘BOsie’, paGe c7

local man makes new career out of writing books

Courtesy clerk loves to make customers smile

6





economic expansion targeted for Hunt County’s futurecontinued from page c1

proposal has been abandoned in favor of focusing on the Park West.

“We definitely need to enhance the land we have now,” Sims said.

Sims said the Board is also seeking expansion opportuni-ties for existing industrial com-panies, including exploring ways of providing incentives for those companies intending to expand locally.

One such company is already in the process of expansion.

In late January, Weatherford Artificial Lift Systems broke ground on a $26 million expansion of the plant at 6501 Lee Street (U.S.

Highway 380). which will dou-ble the size of its facility and add more than 100 jobs by this summer.

Weatherford Artificial Lift Systems Inc., a subsidiary of Weatherford International Ltd. is a major provider of oil and gas drilling equipment and production service.

On the retail front, it was announced earlier this month that Crossroads Mall will be undergoing a transformation this year. The City of Greenville is partnering with the owners of the shopping center at 6834 Wesley Street on a multi-million dollar redevel-opment of the property. Under

the agreement, the city receives a portion of the increased sales taxes generat-ed by the redevelopment of the mall, splitting the increase with the mall’s owners. The City Council voted to enter into an Economic Development Agreement with Crossroads Greenville Properties, LTD., under which the owners will invest approximately $11 mil-lion to transform the current traditional enclosed retail mall into a “Big Box” configuration, with larger retailers having access directly to the parking area.

Mall anchors Staples, Belk and JC Penney will remain at

their current locations, while Bealls and Hibbett Sports will be relocated into newly created spaces, with the remainder of the leasable area occupied by retailers new to the project. Improvements being planned include a new facade, reloca-tion of leasable space to the front of the complex as well as improvements to the parking area and other aesthetic enhancements.

Also later this year, Greenville should start to see the first signs of a Collin Street Bakery at one of the city’s bus-iest intersections. A change in zoning was approved last year for a 1.465-acre tract on the

north side of Interstate 30 and the east side of U.S. Highway 69/Moulton Street. The bakery/confectionary would be housed in a 4,200 square foot building, with proposed access from both U.S. Highway 69 and the Interstate 30 service road. The zoning designation was also being sought in order to accommodate a large digital billboard as part of the devel-opment. The billboard will be used to display advertising not only for the bakery, but for other businesses. The sign would be built first, is expected to cost $200,000 to construct, and is estimated to bring in $100,000 per year.


city of Greenville officials joined representatives with Weatherford artificial lift Systems in late January to break ground on a $26 million expansion of the plant at 6501 lee Street (u.S. Highway 380). which will double the size of its facility and add more than 100 jobs by this summer.


‘Bosie’ Boswell loves feathered friendscontinued from page c6

read more and then writing some maga-zine articles on religion in war for Civil War Times Illustrated.

“My great-grandfather fought with Stonewall Jackson in Virginia,” he said. “My book ‘Jabez Snow’ is based on his life. I enjoyed writing that, and it’s prob-ably my favorite. My wife thinks ‘The Rebel from Shepherd’s Mountain’ is my best book.”

He said he finds his topics by reading and discovering stories that have never been published, “like my last book, ‘James Bourland, Hangman or Hero?’ which is about the event known as the great Gainesville hanging.”

Boswell likes to joke about his success as an author. “I asked a friend, ‘Have your read my last book?’ He said, ‘I hope so.’”

He is also part of a music ministry called Crossroads Country Gospel Band. He became involved through Dwayne Patterson whose piano business was located near Woolworth’s at the time Boswell was manager there.

“I play rhythm guitar, sing and do a

lot of MC work,” he said. “We do bene-fits at the Salvation Army every month and take up an offering for them. We also do Valentine and Christmas parties and at a lot of nursing homes, and I enjoy that. It’s definitely a nonprofit organization,” he said, chuckling.

Boswell and his wife, Jackie, have two daughters, Linda and Becky; a son, Joe; eight grandchildren and 10 great-grand-children.

“Jackie and I went all through school together, but hardly knew each other until we worked at a Ben Franklin Dime Store together,” he said. “She was the candy girl, and I was the stock boy. From there we started dating, and I went to work for Woolworth’s in Flat River, Mo., and we got married.”

Jackie also joins her husband in his birding hobby, and he usually ends each week’s column with a joking, but affec-tionate reference to “courting” Jackie, much as birds do.

She’s obviously OK with his humor, however. In September they will have been married 64 years.

7

Texas Optical Center

903-455-02945200 Wesley • Greenville

We’d like to thank all of our patients & Hunt County

for their continued support

Proudly Serving Hunt County Since 1974

LINDA WILLIAMS & DR. HERB WILLIAMS

MELINDA RUMPH, MARY LAWLER, ANGELA MCMILLIAN, HEATHER MELTON

DARRELL KELIEN

WITH THANKSFROM OUR ENTIRE STAFF


H e r a l d i n g T H e F u T u r e

CYANMAGENTAYELLOWBLACKCYANMAGENTAYELLOWBLACK

8C BACK

HuntRegional.org



fighting drugs

CJ Crawford gets involved to help city

• Page d2

A new addition to the district this year is the ACE (Afterschool Centers on Education) program, which is in its first of a five-year grant with its partners, the Boys & Girls Club of Northeast Texas and the YMCA of Greenville.

The ACE program seeks to improve overall student performance through tutoring and enrichment activities, most of which take place after school.

Current enrollment in the program is 1,214 students in kindergarten through grade 12 and of these students, 559 have

attended 30 days or more. Parents are also involved in the program, participat-ing in family events such as parenting and gardening classes, festivals, reading nights and Rock and Roll Parenting Meetings. ACE currently has a staff of 116 teachers, enrichment aides and site coordinators serving our students in the program.

“ACE receives support from the Greenville community including groups

Greenville Independent School District is taking steps to improve the quality of education offered and the way the public

views the district and its programs.

By amber Pompaherald-Banner staff

• InsIde •

Helping county’sabused children

Page d3

Biking his waythrough life

Page d4

Man enters politics in a very small town

Page d6

thE futurEH e r a l d I n g

DSECTIoN

coMMunIty & educatIon

>> see scHools, page d5

1D FRoNT

SM

a Gentiva company

OdysseyHospiceFormerly VistaCare Hospice

®

®



D2 Herald-Banner Saturday, MarcH 31, 2012

THE FUTUREH e r a l D i n g

c o M M u n i t y & e d u c a t i o n

By amber PompaHerald-Banner Staff

Every child in the Greenville Independent School District is familiar with Sgt. CJ Crawford, from her time spent astride an oversized tricycle to her partic-ipation in Heroes Night, the Walkathon and numerous other child-centered events.

Crawford is an active volun-teer with DrugFree Greenville and has been since the mid-1990s. She is also the only female police officer employed by the Greenville Police Department and has been since she began 22 years ago. This is something she is proud of, but is also hoping will change soon.

When she was young, Crawford wanted to be an FBI agent, following in the foot-steps of her mother, aunt and uncle, all of whom held posi-tions within the agency at one point or another.

“That went by the wayside when I realized you had to have a law degree to be an agent and I just couldn’t afford law school,” said Crawford, who also thought of becoming a state trooper.

Crawford did decide on a career in law enforcement, however, starting out in retail security before becoming a pri-vate investigator. It didn’t take long for her to realize being a private eye wasn’t all it’s cracked up to be and that she wasn’t being challenged the way she was seeking.

“It was boring for the most part,” she said about her time in investigations. “It wasn’t my

first choice, for sure.”At the time she graduated,

there was a height requirement for women to become police officers and Crawford, at 5’5”, simply didn’t make the cut.

“They’ve dropped that requirement since then, but at that time it was a way to keep women out of law enforce-ment,” said Crawford. “It’s eas-ier now for women to gain entrance than it was then, as there are less unrealistic hur-dles to overcome.”

That’s not to say that

Crawford doesn’t have hurdles she must overcome at the GPD, most of which involve percep-tions.

“There are still people out there that think women should not be in law enforcement,” she said. “Yes, most of us aren’t burly or are big fighters, but the officers that are willing to work with us discover that we complement each other well. We seem to be more empathic and are more approachable. I think women bring a lot to the table in regard to law enforce-

ment, especially when female and male officers respect each other’s strengths.”

It was 1990 when Crawford moved to Greenville and joined the department after purchas-ing a farm from a family mem-ber. Prior to that, no place was home for her, having grown up in a military family that moved every year. Greenville quickly latched onto her heart and she’s been here ever since.

“I did the whole farm thing for a while,” she said. “At one point, kindergarten classes

from Carver, if I remember cor-rectly, would come out to the farm on field trips and play with the baby animals. That was a lot of fun and when I first began to realize that what-ever I did, I wanted to be involved with children some-how.”

In 1996, Crawford was asked to attend a DrugFree Greenville board meeting in place of the then-chief of police, who at that time was on the board of directors. From then on, it was a match made in heaven.

“At that time I was doing a lot of crime prevention work and it just seemed to make sense. I got drawn in and once you’re in … you can never leave,” Crawford laughed. “It started out as a department thing and just metamorphosed from there. Now I’m their ‘pet’ police officer.”

DrugFree Greenville has since become a huge part in Crawford’s life, something she makes time for in her busy schedule because she believes in what it does for the kids and the community.

“It’s a pleasure to work with these individuals,” she said. “What we do with DrugFree goes hand-in-hand with what I do with the department. There’s absolutely no conflict and actually, the two comple-ment each other more than anything. I never have to worry about my reputation being damaged by my association with DrugFree Greenville and, sadly, you can’t say that about every organization.”

aMBer PoMPa / Herald-Banner

Sgt. cJ crawford with the Greenville Police department is very active in drugFree Greenville, volunteering numerous hours to help them with their drug prevention programs.

PrOFile On

CJ Crawford

Police sergeant making a difference in greenville

2



D3Herald-Banner Saturday, MarcH 31, 2012



CaSa director hoping to help more local children in the futureBy Brad Kellar

Herald-Banner Staff

For almost 10 years, Celeste Prather-Young has been com-ing to the aid of the county’s smallest victims.

Prather-Young is the execu-tive director of Court Appointed Special Advocates (CASA) of Hunt County, and helped found the agency.

“In January 2002, I went to the Texas CASA and told them we needed one of these in Hunt County,” she said.

CASA volunteers are appointed by judges in district courts who are hearing cases regarding allegations of child abuse and neglect. The appoin-tees are assigned to meet and visit with the children and to act on their behalf when it comes time for the cases to go to court.

The Hunt County chapter was officially launched in October 2002.

“Ten years ago we only had 54 kids in care,” Prather-Young said. “Back then it was just

me.”The agency worked out of a

spare room of Lane Real Estate in Greenville. These days, Hunt County CASA has a group of offices on the first floor of the Hunt County Courthouse, because the need for its servic-es has also grown exponential-

ly.“We have more than 1,000

kids now and I have two full timers and one part timer on staff,” Prather-Young said.

She has seen a lot during her decade and has lasted longer than most at her job.

“I am close to tenure,”

Prather-Young said. “There’s only a couple of people who have been here longer than me in the state, and I used to be the new guy.”

Prather-Young was named the 2010 Executive Director of the Year by Texas CASA.

One of the achievements of which she is the proudest is CASA’s Adoption Advocacy Program, which seeks to place children in new homes.

“We have had nearly 200 kids adopted since May 2007,” Prather-Young said. “We had 61 kids adopted last year.”

CASA for Hunt County also has a good working relation-ship with Child Protective Services.

As for what she hopes to accomplish in the future, Prather-Young wants to contin-ue to find more volunteers to assist the children needing help.

“Of the kids in our foster care, 87 percent of them are seen by a volunteer,” Prather-Young said. “I’d like to see 100 percent. That’s the whole prem-

ise of this program.”Prather-Young has been

active in bringing new recruits into CASA for Hunt County, but is also wanting to bring in more male volunteers with whom the boys served by the agency can identify.

“We have a special need for more African American men,” she explained.

Prather-Young said CASA for Hunt County is launching a series of community meetings during the spring, starting April 13 in Celeste.

“To tell what CASA is, what we do,” she said. Meetings are also planned in Quinlan, Caddo Mills, Lone Oak, Wolfe City and Commerce.

Rather than having potential volunteers drive to Greenville to receive their indoctrination, Prather-Young is willing to go the extra miles to find volun-teers.

“I’ll go there and do the train-ing,” she said.

Those who may want more information can contact the CASA office at 903-450-4410.


celeste Prather-young serves as caSa for Hunt county executive director and helped found the local agency, which aids abused and neglected children, 10 years ago.

PrOFile On

Randy daw

PrOFile On

Celeste PRatheR-young


Randy Daw has been a full-time minister of Johnson Street Church of Christ for almost 15 years, but he thinks it is also important to become involved in community activities beyond the church.

“No matter how little you think you have to offer, offer it. It will change you. You’ll never have a sense of being alive until your life is bigger than surviv-al,” he said.

In 1993 Daw became a charter member of Daybreak Rotary Club, pointing out that the Rotary motto is “Service Above Self.”

“That says it all,” he explained. “I want to put Christianity in practice outside the world of the church.”

He is a strong pro-life sup-porter and will be organizing next year’s Life Chain demon-stration in Greenville in which supporters line south Wesley Street holding up signs in sup-port of the unborn.

“I had participated in the pro-life movement episodically, but now I want to do more,” he said.

The movement has a very personal meaning for the Daw family. “When my wife, Debbie, was six or seven weeks preg-nant with our second son, she got rubella, and the doctor sug-gested she have an abortion. (Early in a pregnancy, the rubella virus can cause eye defects, heart defects and men-tal retardation in unborn babies.)

“We said an abortion was out of the question.”

The couple felt that this was their child, and they would love it and raise it regardless, he explained.

As it turned out, Jeremy was born a perfectly healthy baby, and went on to graduate from Harvard Law School. Had they followed the medical advice, their son would have been killed before birth, he said. “That turned the corner for me.”

Daw has also become active in the musical life of the com-munity. He serves on the boards of directors of both the Greenville Entertainment Series and the Dallas Symphony Orchestra Series in Greenville which help pick pro-grams and conduct member-ship drives for the local concert

series.“I still play my trumpet, too,”

he said grinning. “I used to make my living in college as a studio musician doing off-Broadway shows and Summer Musicals.” As recently as last summer, he played for a “Fiddler on the Roof” produc-tion in Greenville Municipal Auditorium, and he has been giving private music lessons to some of the children at Boles Home.

In 2011 he finished writing an opera on the life of Jesus, titled “The Touch of the Master.” Parts of it have already been performed, “some here, some there,” he said, and he is now in the process of getting together a demo tape of the entire opera.

In another extension of his musical interests, he has become music editor for a new song book which will include biblical psalms set to music.

“It’s an international, interde-nominational project,” he explained. “About 60 scholars are participating, and I’m the music editor of volume one. There will be three volumes and 100 to 125 newly written songs.”

He had heard about the proj-ect, and said he marched into

the editor’s office in Austin and offered his services. “It’s a way to leave something behind that will possibly last,” he said.

Over the years Daw has made several mission trips to Mexico and Guyana and seven trips to St. Petersburg, Moscow and Kiev..

“I picked up Spanish on the streets while I was living in McAllen,” he said. “No one would call me fluent, but I am conversant.

“When the Iron Curtain came down, I felt led to go there. I had started studying the Russian language, and so when the call came to go in 1991 I was ready. I was in Red Square, next door to the Kremlin, when the dissolution of the Soviet Union was announced.

“The Russians were over-

whelmingly receptive,” he said. “We put a little ad in the paper and rented a hall, and people came in droves to listen. We established one or two church-es each time, and trained local Russians who would remain there.

“These trips made the pres-ence of God more real to me. You were not in control of what was happening there — plans all fell apart and that was nor-mal. So you say to God, ‘Show me what you want me to do.’ You experience that you’re a tool in God’s hands. It’s no less miraculous here in this country, just easier to see God at work over there.”

Daw, who was born in Port Arthur, was initially interested in a career in math, science or engineering until his high

school years, he said. “A youth minister in Midland, where I graduated from high school, was so effective and made such a difference, I wanted to be like that.” An uncle whom he admired had also been a minis-ter, and this was a positive influence.

He attended Abilene Christian University, graduated at the age of 20 with a B.A. in New Testament, and then went on to West Texas State to study music.

“I was the band director in Happy, Texas, ‘the town without a frown,’” he added with a laugh. He started his ministry as a campus minister in Canyon, and then became a full-time minister at a McAllen church. Five years later, he came to Greenville.

Individual churches in the Church of Christ denomination make their own decisions about hiring preachers, and when one of the elders at the Johnson Street church visited relatives in McAllen and heard Daw preach, he recommended him to the Greenville church.

Daw served eight and one-half years here and then went to a Tyler church for almost 13 years before returning to Greenville and the Johnson Street church in 2006.

“Our hearts had never left Greenville,” he said. “Whenever they needed a min-ister here for funerals or gospel meetings I came back, and when they reached the place where they needed a new min-ister here, it didn’t take long for us to decide to come back. This was home. The people here in Greenville fit the profile of a good person — hard working, honest to a fault, serving, giv-ing, being faithful, keeping their promises. I found the kind of people here I wanted my chil-dren to grow up seeing. “

Daw and his wife, whom he met at Abilene Christian University and married in 1975, have four sons. Jesse is a trans-plant nurse in Fort Worth, Jeremy works for a law firm in Oakland, Calif., Jonathan is a post doctoral fellow at the University of Colorado, and Phillip is an engineer for Texas Instruments in Richardson.

“We have no grandchildren, but we have a bunch of kids in the church whose grandparents don’t live around here, and so they call me ‘Grandpa,’ he said. “It’s a match made in heaven.”

courteSy PHoto

a strong pro-life supporter, randy daw joins others preparing to take part in last year’s life chain demonstration along Wesley Street.

We aSK:

What does the future of your faith hold?“The character of the church is changing. Fewer chil-

dren are being raised to believe according to what their parents and grandparents believed. But the younger peo-ple who are coming to the faith are taking it more seri-ously, and they tend to embrace the faith wholehearted-ly. I’m not trying to be a prophet, but I would say there are fewer who inherit the faith but more who are choos-ing it.”

Minister reaches from church to community

3






Joe C. Johnson might well be considered the “poster boy” for Caddo Mills.

He currently lives “... 300 feet from where I was born, on land that’s been in the family for 140 years.”

He says teachers have been a major influence in his life.

“Miss Frances Lee and Miss Lorene Jordan were elementa-ry school teachers in Caddo Mills. Every time there was a program Miss Lee encouraged me to participate, and Miss Jordan was such an intellectual person — soft-spoken, but a lion when it came to teaching.

“Then my parents moved to Dallas, and I was miserable there,” he recalls. He wasn’t interested in his studies, and the school librarian at Sam Houston Elementary, a Miss Spruce, sensed his unhappi-ness.

“She got me interested in books, and I tell people that in the eighth grade I could travel with the Mohicans and go up and down the Mississippi River with Tom Sawyer. That was my escape. I still think of her and her influence.

“Mother and Dad were also concerned about me, so we moved back to Caddo Mills, and the ‘fog’ was lifted for me,” he said. He graduated from Caddo Mills High School at 16, in 1951.

After graduation he worked for H. L. Hunt Oil Company in Dallas. “They had me driving Mr. Hunt around in downtown Dallas,“ he said.

“When I decided to go to col-lege I went for one year at East Texas State, but I was still undecided about what I wanted to do. I had no girl friend — you could say I was foot loose and fancy free — so I joined the United States Marine Corps.”

From 1956-58 he served in California, Okinawa, Japan and the Philippines.

“After my discharge I knew I wanted to go back to college, so I want back to ETSU and majored in biology. Again I had two great professors there who influenced me — one was the late Dr. Arthur Pullen, head of the biology department, and the other was Dr. Fred Tarpley. At that time ET had a lot of country boys and girls, and Dr. Tarpley took the rough edges off a bunch of old country boys,” he said.

Graduating with honors, Johnson began teaching sci-ence at Greenville Junior High School. “I helped Ken Gibson with the junior high basketball

and football teams. At first I told him, ‘I’m a science major, not a physical education major,’ but he said, ‘You can handle it.’ I said no.

“Then he approached me a week later and said I’d only have four academic classes instead of five to teach, but I still said no. When he came back again, he said ‘I want you to help me. You’ll only have four sections of science and I will help you, plus it’ll be a $500 a year raise.’

“‘Where’s the whistle?’ I immediately said.

“We had very successful teams, but it was due more to Ken Gibson than to me.”

Johnson and his wife, Jean Anne, were the parents of three natural children and also adopt-ed three minority youngsters, two of whom were from El Salvador. All six now have col-lege degrees. “I needed more money, so after three years I quit teaching and went into the construction business with my father-in-law, J.W. Farr, and was in that for 26 years.”

Eventually he went to work in the facilities department at E-Systems in supervision, and retired after 10 years from Raytheon (now L-3 Communications).

In 1997 his wife died in an automobile accident in Rockwall. The library in Lee Elementary School, Caddo Mills, has been named after her, and the family has given more than $80,000 in scholar-ships to seniors at Caddo Mills

High School in her memory. Six years ago Johnson mar-

ried his second wife, Beverly.“Some men never get one

good wife, and I got two,” he said. “Beverly is a CPA and works in accounting at L-3. The kids and 14 grandkids love her. We’re a very close family. It’s not unusual for there to be 30 at our house at any given time.”

Johnson has always been enthusiastic about physical exercise, and he took up long-distance running in 1960.

“My first race was at White Rock Lake in January, and it was 32 degrees and the wind was whipping — cold, cold, cold. I said to myself, ‘What in the world am I doing here?’ It was a 5K race and when I won second place in my age group I was ruined,” he said laughing. “In my 60s I continued in all the major races in my age group in northeast Texas and won them.”

One day when he was run-ning, he said he could sense that someone or something was coming up behind him. “It was Mr. Rentfrow, the undertaker.

“‘James, what are you doing?’ I asked him.

“‘Joe,’ he said in jest, ‘busi-ness is slow and I thought maybe you’d get run over.’

“As I neared 70, there was no one else to run with in Caddo Mills, so I got into bike riding. There are a lot of riders around Greenville — Jerry Grady, Bill Rutherford, Bob Mudie. I joined up with them for companion-ship. With runners and bike

riders, you meet such great people. They’re all so upbeat, enthusiastic.

“Jerry and I went and did the 300-mile Bike Florida ride three times, and then we started going to Iowa for the 500-mile RAGBRAI.”

The latter event was started in 1973 by two men on the staff of the Des Moines Register. The name stands for “Register’s Annual Great Bicycle Ride Across Iowa,” and that’s exactly what it is. Riders begin on the western edge of the state, tradi-tionally dipping the rear wheel of their bikes in the Missouri River, and finish on the eastern side, dipping their front wheel in the Mississippi River. Average speed is 15 to 18 mph, and riders begin at daybreak and are through for the day by 11 o’clock. They average 70 miles per day. Small towns along the route get in the spirit of things by making sleeping space and meals available, he explained.

“For two years we were the only ones from this area who went, but now there are about 10 or 12 riders,” he said. “I have ridden in it five times in the last seven years.”

He has also ridden in the 100-mile Hotter ‘n’ Hell event in Wichita Falls.

“I’ve been retired for 12 years, but I have to have a proj-ect,” he said. “I enjoy gardening and yard work — anything to do with horticulture.” He has planted and cares for 30 trees — peach, pear, pecan and plum

— and also raises tomatoes and okra.

This past year when so many gardeners were having poor luck with their tomato plants, Johnson said his were doing very well. “You have to go out and shake them a little to polli-nate them and talk to them,” he kids. “Shake them and talk to them.” Actually, he admits, his success is probably due more to the bags of oak leaves he col-lects in the fall and uses as a mulch.

“I like the outdoors, and my two favorite places in Texas couldn’t be more different: the Big Bend where I hike, back-pack and ride my bike, and the other is Caddo Lake. I take the kids and grandkids there twice a year and we stay three or four days.”

Over the years Johnson has also been involved in a variety of civic activities. He has been a member of the Caddo Mills Volunteer Fire Department, filled in for an unexpired term on the Caddo Mills City Council, served on boards of directors for FISH, the Hunt County Committee on Aging, Hunt County Appraisal District, Hunt County Fair and Hunt Regional Hospital District. He is also a member of the noon Rotary Club, and he is current-ly taking a non-credit writing course at Texas A&M University-Commerce under Dr. Tarpley.

Johnson is an avid photogra-pher, he collects soda pop mem-orabilia, and he still manages to work out four or five days a week at the L-3 fitness center.

“I’ve had people ask me why I exercise so much,” he said. “It may not allow me to live any longer, but it sure does feel good while you’re living.”

courteSy pHoto

Joe c. Johnson is shown at one of the rest stops provided by small communities along the long-distance biking routes.

courteSy pHoto

Joe c. Johnson takes time out to catch his breath during the 300-mile Bike Florida ride. the caddo Mills native enjoys physi-cal exercise, and in addition to biking, he likes gardening, hiking and backpacking.

PrOFile On

Joe C. Johnson

Mapping out the future: Woman has direction as 911 coordinatorBy Brad Kellar

Herald-Banner Staff

Never let it be said that Jackie Ray doesn’t know where she’s going.

She also knows exactly where she’s been.

As Hunt County’s 911 coordi-nator, it is Ray’s job to put an address on every home, busi-ness and other structure on every road in the county. It is a duty she has performed for almost eight years, the past seven of which as 911 Coordinator.

“I oversee the cities, too,” Ray said. “I work with the North Central Texas Council of Governments and they oversee everything we do.”

The addresses are included on maps of the county and are determined as Ray drives the

roads and notes the coordinates of the structures and driveways leading to the structures, on her GPS system.

“Then I come back and down-load it on my map,” Ray said.

Ray uses a fairly simple for-mula for determining an

address, based on the distance from one driveway to another on a county road.

“For every 100 feet, it is 10 digits,” Ray said.

Any road that has two struc-tures or more, even if it is someone’s extra long driveway, must also carry a specific name which can be added to the sys-tem.

“We also have to make sure the addresses and phone num-bers match up,” Ray said, not-ing the maps she creates are used to dispatch emergency vehicles to a location when a call comes through.

“The sheriff’s office has a copy of my maps,” Ray said. “Each fire department also has copies of my map.”

The maps are available at the county’s web site, www.hunt-county.net, under the listing for

“911 addressing.”As for what she would like to

see in the future, Ray is hoping everyone in the county learns to abide by the regulations for the posting of designated address numbers.

“People aren’t posting their addresses,” Ray said, noting it can make it more difficult for an emergency responder to find a location.

“The numbers need to be three inches tall and visible from the road, either on the house itself or by the drive-way,” Ray said.

Letter designations as part of the number address can also cause problems, as Computer Aided Dispatch (CAD) systems have trouble reading them.

“They can’t be 301-A, it has to be Suite 1, Suite 2, or like that,” Ray said.


Jackie ray knows where all the houses, businesses and other structures are located in Hunt county, as she serves as the county’s 911 coordinator.

PrOFile On

JaCkie Ray

Teachers set path for Caddo Mills man

4C


By Amber PompaHerald-Banner Staff

Amy Eppler is often referred to as “The Library Goddess” of Crockett Elementary School, a nickname she is rather fond of.

Eppler has served as a librarian for Greenville Independent School District for 10 years, hav-ing taught kindergarten

for 15 years at Travis Elementary School before making the change.

“In taking my students to the library, I realized I wanted to be a librarian instead,” she said. “I real-ized I wanted to bring reading to my kids, to as many kids as I could. Teaching was a wonder-ful experience and I learned so much that I carried over into what I

do now.”After coming to the

decision to change careers, Eppler went back to school 10 years into her teaching career to go back to East Texas State University to com-plete her master’s of library science, which was required to be a librarian in GISD, along with years of classroom experience. It took her

five years to complete the program.

“I took my time with it and enjoyed my classes so much,” she said. “It just so happened at year 15 I left the library at Travis to be a stay-at-home mom. It was amaz-ing how it all worked out and I wouldn’t change a thing. Not one thing.”

When she was younger, she had no thoughts of being a librarian, howev-er, nor even a teacher. Eppler wanted to be a stewardess, thanks to Stewardess Barbie.

“I longed for the travel and excitement, but even-tually, I decided I wanted to be surrounded by

books,” she said. Books played a huge

role in Eppler’s life, espe-cially growing up in a military family.

“Books were the only constant,” she said. “We’d pack them and unpack them, time and time again. I still have many of the books I read as a young child and have all the books my family bought me in my child-hood. Books were what I usually got for gifts and I was glad for them.”

Eppler’s family also had encyclopedias and she spent many an hour pour-ing over the volumes, along with the family atlas and dictionary.

“I think I got my pas-sion for reading from my parents,” said Eppler. “They read to me a lot, but they were also great storytellers with enthusi-asm and drama. I, in turn, did the same thing for my son.”

Eppler cannot imagine herself being anywhere but in the Crockett library, surrounded by the books as familiar as old friends.

“I love, love, love books and I don’t need no stink-in’ Kindle,” she laughed. “You have to be able to hold it, touch it and smell it ... it’s not just reading, it’s about the entire expe-rience.”


THE FUTUREH e r A l D i n g



amy eppler, often referred to by many of her peers as the crockett elementary School “library Goddess,” takes great pride in arranging and decorating her library to make it a fun, yet quiet, place for students to escape and broaden their horizons.

crockett elementary School librarian amy eppler reads a book to cassidy Watson, arturo Villegas and Kimberly torres.


PrOFile On

Amy EpplEr

Schools aim to get more supportcontinued from page d1

like the Hunt County Master Gardeners, area churches and ACE Task Forces,” said Johanna Friedel, project director of the GISD Texas ACE Project. “We just want to thank everyone for the support during our inaugural year.”

Another grant which will, it is hoped, make a large impact on the district is the recent $7 million Texas Literacy Initiative grant. Monies will be apportion over five years, funding $1.4 million in lit-eracy services to the district each year.

The goal of the program is to improve pre-literacy and oral skills in preschools, enhance reading assessment perfor-mances for kindergartners through sec-ond grade students, boost proficiency rates on the state English language arts assessments in grades 3-12, increase data analysis to instruct decision making in participating districts and promote effect literacy instruction.

The district plans to use money from the grant to establish literacy-aligned curriculum and will fund the hiring of a project director and six full-time literacy coaches, along with purchasing supplies, books and computers.

A partnership is also in the works with the W. Walworth Harrison Public Library to provide services to the com-munity through this grant.

Aside from these grants, along with another recently received to improve the district’s buses, the district is doing its best to improve how the public perceives it.

This is being done through the new Spread the Red campaign.

The Spread the Red spirit campaign is basically an advertising campaign for the school district and is a way of improving public perceptions of the dis-

trict and garner support for its students, programs and staff.

“It is a campaign to upraise the stu-dents spirits, rejoice in their victories and blaze their successes,” said Kelli Tharp, director of community services for GISD. “It’s a way for us to harmonize our collective voice and show pride in our schools.”

The Spread the Red campaign T-shirts have already made appearance throughout Greenville and the schools themselves and this is just the first part of the campaign, with more to come, according to Tharp.

Another way the district is improving public perceptions is the revamping of the GISD Educational Enrichment Foundation, which had been defunct for several years before being revitalized this year.

The foundation raises money for the district and provides scholarships and other resources not covered under the general operating fund by offering pay-roll deductions to GISD staff. This is the foundation’s ongoing fund raiser and since the foundation is a certified 501(c)(3) non-profit, all donations are tax deductible.

Donations go toward classroom grants to help teachers fund special projects and activities, teacher scholar-ships that fund education and job-relat-ed training opportunities and student scholarship that fund post-graduation and dual-credit courses.

These are just a few of the changes that have or will occur in the district in 2012 with the goal, as always, being to improve the quality of education and opportunity provided to students in the district.

‘i wanted to bring reading to my kids’

5






Shawn Risinger is communi-ty-minded.

He wants to be a part of the community and he wants to give back to the community.

Risinger had a “personal conviction” to immediately be a part of the community when he bought a business on Texas 276 in Union Valley four years ago. That business became Eagle Hardware Farm & Ranch.

He wanted his family to live in the community, work in the community, go to school in the community and attend church in the community.

They put their Rockwall house on the market right away.

Today, Risinger’s wife, Mary, is a reading specialist at Boles Elementary School. Daughter Bethany, a sophomore at East Texas Baptist University, grad-uated from Boles High School. Son Andrew is a junior there. And Devnn, a nephew the Risingers are rearing, is a kin-dergartener at Boles.

And they attend Faith Temple Baptist Church, where Risinger is pastor.

Their “giving back” to the community involves business-based events for the entire community.

Those events are “Pink Country” that promotes breast cancer awareness; a three-day event in July that will benefit Wounded Warriors; and the annual “Christmas Eve at the

Hardware Store.”Risinger said breast cancer

awareness is an important topic in their household.

“It’s a big deal to us because Mary is a breast cancer survi-vor,” he said. “We make it a big deal here at the store as well.”

For the second year, Eagle will team with Purina to pro-mote breast cancer awareness throughout October. A high-

light, Risinger said, will be the Pink Country Fall Carnival that will be held at the local store the last weekend in October.

Eagle will partner with Wounded Warriors for events July 3-5. Store sales those three days will benefit Wounded Warriors, which aids injured military service mem-bers. Risinger said a big family day is planned for July 4.

“Christmas Eve at the Hardware Store” began four years ago with about 30 people in attendance. About 175 peo-ple were packed inside the hardware store last year, prompting Risinger to explore how he can accommodate the growing Christmas Eve crowd this year.

“It will stay a community service and it will stay ‘Christmas Eve at the Hardware Store,’ but we may have to put a tent up.”

By erecting a tent, Risinger said, he doesn’t “want it to come off as a religious event.

“There’s a balance between doing something that people feel comfortable coming to and celebrating the birth of Jesus and truly being reminded about what Christmas is about, and being too spiritual, too sappy spiritually. I’m not that way, so I’ve got to figure out where that balance will be for us in 2012.

“By having a Christmas Eve service in the hardware store, you can do that. You can allow people to come unguarded and hear the Christmas message. The Christmas message is clearly presented, but yet in a so non-traditional way that it is

fun and enjoyable, and you get to see your neighbor that you haven’t seen recently.”

There’s a different theme each year. Last year it was, “Hope and Hardware.” He doesn’t have a clue yet for the 2012 theme.

Risinger said the Christmas Eve event is not connected to any one church even though the church he pastors — Faith Temple Baptist Church in Poetry — is heavily involved.

“It truly is just a community event,” he said.

Faith Temple, he said, is “a tiny country church where people love each other.”

There’s more to the Risinger family than wife Mary, daugh-ter Bethany, son Andrew and nephew Devnn.

There’s also an 8-year-old blind girl they’ve helped rear since she was 3 months old.

And there’s 46-year-old Jay Ellington, who has Down syn-drome. He has lived with the Risingers the last three years.

“He is very much a part of our family, too,” Risinger said.

Caring for others is not about Risinger only.

“It’s not just who I am,” he said. “It’s also who Mary is and what this family is all about.”


Chris Elliott couldn’t restrain a hearty laugh while recalling his invitation to become mayor of Union Valley in 2008.

The little town in southwest-ern Hunt County was only six months old when Mayor Jay Atkins decided to resign and run for county commissioner. He approached City Secretary Elliott.

Elliott said Atkins told him, “‘Chris, you’ve been secretary for six months. You know what’s going on with the city.’”

“Well, yeah,” Elliott said he responded.

Atkins then asked him to consider becoming mayor.

“‘Jay, I’m a working stiff,’” Elliott said he responded. “‘I don’t know anything about poli-tics. I don’t know anything about city government.’”

“‘You don’t have to do any-thing,’” Elliott said Atkins told him.

“I said, ‘Well OK,’ but what he said about not having to do anything was not totally true.”

That’s when Elliott laughed out loud.

Elliott was unopposed for mayor in the May 2008 election and received 21 votes. He was re-elected in 2010 by a 27-25 margin.

“It’s been a great experi-ence,” Elliott said. “It’s been a learning experience. It’s still a learning experience. I guess as long as you’re in this position or even as a council member, it’s still a learning experience.”

A big part of his early learn-ing experience involved taxes.

The city doesn’t provide any services.

“Citizens don’t want servic-es,” Elliott said. “They want to keep their septic systems. They want to keep their trash servic-es.”

And they don’t want taxes,

Elliott said.Atkins didn’t propose any

taxes, but Elliott became con-cerned when he saw expenses for an election “and some other things we had to pay for.”

“We had to pay for some things that were unknown at that time,” Elliott said. “So, we

had to come up with a budget to take care of the unknown and future elections. With no revenue coming in, I took the liberty of saying, ‘OK, 25 cents per $100 valuation.’ The council agreed.

“As soon as the citizens received their tax bill, oh my

gosh, this little city hall was packed. Well, following that, we reversed to go 13 cents per $100. It gave us a little bit of working capital and was able to take care of the future.”

The council later rolled the tax to zero.

Now, the city’s revenue comes from a 1 percent sales tax, electric franchise tax and beverage tax from one club in town.

Elliott said it’s difficult serv-ing as mayor in a very small town like Union Valley — a town that covers about 948 acres, has 307 residents, 150-200 homes and four businesses.

The council has only three members, the mayor and two council members — Jay Thompson and Craig Waskow. A meeting with two is consid-ered a quorum.

“You basically have to rule by yourself and whatever input you can get from the citizens,” Elliott said. “If there is any communication, it has to go through the secretary.”

The city secretary is Elliott’s wife, Lou Anne.

Elliott is working to lower the ISO (Insurance Service Office) rating for Union Valley resi-dents. ISO ratings have a direct impact on insurance premiums paid by property owners.

His highest priority, Elliott said, involves establishing a boundary agreement with Royse City.

“I guess that was spurred by the annexation (by Royse City) of that 500 acres on County

Road 2526,” Elliott said.The mayor said he and the

city attorney started looking at boundary lines and have seen areas where Royse City’s extra-territorial jurisdiction meets Union Valley’s ETJ. And in some cases, Elliott added, Royse City’s ETJ overlaps Union Valley’s ETJ and part of its city limits.

Elliott has met with Royse City officials and city council

“We’re a new entity, I think, probably the newest city in Texas, and we’re trying to get started and get established our-selves,” Elliott told Royse City council members recently.

Elliott said he has been asked if he will seek another term in 2013.

“That would be five years as mayor,” Elliott said. “At this point and stage, I will not, but that could possible change if there is no one who really has the city at heart.

“Every one of us — the past and present council members — have worked to get what we have. We’ve all had disagree-ments. You’re going to have that. It’s been very, very, very trying to say the least, but we are a municipality.”

Elliott moved from Rowlett to Union Valley in 1996. He and his wife have been married 31 years. He has three children — Brant, who lives in Dayton; Thomas, who lives in Austin; and Angela, a freshman at Royse City High School. He has owned and operated Elliott Septic Service since 2002.

JiM Hardin/Herald-Banner

the Shawn risinger family posed for an informal portrait in the feed section of eagle Hardware Farm & ranch on texas 276 in union Valley. Pictured from left are son andrew; risinger; devnn dunlap, who lives with the risingers; wife Mary; Jay ellington, who lives with the risingers; and daughter Bethany.


Mayor chris elliott stands under the city limits sign that illustrates just how small union Valley is. elliott is leading the way to a future that he is confident will include growth for the Hunt county town. one of his key jobs now is working out a boundary agreement with royse city.

PrOFile On

PrOFile On

Shawn RiSingeR

ChRiS elliott

We ask:

What does the future of your industry hold?“We know our future is bright as long as we keep

focused on being a part of the community and giving back to the community.”

We ask:

What does the future of your city hold?“Looking to the future, Union Valley is not going to

stay a country rural area forever. The growth is moving out here slowly, but surely. You can see Royse City’s growth, Rockwall’s growth, Quinlan’s growth. Union Valley will grow.”

Family builds a rewarding life in small-town Texas community

Union Valley mayor gets first taste of politics

6






As an associate professor of political science at Texas A&M University-Commerce, Robert Rodriguez teaches a variety of courses from freshman to the graduate level in Latin American, United States and Texas politics.

One look into his office, how-ever, and it's clear that his interests extend beyond politi-cal science. Posters and framed pictures of Rodriguez interact-ing with famous boxers adorn the walls, along with a poster of all-time great Argentinean soc-cer player, Diego Maradona. The son of Argentinean parents who was born in Brooklyn, Rodriguez grew up in Orange County close to one of the major boxing locations, the Great Western Forum.

“One of the things I've been able to do is merge my academ-ic and personal interests in sports, specifically boxing,” Rodriguez said. “This goes back to when I was a teenager, and I became interested in the sport and, while in college, began cov-ering boxing and soccer for a Spanish-language newspaper based in Santa Anna.”

By the time he was ready to graduate, Rodriguez was writ-ing for numerous English publi-cations as well, including the industry-standard, The Ring Magazine.

“I loved it, and when I gradu-ated from college, I had a choice,” he said. “Go on to grad-

uate school or continue writing, and ultimately I decided on graduate school, knowing full-well that there was almost no boxing in Kansas.”

After earning his master's degree, Rodriguez began work-ing on his doctorate.

“I began working as an administrator running the McNair Scholars Program, which is a federally-funded U.S. Department of Education TRIO program that helps low income first generation students and underrepresented minorities not only graduate college, but pursue graduate degrees,” he said. “I did that for about 10

years while I worked part-time to earn my Ph.D.”

While working at Kansas, Rodriguez attended a fight in Kansas City as the state began to try and revitalize the sport in the state. The fight featured up-and-coming contender Randie Carver.

“Carver ended up not only losing the fight, but dying after the match, which is something I had never seen before and thankfully haven't since,” Rodriguez said. “At that point, I came to examine the regulatory side of the sport in regards to its health and safety aspects.”

He decided to pursue the

topic as part of his doctoral dis-sertation, performing the first national study on boxing regu-lations as a public policy issue, which was eventually pub-lished. “Then I accepted a ten-ure-track faculty position in political science at A&M-Commerce.”

Rodriguez has enjoyed his two years at the university, and the university community has responded in-kind.

“The students have respond-ed very well,” he said. “I am completely honored and hum-bled by having received the A&M System student award for teaching excellence. I was hon-

ored with a faculty and staff award for globalization, and the Office of Hispanic Outreach and Student Success named me their professor of the year in my first year.”

The topics that Rodriguez focuses on are ones that are not only new to A&M-Commerce, but ones that are quickly becoming important topics in the United States as a whole.

“It's simple demographics,” he said. “If you look at any pop-ulation study in the U.S. today, you will find that not only are Latinos the largest minority group, but by the year 2050 they will make up at least a quarter of the population, and probably more. In the very near future in Texas, Latinos will be the majority group. All of these sta-tistics have tremendous politi-cal and social implications.”

Educating individuals on Latino politics in the United States, as well as Latino-American culture, is therefore a key part of the future of educa-tion. As the first professor teaching classes on Latino poli-tics at A&M-Commerce, Rodriguez is part of an extreme minority of educators in higher education.

“Only 3 percent of all faculty members- full-time, part-time and adjunct, are Latino,” he said. “It's extremely important for people of all racial and eth-nic backgrounds to have an understanding of Latinos in the United States. Everyone, includ-ing Latinos, needs to learn more about this.”

PrOFile On

RobeRt RodRiguez

University professor informing the future


dr. rodriguez stands in front of some of his boxing memorabilia, including framed photos of him interacting with boxing greats.

CYANMAGENTAYELLOWBLACK8D BACK

TO SHOW OURAPPRECIATION

WE ARE OFFERINGEVERY CUSTOMER

10% OFFANY HOME ACCESSORIES

THROUGHOUT THE MONTH OF APRIL

5510 I-30 • Greenville, TX903-455-0191 • ivansmith.com



a truetrailblazer

Pro basketball playeramong first in her field

• Page e3

The health care industry is changing, according to Hunt Regional president and CEO Richard Carter, at both the national and state levels.

“The industry is in a state of flux, especially from the national and state perspective regarding funding,” he said. “We have seen an 8 percent reduction in state Medicaid payments across the board, which for us is $800,000 that just evaporated.”

With funding falling at both levels, the necessity of health care reform is becoming more and more apparent.

“The status quo is not sustainable for the nation,” Carter said. “Most people believe that health care costs needs to be controlled and shrunk, which is why the Affordable Care Act was put for-ward by the president. There has just been controversy over whether the

Affordable Care Act is the way to go.”Texas leads the nation in uninsured

individuals, around 26 percent accord-ing to Carter, which causes a great deal of financial toll on Texas hospitals.

“If there ever was a national health plan, likely the Texas hospitals would be well-reimbursed from that perspec-tive,” he said. “It would be helpful for Texas hospitals. There’s a whole bunch of other issues surrounding that, but from the economic perspective that would be helpful.”

While many Texans are uninsured, Hunt County is one of the sickest coun-ties in the state.

“We have opportunities, trials and struggles in Hunt County,” Carter said. “We have a large uninsured population

As one of the largest employers in Hunt County, Hunt Regional Healthcare is a major player in the county’s economy.

While healthcare has become a topic of national debate, Hunt Regional is doing all it can to weather the uncertainty of the industry’s future.

By Caleb Slinkardherald-Banner staff

• InSIde •

Three decades on the golf course

Page e4

Keeping greenville healthy, active

Page e6

local coach still has rangers record

Page e2

tHe FutureH e r a l d I n g

ESECTIOn

reCreaTIon & HealTH

>> see HoSPITal, page e5

CYANMAGENTAYELLOWBLACK1E FROnT

Treat Your Car to a Day at the SpaWith Four Great Wash Packages to Choose from

Any Car Washoose From• The “Clean” Wash• The “Silver” Wash• The “Shine” Wash• The “Maculate” Wash

Voted Hunt County’s #1 Rated Car Wash & Detail CenterR

AUTO SPA

$3.00 OFFAny Package

Must Present Coupon. Not valid with any other offer Exp.4/30/12


E2 Herald-Banner Saturday, MarcH 31, 2012

THE FUTUREH E r a l d i n g

r e c r e a t i o n & H e a l t H

By david ClaybournHerald-Banner Sports editor

He set a stolen base record in a game for the Texas Rangers, ran on a national championship track and field team in college and drives a motorcycle to his current job at Greenville High School.

Bertrum Scarborough Green is all about speed but keeping that speed under control. He now strives for excellence, desire and effort from his players as the head boys soccer coach for the Greenville Lions.

“At one time I was considered the fastest man in baseball,” said Green. “I had God-given natural ability to run fast.”

How fast?Fast enough to clock a 4.25-sec-

ond 40-yard dash in football and also steal five bases in a Rangers’ baseball game against Seattle on Sept. 28, 2000. Green stole second base three times and third twice.

“Things just kind of worked out,” he said. “I had three hits. Got on base.”

Green wanted to steal one more base, while perched on sec-ond his last time up but didn’t get the go sign from third-base coach Jerry Narron. His five sto-len bases remain as a Rangers’ club record.

Green appeared in 117 Major League games in three seasons, including one year with the St. Louis Cardinals and two with the Rangers. He batted .214 and in 127 chances as an outfielder made only one error, interesting-ly enough in his very first game.

Green grew up near St. Louis

and began his athletic career at age 11 as a soccer player.

“Then I got into the other sports,” he said. “First baseball, then basketball. Then I got intro-duced to the Football Union League. I liked it. I was really torn between football and soccer when I got to high school. I gave up on the soccer.”

Green excelled in football, baseball and basketball in high school before he was drafted in the 10th round by the Cardinals in 1992. His father died that year so Green stayed at home to help his mother and attended junior college before signing with the Cardinals on May 11, 1993. He spent four years in the minor leagues before he was called up in 1997 to play for the Cardinals.

“The first person to greet me (with the Cardinals) was Mark McGwire,” said Green. “He was by far one of the nicest guys I

played with.”Green played in 20 games for

the Cardinals in 1997 but tore his thumb while sliding into second base in spring training in 1998 and missed the season on the injured list. He got traded to the Rangers and then appeared in 18 games for the Rangers in 1999 and in 79 games in 2000.

He said he learned a lot about team chemistry from Ranger teammates Mark McLemore, Lee Stevens and Rusty Greer.

“One thing you’re told is you’re always playing for your-self, always playing for your club and always playing for every-body watching,” he said.

Green said he saw baseball as something to do for fun “but also an avenue to pay for an educa-tion later on.”

His baseball career helped pay for his college education when his Major League prospects

ended in 2002. Green played a season of football as a defensive back at Harding University in Arkansas before transferring to McMurry University in Abilene. Green was a punter and a wide receiver in football and ran track and field at McMurry from 2005-08.

Green made an impact in both sports at McMurry. He holds McMurry’s school record in career punting average (40.3 yards per punt in three seasons) and in career receiving yards per catch (18.72). He also ran the third leg on two NCAA Division III national championship 4x100-meter relay teams and McMurry also won the outdoor team championship in 2008.

“Track is the hardest thing to be successful in,” said Green. “People don’t understand the wear and tear you put on your body, the mental stress that it puts on you.”

Green graduated from McMurry in 2008 with degrees in philosophy and communications.

He began his coaching career at Howard Payne University in Brownwood. While at Howard Payne Green met Kevin Wright, the Yellow Jackets’ head soccer coach. Before coaching at Howard Payne Wright was the Greenville Lions’ soccer coach. Wright told Green in 2009 that Greenville’s head coach Chawn Cooper was looking for some new coaches.

“I found out Coop was just as passionate as I am,” said Green. “It was a good fit.”

Green has helped coach the Greenville Lions’ varsity receiv-ers for the past two football sea-

sons and last year assisted Cody Salyers in baseball. This season he got to take on the head coach-ing job in soccer.

Green pushes the Lion soccer players hard on their fitness.

“Typically we run every day from seven to three miles,” he said. “Once you get physically tired you make mental mis-takes.”

Green also stresses excellence.“Excellence doesn’t mean per-

fection,” he said. “It means the desire to do, the will to do and the effort to be the absolute best you can be every day.”

The Lions have changed ath-letic directors from Cooper to Marvin Sedberry. Green said he wants to continue coaching in Greenville next season.

“I’ve made some great rela-tionships,” he said. “I definitely want to be a part of turning this city around.”

He said he’s found his niche as a coach.

“I love to teach, if it’s coaching or teaching in the classroom,” he said. “I’ve coached in college already. I love this age. There’s a lot more for these kids to learn.”

One thing they will definitely learn from Green, how to run fast.

PrOFilE On

Bertrum ScarBorough green

Soccer coach played in Major league Baseball

david clayBourn / Herald-Banner

the Greenville lions’ new head boys soccer coach, Bertrum Scarborough Green, played three seasons in the Major leagues with the St. louis cardinals and texas rangers and also ran on a national championship track and field team at McMurry university.

Bertrum Scarborough Green still holds the texas rangers’ club record for most stolen bases in a game: five.

texaS ranGerS


2


E3Herald-Banner Saturday, MarcH 31, 2012



By david ClaybournHerald-Banner Sports editor

Were it not for pioneers such as Rodgenell Sumrow Fee there might not be a profes-sional basketball league for women in this country.

Rodgenell, who now lives in Greenville, played profession-ally for the Dallas Hornets and the Nu Grape Soda team in Billings, Mont., back in the 1940s.

She made $350 a game in Montana.

“That was for the main team,” she said. “The substi-tutes, they got paid half as much.”

As “best she can remember” she earned $400 a month play-ing for the Hornets.

Her teams won state and national titles and played all over the U.S. and in tourna-ments in Cuba and Mexico City.

“We went everywhere in the world,” she said.

All those basketball games have helped her feel young now at age 88.

“I feel like basketball play-ing has kept me in the health that I am,” she said.

Hers were humble begin-nings. She grew up on a farm two miles from Merit in Hunt County. She had many chores to do when she got home from school.

“I plowed and picked cotton, bailed hay. We hauled corn. And we shelled black-eyed peas.”

Rodgenell Sumrow first attended school in a two-story wood building.

“They didn’t have a gym,” she said. “Nothing but four see-saws and four swings. They had a place for boys to play baseball. They had a goal (for basketball) out in the dirt. The girls in high school that had a team would work out on that dirt.”

Of course there were no lights for play at night.

“At nighttime all the men would bring their cars and all would turn their headlights on,” recalled Rodgenell.

She remembers sitting in the front seat of her father’s Model-T watching the night basketball, hearing her father complain about running down his car battery and wishing she could play.

Merit, with the help of President Franklin Roosevelt and the Works Progress Administration, built a new school in 1936 with an indoor gymnasium.

Rodgenell then took up the sport in high school and quick-ly became a standout player for the Merit Black Cats, who were state champions in 1938 and 1939. Her teammates included Gertie Hammack and Lucille Stratton. Lucille’s brother, Monty, pitched for the Chicago White Sox and was

immortalized in the film “The Stratton Story.”

Rodgenell earned all-district honors all four years of high school and was a three-time all-state selection.

“I’d get out there and try my best,” she said.

A former high school class-mate, Clara Jo Cox, talked Sumrow into moving to Dallas and that’s where her profes-sional career started with the Hornets, who were Southwest AAU champions in 1942. She was selected as an all-Ameri-can guard in 1943 at a national tournament in Denver.

She later played profession-ally in Denver, in Montana and then back in Dallas again.

She got married and started a family as well as a basket-

ball team in Pasadena, Texas. That team won a state title in Abilene and qualified for the national tournament in Missouri. But an ankle injury ended her basketball career.

The 5-foot-4 product from Merit was a forward and guard during her basketball career but preferred playing guard.

“I guess because I was so rough,” she said.

She also relied on her quick-ness.

“They told me, ‘You run like a fox,’” she said. “You’ve got to get up and go, get up and go.”

When she played there wasn’t a 3-point line.

“If we had a 3-point line we’d have needed somebody with a machine keeping

score,” she said.The school system in Merit

has also changed its name to the Bland Independent School District. Bland recently hon-ored Rodgenell at a Bland home game, presenting her with a plaque “in recognition of your many accomplish-ments in women’s basketball.”

“I flipped out,” she said of the special ceremony. “I have never seen anything in my life like this.”

She still attends local bas-ketball games and watches the Dallas Mavericks on television and wishes the future was bet-ter for women’s basketball.

“They don’t get paid like the men do,” she said. “They’ve got to get them a job and work.”


A self-taught musician with the goal of sharing his message of hope with those around him, David Lemons now thinks of himself as more of a messen-ger than a musician.

Lemons has been using his vocals and strumming his gui-tar since he was 6 years old, having been taught by his father. He even took lessons with Trig Ward.

“I’ve been singing for as long as I can remember,” said Lemons. “I made my living at it for probably 12 years.”

It wasn’t until he married his wife, Anette, and had a little girl, Leslie, that he decided it might be time to hang up his cowboy hat and guitar strings.

“At that time Leslie was 4 years old and I realized I didn’t want to be playing in smoky bars when I’m 50, so I gave up country music,” said Lemons. “I’ve never once regretted that decision.”

Due to this choice to give up country music, Lemons was able to spend time with his wife and daughter.

“I got to be at all Leslie’s games and other school events,” he said. “I barely missed one and that made the

time we spent together all the more special when she was taken from us the way she was.”

Leslie was killed in Paris, Texas, at the age of 26 on Sept. 20, 2006.

“She was going home for her lunch break when a guy she knew broke down her door,

shot her with a shotgun, then turned the gun on himself,” said Lemons. “She was such a blessing to us. It broke our hearts to lose her. What keeps me standing tall is that the Good Book says after I’m done here, I can go to her, that we can be together again. That’s what keeps me going. That’s

what gives me hope.”A few years after making the

decision to leave the country music scene, and before Leslie was killed, Lemons turned to gospel music. He believes this was something that helped him heal after the tragedy of Leslie’s death.

“I’ve pretty much been sing-ing gospel music ever since,” he said of the transition from country to gospel, which took place in 1994.

“That’s when I came to know the Lord Jesus as my savior,” he said. “After Leslie was killed, it was hard to be joyful in church and when singing gospel. It was a struggle for a long period of time. It wasn’t till I went to an Emmaus Walk, a fourth-day renewal move-ment designed for improving relationships with Jesus Christ, that I found my way out of the darkness. That was 2010.”

This was not only where Lemons found the strength to go on and continue writing gospel music, but it’s also where he met his friend David House, who is responsible for writing a good portion of the songs on Lemons’ CD, “Jesus, You Are Welcome Here.”

“The spirit of the Lord moved on me then,” said

Lemons. “He made it known to me that I could actually enjoy life, that I didn’t have to be sad or feel guilty for being happy and showing joy. I realized there that Leslie would want me to be happy, that I needed to pursue my music and turn it into a ministry. It’s a message of hope I try to spread when people are in despair. I do my best to help them through my music, because I’ve been there.”

Lemons’ group is called For His Sake and shortly after meeting House, whose songs touched Lemons in a way noth-ing else could, he knew it was time to record his latest CD. He financed the recording him-self and included eight of House’s songs and two of his own, “Our Soldiers Are Just Strangers” and “Maybe Tomorrow.”

“I try to use my talents to spread the message of hope that was shared with me when I needed it most,” said Lemons.

Lemons is currently working on his second CD, which he anticipates will include an original song titled “Message of Hope,” a single.

To find out more about David Lemons visit www.davidlemonss-ings.com.

courteSy PHoto

david lemons recently released his first gospel record, “Jesus, you are Welcome Here” and is currently working on songs for his next release.

PrOFilE On

PrOFilE On

Rodgenell SumRow Fee

david lemonS

Self-taught musician spreads his message of hope through song

Pro basketball player blazed a trail

courteSy PHoto

rodgenell Sumrow, then a professional bas-ketball player for a team in Montana, stood on a basketball goal for this photo in the 1940s that appeared on the cover of a nation-al sports maga-zine.


rodgenell Sumrow Fee, who now resides in Greenville, is one of the pioneers in professional women’s basketball. She played professionally in the 1940s for teams in dallas, Montana and colorado.

3



By David ClaybournHerald-Banner Sports editor

Wright Park golf professional Bo Hartline may hold a record for longevi-ty.

“I might be the longest superinten-dent to run a course in the state of Texas,” said Hartline. “Most superinten-dents, they move on in five to six years.”

Hartline’s been mowing the grass, watering the greens and taking care of the nine-hole municipal golf course in Greenville for more than 33 years. He’s continuing a family tradition that’s gone on in Greenville and Hunt County since the 1950s.

“There’s been a Hartline every decade running this course,” said Hartline.

Bo’s grandfather, Horris Hartline, was the first family member involved in the golf business as the maintenance super-visor at Preston Hollow in Dallas.

Bo’s father, Pinkey Sr., worked at Wright Park, Oak Creek in Greenville and Sand Hills in Campbell, plus at Eastern Hills in Garland and Cypress Creek in Scroggins, Texas.

Bo’s brother, Kenny, owns and oper-ates Hartline’s Golf Center near Campbell.

Another brother, Pinkey Jr., operates a golf cart business in Lake Jackson.

His son, Bobo, runs Texas Golf Carts in Campbell.

A nephew, Newt, was the assistant pro at a course in Sugarland and a Lone Star Conference champion golfer at Texas A&M University-Commerce.

Cousin Ricky Hartline Sr., operates a golf cart business in Crockett and his son, Ricky Jr., has a golf cart business in Quinlan.

Other relatives, Butch Hartline, June Hartline and Bub Hartline, have worked at Pecan Hollow in Plano, Eastern Hills and Calabasas Country Club in California.

Bo Hartline learned from his “grand-pa, dad and uncle” how to take good

care of the grass at a golf course.“If you aerify, water and fertilize you

can grow anything,” he said.Hartline’s also learned how to treat

the diseases that affect the grasses and he’s earned his pest control license to keep the bugs from ruining the greens.

Hartline’s also developed people skills along the way.

“I love to meet people,” he said. “One of the hardest things is you get attached to people. Now they’re all passing on and it’s like losing your grandpa all the time. I go to a lot of funerals.”

Hartline works with golfers of all ages. He’s been conducting a junior golf program in Greenville since he started at Wright Park and for the last three years has served as golf commissioner for the Texas Amateur Athletic Federation that puts on state junior golf tournaments each summer.

“It’s good to see them grow up and do things,” he said. “You never know who you’re going to touch or what difference you’re going to make so you have to be careful with kids.”

He also works with a lot of senior golfers.

“The Baby Boomers are all retiring so golf should pick up,” he said. “I think there’s going to be a mass allotment of golfers here pretty quick. Right now it’s going to be great in the future.”

Golf has allowed him to meet all kinds of people. He’s played in pro-ams with famous musicians including Glen Campbell, Mickey Gilley, Charlie Daniels, Roy Clark, Kenny Chesney and Tracy Lawrence, plus with former champion bull rider Donnie Gay, the late actor Denver Pyle and champion golfer Doug Sanders.

Hartline is one of the city’s top golf-ers. He placed eighth in the Texas Senior Open in 2008, shooting 18-hole rounds of 72, 70 and 74, and set a course record at the Quarry in San Antonio with a 65 in a tournament. He’s also won tournaments in and around Hunt County.

What is it about golf that appeals so much to him?

“It’s a gentleman’s game,” he said. “It’s honesty and integrity. It’s the only game I know where you can be at the very bottom and in one shot be at the very top.”

How much longer will he keep work-ing in the business? He says until he can’t do a good job, which should mean many more productive years.

“I don’t plan on doing it when I’m 92,” he said.

Now, that would be quite a record if he’s still at Wright Park when he’s 92.

THE FUTUREH E r a l D i n g



Susan Spoonemore has had her hands in a num-ber of projects during her time at Hunt Regional Medical Center at Greenville, having worked her way up from an intern to the public relations coordinator for Hunt Regional Healthcare.

What started as an internship to complete her public relations degree at Texas A&M University-Commerce ended up being a full-time job for Spoonemore.

She served as an intern for almost a full year before being offered a position in the develop-ment and communica-tions department. All in all, she has served six years at HRMC.

Prior to going back to school, Spoonemore was in broadcasting. She start-ed off at KIKT and even-tually moved to WBAP where she hosted the “Midnight Cowboy,” show.

“I thought I’d go back to school to get a degree in broadcast journalism, to maybe be a reporter,” she said. “I changed my mind and decided that public relations might be more up my alley. It had a lot to do with the hours involved in broadcasting. I don’t mind working odd hours here or even on the holidays, just not forever, and that seems to be the way it goes in broadcast-ing.”

While she may not have

chosen to further pursue a path in broadcasting, having eventually gradu-ating in 2007 with a bache-lor of science in journal-ism-public relations, it did help prepare her for her role at the hospital, par-ticularly in regard to using social media like Facebook and e-newslet-ters and improving her media relations and advertising skills.

Spoonemore started the Social Media project for Hunt Regional

Healthcare, is a part of The Foundation for Good Health, the hospital’s charitable health founda-tion, and was very involved in this year’s fund-raising gala, which raised a record $117,000. She was involved in get-ting the word out to the public about the Lou and Jack Finney Cancer Center and the West Wing, and the recent improvements made to the seventh floor Rehabilitation Center

and the Emergency Room.“It’s very important to

make these advances, not just for the hospital, but for the community,” said Spoonemore. “And that’s where I come in. It’s my job to tell everyone how great this hospital is in regard to the services we provide and the awesome care it affords its patients.”

This may seem like Spoonemore just doing her job and it is, to a cer-tain extent. The other side of the story is that Spoonemore’s mother has

sought treatment at the hospital for chronic emphysema and bouts of pneumonia and therefore knows first hand how great the care is at the Greenville hospital. In fact, they just received a five star rating for the treatment of pneumonia for the fourth year in a row.

“I know firsthand the kind of care she is given here at the hospital,” she said. “I wouldn’t want her to be at any other hospi-tal. Our care truly is excellent here and that’s

coming from a daughter, not an employee.”

When not at the hospi-tal, Spoonemore is at home in Celeste spending time with her husband, Kelly, and three boys; one college freshman, one 10-year old and one first-grader.

“They’re my off-time and they keep me plenty busy,” she said. “When I finally get a moment to myself, all I have the ener-gy to do is put on my pajamas and crawl into bed to enjoy some quiet time.”

PrOFilE On

PrOFilE On

Bo Hartline

SuSan Spoonemore


Susan Spoonemore is the public relations coordinator for Hunt regional Medical center.

Hospital public relations pro spreads positive message

golf superintendent spends 33 years on the links


neither rain nor sleet nor snow stops Wright Park municipal pro Bo Hartline from playing and winning in golf.

4C

New Director: Shane Kubacak


E5Herald-Banner Saturday, MarcH 31, 2012

Hospital looking forward to growthcontinued from page e1

in Hunt County and we are, in compari-son to the rest of the state, more ill than the rest of the state in almost every area. I don’t know why, but we do know how to fix that going to your doctor, eat-ing right, exercise, and being a diligent health care provider. We hope in the future to promote more of the wellness habits and hopefully we’ll have some partners out in the community, and some funding potentially to do that.

Despite the tough financial times Hunt Regional has continued to improve by controlling costs and consolidating sites when necessary.

“We have survived, and we have even thrived in some arenas,” Carter said. “We have worked hard to manage our costs, while at the same time improving our quality performances, customer and employee satisfaction performances.”

Expanding the services Hunt Regional offers is the main strategy in remaining financially successful as an organization in the face of an unknown future in health care, according to Carter.

“As we implement regional services like cancer treatment, cardiac services next fall, rehabilitation services, and home health services, we are doing everything we can to enhance and enlarge our services,” he said. “If we didn’t, we probably wouldn’t survive. Our mission is to identify needs in the

community and try and develop strate-gies to meet those needs in a way that is financially feasible.”

Hunt Regional is also looking at replacing some of its older facilities.

“We are currently trying to evaluate our market in several areas, south, west, north,” Carter said. “The Commerce facility, Hunt Regional Community Hospital, is an aged facility and is at the end of life, so we’re trying to evaluate how we are going to replace that facility. That likely might be a bonding process which would require a community vote. Otherwise, there is ongoing need for facilities to accommo-date physicians’ offices throughout the county, especially in Greenville and in the west.”

Health care future and funding may be unsure, but as the population con-tinues to age, access to affordable health care will become more and more necessary.

“We’re positioned pretty good to meet the increased demand,” Carter said. “We have some excess capacity with the construction of the West Wing in 2008. Now that we are affiliated with Baylor, there is a financial advantage from a cost-containment perspective because we can purchase our supplies more cheaply, we have access to more records and we have an expanded referral system.”


Hunt regional Healthcare President and ceO richard carter, who has been with the business for 16 years, works in his office across the street from the hospital.


THE DEALSare just better at...

4001 I-30 • Greenville903-455-7222

Ford F-150 Super Crew Ford Edge Ford Focus

Ford FiestaFord ExplorerFord Ranger

FORD Certiied Service andBody Shop for all of your needs!

Board Certified

Total Joint Replacement

Sports Medicine

Minimally - Invasive Surgery

Hand & Carpal Tunnel Surgery

Fracture Care

Fellowship in Shoulder & Elbow

Certified In Computer AssistedJoint Replacement Surgery

Orthopedic SurgeryInspired By Technology...

Committed To Care






Having been employed by the YMCA for the past seven years, Christa Compton is a big believ-er in health, family together-ness and the various opportuni-ties the Greenville YMCA pro-vides the community.

Compton came on as sports director for the YMCA in 2005. After serving in that position for a couple of years, she moved into the one she is cur-rently holding, project director.

“My job is a little bit of every-thing,” she said with a laugh.

Compton organizes every-thing to do with the YMCA’s child care programs, like child watch and the summer day camp. She also meets with ACE site coordinators from Greenville Independent School District in regard to the part-nership between the YMCA and the ACE (Afterschool Centers on Education) after-school program.

In addition to this, and being over all the sports programs offered by the YMCA, she is heavily involved in the family events that the YMCA puts on, something she particularly enjoys.

“Our most recent was the Father-Daughter Dance,” she said. “We put on one family night event each month. Some are more extravagant than oth-ers, but they’re always a blast.”

Having grown up in Greenville, Compton can well appreciate the children’s activi-ties that she is now involved with that she used to utilize as

a child.“I remember taking a baton

class here and we actually got to perform in parades,” said Compton. “I also learned to swim in this very pool, like many others in Greenville.”

According to Compton, the YMCA is an integral part of Greenville life.

“It touches such a variety of people in so many different sit-uations,” she said. “It’s rare for you to see the kind of diversity

that you’ll find here anywhere else, and interacting in a har-monious way.”

In addition to the diverse population the YMCA reaches, it also reaches a variety of dif-ferent age groups, according to

Compton. “The Y has something for the

whole family,” she said. “It’s our goal to increase healthy liv-ing and the idea of social responsibility for everyone in the community, for all ages. It’s a huge advantage to have an atmosphere like that in the community, because you don’t get that at every facility.”

With all the responsibilities Compton has within the YMCA, in addition to having three kids and a husband at home, all vying for her attentions, it’s dif-ficult to find time for herself, but find it she does.

“You just have to be orga-nized and maintain that bal-ance between work and home,” she said. “I’m pretty meticulous and over the years have per-fected that particular juggling act. Making time for those moments in my kids’ lives, as well as my passion for the kids and families the YMCA touch-es, is important enough for me to walk that balance beam.”

Compton is looking forward to the expansion of the YMCA, which is currently in the silent fund-raising part of the build-ing campaign.

“I think we’ve gone as far as we can go with this facility,” she said. “I feel like we have something special going on here, something everyone can be a part of, and to not have that, I think it would be detri-mental to the community. I really believe the community will always have need of us. And if their needs change, we’ll change to meet those needs.”


christa compton has served seven years at the yMca of Greenville, with many of those being served as project direcor, and she looks forward to many more, hopefully in a new facility.

PrOFilE On

Christa Compton

YMCa sports director promotes health in greenville

CYANMAGENTAYELLOWBLACK8E BACK



People shaping Greenville and Hunt Countya s p ec i a l e d i t i o n o f t H e H e ra l d - Ba n n e r • S AT U R DAY, M A R c h 3 1 , 2 0 1 2

person of distinction2012 Herald-Banner

MicHelle Youtzfounder of cause for paws has made a difference

for thousands of animals and families in Hunt county

read Her storY • page 1a

Business & Industry Section CCommunity & Education Section D

Recreation & Health Section E

coURTeSY phoTo

CYANMAGENTAYELLOWBLACKWRAP FRONT


W2 Herald-Banner Saturday, MarcH 31, 2012


UnSUng HerO

UnSUng HerO

UnSUng HerO

NomiNated by tommie Shepherd

NomiNated by SaNdy hurSt

NomiNated by amy LitchfieLd

TERRy and donna HillEaRy

JUanicE VanHUss

Ray WallEn

Being an Unsung Hero is all about taking care of your neigh-bors, and Donna and Terry Hilleary are perfect examples of that.

Terry mows yards in his neigh-borhood for people who can’t do it themselves. Donna regularly checks on her elderly neighbors to make sure they’re OK and helps with anything they need.

“If they are driving down the street and see an aged person struggling with getting their gro-ceries home, they will stop and render aid,” their nominator wrote.

Terry and Donna also have a small backyard garden, and they share their bounty with all their neighbors.

“These are just some good Christian folks and should be rec-ognized for all they do for other people — not for praise, but because it is simply their nature,” the nomination letter read.

When people sit down for a nice meal at the Greenville Senior Center, they can thank an Unsung Hero for it.

Juanice VanHuss volunteers in the dining room at the Senior Center, setting out salt, pepper, sil-verware and paper towels for around 40 guests who eat there daily — Monday through Friday, all year long.

She also helps pack Meals on Wheels to get them ready for deliv-ery and is responsible for bringing entertainment programs into the dining room for seniors.

In her spare time, you can find Juanice transporting someone back and forth if needed.

“She will do grocery shopping for a senior unable to do so them-selves, and almost anything asked of her,” the nomination letter read.

For her unselfish help provided to seniors in Hunt County, Juanice VanHuss is one of our Unsung Heroes for 2012.

Ray Wallen is someone who turns his Christian faith into action every day.

Wallen teaches the Faith Servant Class at Highland Terrace Baptist Church, helping to plan and organize service projects to benefit the local community.

He has organized and cooked the church’s Thanksgiving stew supper for the past 20 years, which serves around 500 people each year. He also organizes golf tournaments to raise money for worthy causes.

When the Pythian House closed recently, he and his class helped one resident relocate to a new home. He helped her move her belongings and get established with utilities.

Wallen has had two heart attacks and two strokes, but that doesn’t stop him from volunteering.

He helps his neighbors mow their yards and always makes time for his granddaughters, which makes him an Unsung Hero for both his family and the entire community.

aMBer poMpa / Herald-Banner





W3Herald-Banner Saturday, MarcH 31, 2012


UnSUng HerO

UnSUng HerO

UnSUng HerO

NomiNated by bill Rapp

NomiNated by JaNe Wolfe aNd baRbaRa beNch

NomiNated by daRleNe JoRdaN

Tom mcAllisTER

DwAynE PATTERsonAnD THE cRossRoADs bAnD

sonny DonAHo

Tom McAllister is the driving force behind the Greenville-based team of the Texas Ramp Builders in Hunt County.

He has been the overall administrator for nearly 100 ramps built locally by members of the Golden K Kiwanis Club of Greenville. That means he is personally involved in obtain-ing the materials, building the ramps and leading the con-struction teams.

McAllister is also key in gen-erating the funds to pay for the ramps. He works to get grants and local donations to build the ramps for disabled and elderly residents of the Greenville area, making a real difference in the day-to-day life of people all over Hunt County.

For his selfless dedication to helping his neighbors, McAllister is a true Unsung Hero.

Music can be a fun and powerful way to spread a message, but Dwayne Patterson and the Crossroads Band are using it to make a difference in Hunt County, too.

For more than 10 years, Patterson and his band have faithfully volun-teered their time and talent to the Salvation Army by presenting a gos-pel music program.

“Not only does it benefit the Salvation Army but also the mostly senior citizens who are so dedicated to come out and enjoy the music,” the nominators wrote.

While there is no charge for the monthly concerts, a donation is taken each time to help the less fortunate in our community.

For using their talent to spread joy and raise money for the needy, Dwayne Patterson and the Crossroads Band are true Unsung Heroes.

Sonny Donaho is a chauffeur who goes above and beyond the call of duty to help people when they need it.

One example: He was chauffeuring a young boy with a terminal illness. The boy loved collecting toy cars, and Sonny happened to have a collec-tion of cars himself. He called the boy’s mother and sent the boy one of his model cars to add to his collec-tion.

This past Valentine’s Day, he got a special request from a soldier in Afghanistan who wanted to know the price for Sonny to sing a song to the soldier’s wife in Rockwall. Sonny learned a special song for the perfor-mance and, for no charge, sang it for the soldier’s wife and family in a busy restaurant. There wasn’t a dry eye in the place.

He also gives his time for the Relay for Life events, entertains for the special-needs residents at MHMR, and volunteers at schools, Patriot Paws and Veterans Day events.





W4 Herald-Banner Saturday, MarcH 31, 2012


CYANMAGENTAYELLOWBLACK4WRAP BACK


Heralding the Future

Documents

Transcript of Heralding the Future