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Crandall ISD will have an additional item for voters on the May 7 ballot as school board members approved calling a $400-million bond election at Monday night’s regular meeting.

At a special called board meeting on Feb. 17, the Forney ISD Board of Trustees voted unanimously to approve a May bond referendum proposed by the Facilities Planning Committee. The bond package to go before voters in May will not increase the district’s tax rate. The district tax rate is currently $1.37 and has lowered 17 cents over the last 3 years.

The Kaufman County Commissioners’ Court recently appointed Paul F. Ayres as Fire Marshal after a months-long search. Ayres is an experienced public safety professional who has been involved in over 360 fire/explosion investigations, including 28 fatal incidents (involving 42 separate fatalities).

With its forward and innovative approaches, Forney ISD has launched the new Forney Academy to Certify Teachers, or F.A.C.T., program to help skilled individuals earn their teaching certification.

Trinity Valley Community College Workforce Education and Continuing Education Department is offering Truck Driving/Commercial Driver’s License (CDL) training courses with written skills and hands-on coursework.

“This is one of the happiest moments of my life, and I want to thank each one of you who had a part in selecting me for one of their awards, for your kindness. It has made me feel very, very humble; and I shall always hold it as a beacon for anything that I may be able to do in the future. I sincerely hope I shall always be a credit to my race and to the motion picture industry. My heart is too full to tell you just how I feel, and may I say thank you and God bless you.” Fifty years before Whoopi Goldberg won a Best Supporting Actress Oscar for Ghost, and sixty-two years before Halle Berry would be awarded a leading actress Oscar for Monster’s Ball, there was Hattie McDaniel, who was deemed the best supporting actress for a little movie called Gone with the Wind. While no one can dull the sparkle of Hattie’s moment, her path to the big award, and the road that led away from that podium, was lined with turmoil. Though Hattie handled it all like the class act she was, it turns out that breaking through racially enforced glass ceilings is not for the faint of heart.

Through the years, I’ve used myriad methods to put wild pork in the freezer. Muzzleloaders, big bore airguns, centerfire rifles and handguns, compound and crossbows, traps, you name it. But until this last week, I had never hunted with anyone using a flintlock to acquire wild pork chops. This story will consume all the space I’m allotted for this column so let’s jump right in!

Are you a “gig” worker? If so, you’ve got a lot of company – by some estimates, more than a third of U.S. workers participate in the gig economy as freelancers, independent contractors or moonlighters. And while gig work offers some attractive features, such as flexibility in setting your hours and no real limits on your income potential, it also comes with challenges. Specifically, you may miss out on the array of benefits available to full-time employees of many organizations. How can you fill this benefits gap?

A frozen fractal sounds complicated, but it’s really just as simple as a snowflake. But are these amazing infinitely complex patterns really so easily defined? The fact is that fractals are created by repeating a simple process over and over in an ongoing feedback loop. Driven by recursion, fractals are images of dynamic systems– the pictures of mathematical chaos. Geometrically, they exist in between our familiar dimensions. Fractal patterns are extremely familiar since nature is full of them: trees, rivers, coastlines, mountains, clouds, seashells, hurricanes…all of these are fractals. And they exist in the human body-lungs and the pulmonary system, blood flow and the circulatory system, and even in the brain itself; fractals make us, us.

Today I had the pleasure (and angst) of speaking with a gentleman who wanted a bit of insight before he and his wife met with their 6th grade daughter’s school about her lacking academic progress and special education service provision. During our conversation, the gentleman vented his frustration about the faculty feet-dragging and COVID limitations interfering with his child’s learning. His daughter is behind significantly and needs specific supports to achieve academically. There is an IEP in place. However, those agreed-upon supports are not being provided. I shared with him a few strategies and talking points to use to hopefully net positive outcomes.

While COVID-19 and influenza continue to make headlines, another contagious respiratory virus has been spreading at an alarming rate, one which can be severe and even lifethreatening to infants and toddlers.

For the last 14 months I’ve been anticipating it. Waiting. Knowing it was lurking in the corners or behind a large, formidable rock. I figured I was immersed in grief and that would lower my defenses and I’d be overcome eventually by some sort of bug – COVID or otherwise.

Being raised in Kaufman County by two public-educator parents who modeled a life of community involvement and serving others, Erleigh Norville Wiley knew from an early age that she wanted to use her talents and resources to invest in the people around her as well. “I always had a desire to help,” the Kaufman High School graduate recalls. “My parents believed strongly in giving back, and they instilled that in my brothers and me.”