News

More than 5,000 Baylor University students have been named to the Dean’s Academic Honor List for the Summer and Fall 2021 semesters.

Many expenses in life are unpredictable. But there are two things you know you’ll have to pay for: medical bills and retirement. You’ll probably need to take a variety of steps to meet these costs, but one financial instrument that can help is a health savings account (HSA).

The North Texas Municipal Water District (NTMWD) has been a leader in water reuse for more than a decade to help meet the growing population in the region, and the utility provider was honored at the 37th Annual WateReuse Symposium with the prestigious 2022 WateReuse Award for Excellence as a Community Water Champion.

The great news is that the 4th annual Casino Gala Night is officially sold out! But–that doesn’t mean you are left out of the fun of participating and helping the students and teachers in Forney ISD by bidding in the Silent Auction.

Each year, Crandall ISD hosts its Battle of the Books—a literacy competition for students in grades 3-6. Students from each elementary campus gather in teams of six. In the fall, teams receive copies of books to read for the competition.

Mesquite honored four City employees with Real. Texas. Service. Champion awards during the March 7 City Council meeting. The Real. Texas. Service. Champions program celebrates employees who provide exemplary customer service and achieve accomplishments that merit special recognition.

From owning a business to being a published author, the freshman with the highest grade point average in Forney High School has her hands quite full. Katherine Spiller, daughter of Andrew and Maggie Spiller, gracefully balances more ventures than many adults, while remaining a humble soft-spoken young lady on top of it all.

The Ladies Auxiliary to the Mesquite Elks Lodge No. 2404 recently presented Historic Mesquite, Inc. (HMI) with a $10,000 donation for the New Hope Church project. New Hope Church was constructed circa 1906. HMI acquired the building through donation and has stabilized the structure while funds are raised for its renovation.

The E! Terrell Entertainment Series continues its 2021-22 concert season with “We’ve Only Just Begun: Carpenters Remembered” starring Michelle Berting Brett at 7:30 pm on March 24th at the Terrell ISD Jamie Foxx Performing Arts Center. This is the seventh E! Terrell performance for this season.

Texas A&M Forest Service Law Enforcement Investigators and the Kaufman County Sheriff’s Office arrested Frances Charline Lee Cole, 51, of Kaufman, Texas for theft of more than $2,500 and less than $30,000 in Hopkins County on March 2, 2022.

I’ve taken up a new hobby: painting. I don’t paint walls or houses. I keep it smaller - to canvases, coasters and such. It’s not painting like you might think. My new leisure pursuit involves no brushes or rollers.

Forney ISD recently announced the 2021-2022 Forney ISD Campus Teachers of the Year for each school in the District.

Blindsided, I was. One minute, I was so busy patting my own back and vocalizing attaboys to my audience of one (me) as I negotiated a beautiful, pristine DIY raft down a gentle stream, that I failed to notice as the waters became a tiny bit choppy. I was standing on my raft, knees locked, as we are prone to do when we are overconfident. My legs buckled. I felt it in my lower back – that slight twinge. I blamed it on a myriad of things: the tarlov cysts in my sacrum, the osteopenia in my hips, the mature onset scoliosis. The only thing I knew for sure, without doubt, is that the problem was not my raft. I watched so many YouTube videos. I read so many Buzzfeed articles. I am the Mary Ann, after all, not a speck of Ginger Grant in me. Gilligan’s Island voted me most likely to bake the pie, scare away the headhunters, fix the radio, and woo the professor, all in half an hour. The raft I’d expertly crafted was unsinkable. Yet, it began to careen toward the left bank. Next, it struck a wayward log on its rapid shift toward the right bank. I sat down, hard. The rope I’d used to secure my oars snapped like a used hair tie on a too thick ponytail. Foamy, cold water splashed onto my legs, soaking my shoes. I looked up to a vision of howling winds, breaking branches, and an angry, navy blue sky. “I don’t even recognize this landscape,” I screamed, internally. “What has become of me? This was supposed to happen differently. It wasn’t supposed to be this way at all!” It wasn’t a dream. It wasn’t a river rapid vacation gone wrong. It’s just snippet of the basic feel of my life as an almost 55-year-old orphan.