November 16, 2024 – Texas Parks and Wildlife Department (TPWD) is now accepting applications for the 68th Texas Game Warden and State Park Police cadet class, aimed at those interested in conservation law enforcement, public safety and being part of the next generation of elite state law enforcement officers.

November 15, 2024 - Good Morning! It’s Friday, November 15.

On this day, in 1917, Oswald Chambers died. The Scottish minister was in Cairo, ministering to British soldiers fighting there during World War I. He was offering the men a home away from home, and words of encouragement and hope. Chambers developed appendicitis, but delayed going to the hospital, not wanting to take a bed away from a wounded G.I. His appendix burst and he died in Egypt at the age of 43.

November 13, 2024 - As a young lad I can recall my mother saying to me, “Neal, I will give you a Yankee dime if you will take out the trash for me”.  I never did get a “Yankee dime” that I can recall because I did not know what a Yankee dime was.  I vaguely remember it, in my young mind, to be a kiss on the cheek. So, what message does this saying really mean?  A little research revealed the following:

November 13, 2024 - Good Morning!  It’s Wednesday, November 13.

When I was a teenager, and soon after my salvation experience, my church youth group would regularly go out “soul-winning”.  Sometimes we’d go door-to-door, sometimes to a mall or a park, and we’d approach total strangers with the good news about God’s love.  Pretty scary at first - but it got easier in time.  And we always took a special tool with us, gospel tracts.  Even if our contact wasn’t interested in a conversation, they would usually take a tract.

Smith County Master Gardeners planting a new Japanese maple in the Tyler Botanical Garden.