Hometown News For Orange County, Texas
Hometown News For Orange County, Texas
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Former U.S. Congressman Beto O’Rourke wants Texans to fight Republican voter suppression acts by taking to the phones. O’Rourke, who appeared in front of a crowd of 300 outside the Julie Rogers Theater in Beaumont last week, wants Democrats to call their state representatives and detail their objections to Senate Bill 7. He wants them to call the White House and make sure President Biden gets the votes needed to pass the For The People Act in the Senate, then signs it. Sen...
New mayors Misty Songe of Vidor and Randy Branch of West Orange were guests of honor at the Wednesday Lunch Bunch meeting held June 16. Orange County Judge John Gothia and Orange County Tax Collector Karen Fisher hosted the event and treated everyone to lunch at Robert's Steakhouse and Meat Market. The crowd also included Bridge City Mayor David Rutledge, County Commissioner Kirk Roccaforte and former County Commissioner John Dubose. Roccaforte and Dubose are former Bridge...
Orange County District Attorney John Kimbrough said Tuesday that Bridge City's Police Department "did a fantastic job" investigating twin fatalities that occurred minutes and miles apart on June 13, 2020. Jarrod Lee Watkins, 24, of Orange, was charged with intoxication manslaughter in a head-on collision that killed 20-year-old Jillian Blanchard of Port Neches on FM 1442 in Bridge City. But Watkins has never been charged in connection with the other fatality. Social media has...
With Hurricane Season here again, Bridge City Mayor David Rutledge has been leading the push for citizens to sign up with STAN. That’s the Southeast Texas Alerting Network and it serves Orange, Jefferson and Hardin Counties. “We’ve been in it for a while,” Rutledge said. “We’re just making a concerted effort to make sure everybody knows about it. “With Hurricane Season coming on, we’re making an extra push to be durn sure everybody stays informed.” STAN is a messaging and not...
Orange is getting a new 80-unit senior apartment community near the intersection of Highway 62 and Interstate 10. A celebration was held Wednesday, June 16, to christen the SilverLeaf at Orange, a project built with $8.8 million in funding from the Texas General Land Office. “It’s nice,” said Precinct 2 County Commissioner Theresa Beauchamp, whose broad area includes the new housing. “We needed that in that area,” she said. It will be an affordable rental housing complex,...
City council members at both Pinehurst and West Orange have liked what they’ve seen from proposals to place streetlights on MacArthur Drive. “It was a real brief presentation, and we will talk more, but based on what I saw, it’s going to be a big addition to our city, because it’s aimed at keeping our citizens safe,” Johnny Asevedo, Pinehurst councilman, said. “We’ve needed lights out there for quite a few years,” Shirley Bonnin of the West Orange council said. “It is da...
West Orange officials reappointed to their jobs by new Mayor Randy Branch repeated their Oaths of Office at Tuesday night's meeting. From left, they are Assistant Fire Chief Simmie Gibson, Fire Chief David Roberts, Municipal Court Judge Carl Thibodeaux and City Attorney Chris Leavins....
Adam Russell Texas A&M AgriLife Whether you call them stickers or sandburs, a Texas A&M AgriLife Extension Service expert can help you win the war against these prickly little pain dispensers. Sandburs, also known as grassbur or sandspur, are an annual and/or perennial grass. The sharp, spiny burs are a seed pod that can latch on to passersby for distribution to other locations. “Weed control is ultimately up to the end-user, but sandburs are one of those weeds that can be a...
Joe Biden’s American Recovery Plan Act, passed by Congress without a single Republican vote, just showered ruby red Orange County with the first of two $8.1 million payments. The all-Republican County Commissioners are eager to see what they’re allowed to use it for. After Tuesday’s twice-monthly Commissioners Court meeting, County Judge John Gothia asked Tim Funchess, county purchasing agent, to put an item on the June 22 agenda to start the process to hire a grant manag...
Good times are set to resume in Orange. The Lion’s Club 80th Charity Carnival will take place over three weekends at Lions Den Park this year, beginning Wednesday, June 16. “When we first started planning for this, they still had the COVID thing,” Pam Crew-Honeycutt, carnival co-chairman explained the extra week. “We were trying to encourage more social distancing. We thought it would give people the opportunity to spread out.” This year’s event begins at 6:30 p.m. Wednes...
One of Orange County’s top news sources is going off the air. Sherry Combs is retiring from the Little Cypress-Mauriceville school district Friday, ending a 42-year career that saw her issue tens of thousands of notifications –what used to be called “press releases” – on behalf of LCMCISD and West Orange-Cove school districts and the LifeShare Blood Center. “I’m 70 and it’s time,” she said Tuesday. “I can do anything I want to, any time I want to.” For the past 20 years, Co...
You’re a grand old flag, You’re a high-flying flag, Monday, June 14, marks the 104th observance of Flag Day in the United States, a holiday officially established in 1916 by President Woodrow Wilson. But every day is Flag Day for retired U.S. Navy sailor John Hall. The West Orange-Stark graduate served 20 years as an aviation ordnanceman on U.S. aircraft carriers circling the globe supporting combat and peacekeeping missions alike. “When we first got married, my wife asked...
Winter Storm Uri and subsequent cool, wet weather have made the 2021 growing season tough on Texas watermelons, but decent prices are helping producers, according to Texas A&M AgriLife Extension Service experts. Watermelons in South Texas got a late start due to the winter storm in February, said Juan Anciso, Ph.D., AgriLife Extension horticulturist, Weslaco. Many fields under hoop tunnels experienced delays and required partial replanting due to the cold weather. Harvest...
The 2021 Atlantic hurricane season began on June 1. Our colleagues at NOAA are predicting another active season, with an above average number of named storms. At NASA, we’re developing new technology and missions to study storm formation and impacts, including ways to understand Earth as a system. The following are 5 Fast Facts about NASA and the 2021 hurricane season: 1. NASA can see storms from space. From space, NASA can see so much more than what’s visible to the nak...
Lamar State College Orange (LSCO) President, Dr. Thomas Johnson, announced this week that LSCO will return to its normal campus life and schedule this upcoming Fall semester. The Fall schedule will closely resemble Fall 2019 in regard to face-to-face offerings and enrollment capacities. “The past fourteen months have been challenging for all of us. But members of our Gator community have proven time and time again how resilient they are. Their diligence in upholding our h...
A proposal to bring streetlights to a dark and deadly stretch of road is on the agendas for neighboring Orange County cities. The Texas Department of Transportation will make a presentation for a "MacArthur Drive Illumination Project" at Tuesday's 6 p.m. meeting of the Pinehurst City Council. While no one at Pinehurst was available to talk about the item, Randy Branch, the new mayor in West Orange, said the same item will be on his council's agenda for Monday, June 14. He...
The new gateway to Lamar State College Orange is going to be known as the “Gatemouth” … as in Gatemouth Plaza. The two-year school in downtown Orange announced that it plans to memorialize the Grammy Award-winning musician, Clarence “Gatemouth” Brown, by naming the plaza currently under construction on the west side of campus. Brown, who died in 2005, was known for his expertise on the guitar and had a recording career that spanned more than five decades. The school began con...
Expect city tax rates to decrease this year but don't look for tax bills to decline. Based on May's skyrocketing proposed tax values, county and city governments and school districts should be forced to slash their rates to avoid taking too big a bite out of taxpayer's wallets. But a bite it will still be. County-wide, the proposed tax assessments for 2021 were 16 percent higher than in 2020. The final increase should be lower, after appeals are heard and values are finalized...
Wayne Peveto grew up on the family farm in Orange County's McLewis community. He and his four brothers helped their sharecropper dad, Horace, and mother Lola raise a rice crop and run a dairy. Eventually, the family farm grew to 160 acres. Today, Wayne Peveto owns about 3,500 acres of north Orange County land – more than five square miles – and two of the larger herds of cattle in the area. "It's in your blood, just something you do," said the 82-year-old rancher. "I do hav...
A previous "Down Life's Highway" column in 'The Record' newspapers struck a chord with Sandra Cash. It resonated with her so deeply, that she kept a copy of that column for over a year. "Heavenly Cajuns-who will fill their shoes" was the title of the column that was published March 18, 2020 in The Record Newspapers. "That was the question my dad always asked," said Cash. Her father was a local Cajun music legend, Joe Bonsall. He and his band, "The Orange Playboys" recorded...
The City of West Orange landed $3.8 million to improve drainage and Mayor Randy Branch was happy to get it. “We applied for this grant and they finally finalized it,” said Branch, a former city alderman who was elected at the start of May to replace longtime mayor Roy McDonald. “This has probably been in the works at least a couple of years.” Monday, Branch joined Texas Land Commissioner George P. Bush, Texas Sen. Robert Nichols, Texas House Speaker Dade Phelan and Vidor Mayor...
Two of the five worst rainfall events in U.S. history, back-to-back hurricanes, a record ice storm and a year-long COVID shutdown should have sent the Orange County economy reeling. They were devastating to many property owners and non-essential workers, for sure. But that’s not what sales tax figures say. Despite hurricanes Laura and Delta aiming 100 miles per hour winds at trees and rooftops while homeowners still struggled with the aftermath of Tropical Storms Harvey and I...
Charlie Dubois of Little Cypress said it was the 2012 funeral for his father-in-law, Earl Bilbo, that moved him to put his U.S. Army uniform back on and assist at funerals. John Hall of north Orange joined after he saw the Southeast Texas Veterans Group Honor Guard at a close friend's funeral. And Monday they will both be in Beaumont for a 10 a.m. Memorial Day Service at Forest Lawn Cemetery, 4955 Pine Street. As the country and the state opens up after a year of COVID-19 lock...
County Judge John Gothia issued a Declaration of Disaster for Orange County at 5 p.m. Friday, citing the 'imminent threat' created by an impending tropical storm system expected to make landfall along the upper Texas coast "within the next 12 hours." Storms this week have saturated Southeast Texas and both the Neches and Sabine Rivers are already above flood levels. At dinner time Friday, the National Weather Service was tracking "a well-defined low pressure system over the...
Orange County business small owners are counting the days until June 26. That’s when the $300-a-week Federal Pandemic Unemployment Compensation is set to run out in Texas after Gov. Greg Abbott announced Monday the state is dropping out of the federal program to help address a labor shortage. “As a small business guy, that’s big news for us,” said Keith Wallace, owner of Orange County’s Reliable Cleaners. “It’s next to impossible to get staffed up. You check all the avenues....
