Cherokeean Herald (Rusk, Tex.), Vol. 163, No. 23, Ed. 1 Wednesday, August 1, 2012 Page: 3 of 20
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■ Cljerokeeaij Herald ■ thecherokeean.com ■ Wednesday, August 1,2012 3A
EDITORIAL BOARD MARIE WHITEHEAD TERRIE GONZALEZ
publisher editor
BOWMAN’S I
■^kozens of old cotton
I gins dot the landscape
I of East Texas, the last
relics from the days
when cotton was a major
cash crop for farmers. Most
of them are slowly rotting
away without historical
markers to remind people of
how important they were to
communities decades ago.
That isn’t the case at
Point, a small town of some
700 souls in northern Rains
County.
Here, a sturdy old gin
has found a new life as an
entertainment venue that
draws crowds from all over
East Texas and performers
like Mark Chestnut, Pee
Wee Walker and Gary
Busey.
The sounds of the
Saturday night music and
comedy go out on the air
waves of the best named
rural radio station in Texas
- KMOO of Mineola. You’d
find it at 99.9 on your radio
dial.
The old cotton gin sat
unused beside U.S. Highway
69 since the 1970s, when it
stopped ginning cotton for
Rains County’s farmers. But
about five and a half years
ago, Brent Cason and his
mother and father, Lena
and Joe Ben Cason, saw
BOB BOWMAN
bob-bowman.com
something different in the
dirty, neglected old building.
With the support of
Point’s people, they turned
the gin into The Cotton
Pickin’ Theater and opened
it to music performers
of all kinds. Today, each
Saturday night, the old gin
comes alive for some of the
best entertainment in East
Texas.
While country music is
the mainstay at the gin, the
second and fifth Saturday
nights of each month are
devoted to gospel music.
And on the fourth Saturday
night, the Rural American
Idol contests pull in
contestants from all over.
The town began as a
flag station and post office
around 1880 on a section
of the Missouri, Kansas
and Texas Railroad from
Mineola to Greenville.
Residents proposed the
name Rice’s Point for
William Rice, a Kentuckian
who settled in the area, but
the post office rejected the
name and several others
because they were already
in use.
In 2006, Point opened
another landmark, also
related to the community’s
farming heritage. A large
monument, sitting beside
the old cotton gin, was built
to recognize the birth of the
National Farmers Union by
Isaac Newton Gresham at
Point in 1902.
Today, the NFU has a
membership of 250,000
farm and ranch families in
26 states, and continues
with Gresham’s mission
of protecting the economic
well-being of farmers and
ranchers and their rural
communities.
Meanwhile, the Point gin
keeps on ginning — not with
cotton, but music.
The other day, however,
Joe Ben Cason found a
survivor of the old cotton
days - a five boll weevil. No
one knows how he survived
or why he stayed.
Maybe he just hked the
music.
DIS PATC H E SI from the cifydesk
ast time, I shared
some fun facts con-
cerning mosquitoes
that I thought many
people might not have been
aware of. For this column,
I’m going to address some of
the misconceptions people
have regarding mosquito
spraying in general and
Jacksonville’s program in
specific.
First off, lets dispel the
notion that the City’s skeeter
spraying efforts amount to some sort of mag-
ic bullet that makes every mosquito within a
mile of the city limits drop dead simultane-
ously. Only those mosquitoes which come
in direct contact with a droplet of chemical
are killed during an apphcation. We kill as
many as possible, but even if I’ve sprayed
your street lately, there’s no guarantee that
your neighborhood is now skeeter-free.
Here are a few others I’ve come across:
• There is no residual effect to the spray.
Once the product has fallen to the ground,
which takes about two hours in perfect wind
conditions, it no longer does anything to kill
mosquitoes. The spray will not chng to your
grass or coat your home to continue killing
bugs over time.
• No, I cannot legally come to your house
and spray just at your place on any kind
of request or complaint-generated basis.
The law requires that we pubhsh where we
will be spraying at least three days prior
to apphcation, and spot treatments are not
permitted. However, I do use the complaints
I get to schedule which parts of town are in
the most need for another apphcation.
• It’s hard to believe I actually have to
say this, but -1 have far less
power over the wind than
some people think. I don’t
spray if the wind is blowing
more than 10 miles per hour,
but apart from that, it’s out
of my hands. It may be unfair
that the wind blew most of
your spray into your neigh-
bor’s yard, but yelhng at me
won’t make it better. If I had
magic powers, I’d make a lot
more money than I do.
• Just because you can’t
see it doesn’t mean the spray isn’t still in the
air. Droplets are only a few microns (thou-
sandths of a millimeter) in diameter, but a
single one is still enough to kill a mosquito.
The product stays in the air long after the
visible cloud dissipates.
And lastly, there seems to be a lot of confu-
sion over just how potent the City’s mosquito
spray is. Some people seem to think it’s
entirely harmless to humans, while others
run in terror from the sprayer truck like I’m
spreading mustard gas. As with most things,
the truth hes somewhere in-between.
Permethrin, the active ingredient in our
spray, is poorly absorbed through the skin,
and typically doesn’t present much danger to
mammals.
It actually has a lower acute toxicity value
than many common substances like nicotine
and caffeine — and is only a httle more dan-
gerous than aspirin.
Of course, you don’t want to let your kids
inhale large quantities of the stuff when
my truck rolls down your street, but as long
as you exercise common sense, you have
nothing whatsoever to fear from the City’s
sprayer mist.
TAXING I thou8hts
Supreme Court upholds health care law
n a landmark decision,
the U.S. Supreme Court
generally upheld the
constitutionahty of the
controversial 2010 health
care law. In addition to pre-
serving mandates for health
insurance coverage, certain
tax provisions will take
effect as scheduled in 2013,
barring any subsequent leg-
islation. Here’s a summary
of the main tax changes for
2013.
Medicare surtaxes: The
health care law includes
the following two Medicare
surtaxes that could affect
individual taxpayers:
• A 3.8% surtax on the
lesser of annual net invest-
ment income or the amount
by which modified adjusted
gross income (MAGI) ex-
ceeds $200,000 ($250,000
for married couples). “Net
investment income” includes
interest, dividends, royalties,
rents, gains from disposi-
tions of property and income
from passive activities,
but not tax-free interest or
distributions from qualified
retirement plans and IRAs.
• A 0.9% surtax on earned
ANITA L. WOODLEE
CERTIFIED PUBLIC ACCOUNTANT
income (e.g., wages) exceed-
ing $200,000 ($250,000 for
married couples).
Flexible spending ac-
counts: Currently, there’s
a $5,000 hmit on pre-tax
contributions to a flexible
spending account (FSA) used
for dependent care expenses,
but there’s no such hmit on
health care FSAs. The law
caps health care FSA contri-
butions at $2,500 starting in
2013.
Medical deductions: For
2012, you may deduct unre-
imbursed medical expenses
in excess of 7.5% of your
adjusted gross income (AGI).
The law raises this AGI floor
in 2013 to 10% for taxpayers
under age 65.
Other tax-related provi-
sions in the law were also
upheld by the Supreme
Court. For instance, an indi-
vidual will generally have to
obtain “minimum essential
health insurance cover-
age” or pay a nondeductible
penalty, beginning in 2014.
Another provision, which
took effect in 2010, allows a
qualified small business to
claim a tax credit for part or
all of the cost of providing
health insurance.
This remains a complex
area of the tax law. Contact
us regarding your personal
circumstances and the effect
the Supreme Court ruhng
could have on your taxes,
pel. advertising
ANITA L. WOODLEE,
CPA, PC
CERTIFIED PUBLIC
ACCOUNTANT
111 Henderson
Rusk • 75785
Phone: 903-683-1002
www.anitawoodleecpa.com
Visit our web site for new
tax tips and
financial calculators
Published weekly each
Wednesday by
E.H. WHITEHEAD
ENTERPRISES, INC.
Texas’ oldest continuously published
weekly newspaper, established as the Chero-
kee Sentinel, Feb. 27,1850, and consolidated
with The Cherokeean, The Alto Herald and
the Wells News & Views.
SUBSCRIPTIONS
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POSTMASTER:
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CHEROKEEAN HERALD
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RUSK, TX 75785
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858-4141 - Alto
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publisher
(903) 683-2257
mwhitehead@mediactr. com
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advertising, receivables
(903) 683-2257 ext. 108
advertising@mediactr. com
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editor
(903) 683-2257 ext. 107
herald@mediactr. com
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classifieds, subscriptions
(903) 683-2257 ext 101
classifiedads@mediactr. com
Robert Gonzalez
advertising manager
(903) 683-2257 ext. 102
rgonzalez@mediactr. com
Becky Whisenant
classifieds, general news
(903) 683-2257 ext 101
classifiedads@mediactr. com
Gloria Jennings
general news
(903) 683-2257 ext 106
news@mediactr. com
Tara Crosby
advertising sales
(903) 683-2257 ext 103
sales@mediactr. com
Quinten Boyd
general news, sports
(903) 683-2257 ext 109
chreporter@mediactr. com
Deon Williams
advertising sales
(903) 683-2257
dwilliams@mediactr. com
U|QU POINTS I from^ Real
^Holks along El Camino
Real have been
reminded of what
a Texas summer is
supposed to feel like as
temperatures topped 100
degrees with no rain in the
forecast.
Most of our lawn mowers
needed a httle rest after a
long growing season, so I
guess its time to crank up
the air conditioning and
wait on fall to arrive.
You can’t wait until fall
for your six bits’ worth of news, so its up
to me to visit all the shady spots and air-
conditioned places where folks gather, so
I can keep you informed.
Rodeo announcers always say, “Cow-
boy is having some rough luck tonight”
when one would be bucked off or miss in
a roping event. Well, we had a cowboy
that had some rough luck this past week.
Sixteen-year-old Chance Holcombe was
getting his horses ready for a roping.
They think a stud horse in the next pen
stirred up the horses, and Chance took
a hard kick in the mouth. He got three
teeth kicked out, and it broke his jaw in
four places. He had surgery in Lufkin
and now his mouth is wired shut, and he
will be on liquids for several weeks.
Chance is a good boy and I hated to
hear about his accident. I’m sure lots of
people over the years have wished that I
would have been kicked in the mouth by a
horse and my jaw wired shut, but I’ve out
smarted them all.
The only horses I get close to now are
the ones that eat quarters in front of
the grocery stores. Please keep Chance
in your prayers until he is back in the
saddle again.
The Alto Lady Jackets (15 and under)
Dixie Softball team lost to Red River 8-6
after 8 innings on Wednesday night in the
state championship in Sulphur Springs.
The girls played a great game but came
up short in the end. The Alto girls were
the youngest team in the tournament
with Red River being mostly high school-
age girls who were on varsity rosters at
two different schools last year.
The game was back and forth much of
the time and our girls played hard. A big
congratulations goes out to the Texas
state finalists in 15U Dixie Softball.
Alto was well represented at the Junior
National Beefmaster Convention and
Heifer Show held at the Brazos County
Exposition Center in Bryan July 25-28.
Jordan Hall, Foster Hall, Tanner Jones,
Allie Jones, Hallie Duplichain, Todd Du-
plichain, Blair Low and Lee Ellen Pear-
man were competing from Alto.
Todd Duplichain scored enough points
in several categories to win 7th place over
all and Blair Low won enough points to
get herself a 10th place overall.
Tanner Jones won 6th place in senior
showmanship out of a large field of con-
testants. This isn’t county or state, it’s
CHRIS DAVIS
elcaminoreal@consolidated.net
national and that is a pret-
ty big deal in my book. I
got all of my information on
this event from our county
agent Aaron Low, so if I left
someone out or anything is
wrong it’s his fault.
Congratulations to all
these young people for
doing a great job at all the
shows and representing our
community well.
I pulled the t-post I had
holding my tomato plants
up over the weekend, and
I couldn’t believe how easily they came
out of the ground. Last year when I tried
to pull them out of the dry ground they
would not budge. I had to wait until we
had several rains to soften the ground
enough so I could get them loose.
It is time to mow down the old tomato
plants and peas vines and clean up the
garden. The watermelon patch is another
story. The watermelon vines just keep
growing and growing and putting on more
watermelons.
The coyotes have even gotten tired of
eating watermelons. The way it looks
I’m going to be pulling watermelons and
pumpkins at the same time in September.
My late neighbor Virgil Schochler told
me about working for some of his kin
folks when they raised the Schochler
watermelons. He said they had a big
wooden chute and someone would slice
the watermelons and slide them down
and he worked with someone else scoop-
ing the seeds out to dry and sell. Virgil
said they would eat the hearts out of the
melons when they came down and he
got so sick of watermelons that he never
cared for eating them after that.
He said that they would stay in one
place getting those seeds out until the
smell of rotting melons got so bad they
would have to move the chute.
I don’t know how many watermelon
hearts I’ve eaten standing in that wa-
termelon patch, but it’s been a bunch of
them. I know people driving by must
think that big boy sure must love water-
melons to stand out in that hot field and
eat them everyday.
I hope they know I’m pulling and load-
ing them too, and the only ones I eat are
the ones for quality testing. I test the
quality a lot. I sure hope I don’t get sick
of watermelons like Virgil did because I
still love to eat’em.
If y’all want to know anymore about
what’s going on in Alto this week, you’ll
have to go out in the heat and find out for
yourself because this old boy is done.
If you do find something interesting
while you are out and about, be sure and
let me know. I’ll see ya next week!
And remember, We judge ourselves
by our best intentions, most noble
deeds and our most virtuous habits.
Yet we are judged by our last worst
act.
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Gonzalez, Terrie. Cherokeean Herald (Rusk, Tex.), Vol. 163, No. 23, Ed. 1 Wednesday, August 1, 2012, newspaper, August 1, 2012; Rusk, Texas. (https://texashistory.unt.edu/ark:/67531/metapth614674/m1/3/?q=%22%22~1&rotate=90: accessed July 16, 2024), University of North Texas Libraries, The Portal to Texas History, https://texashistory.unt.edu; crediting Singletary Memorial Library.