Brazos Trails 10-6-2011

08. Oct, 2011 0 Comments

Our Mission

By Bill Foster, Editor & Publisher

In the newspaper business we are dealing with people’s life’s everyday. You have heard it before: Death & Taxes.
Since we are an official paper, this means the legals we run affect your lives. If the people vote for a bond issue the taxes go up on everyone whether they like it or not.
Kelly Snell is our county commissioner Precinct one (SC area) We helped get him elected. The commissioner control the county which controls your county taxes, collects taxes for everyone, fixes things, controls the sheriff, preserves your birth and death certificates, and other official records like the deed we just got from Andy Harwell when we paid off our building. His daddy was sheriff. Several people from Moody have served vital roles at the county court house. Kelly has a competitor now who says he can do a better job. He wants to get more businesses in Moody. I like that. It’s survival for us.
City of Moody is having to go up on taxes in order to provide the necessary services for everyone, taxpayer or not. Some people are asking why.
Moody school board has two seats open. Three are running. So they have to have an election. This means business for us. It’s a costly election since Moody covers parts of three counties. But this is the democratic way. No guns or dictators. Moody passed $1 million in bonds. Again opposition, but today the schools are better and they have a new gym and a temporary office in downtown Moody while the administration office is being rebuilt.
Libraries are important for preserving history and information. They can’t assess taxes directly, but get benefits when the taxing entities agree to help or non profits help out. We are running a story about the Heart of Texas Coop is giving librarirs a $1,000.
One advertiser J. Harry Jeanes sold his Savings and Loan businesses. He died this week at 93, but left his fortune to Baylor. His name is on the Discovery Center at the Mayborn bldg. Scholarship funds go to athletes, music students and so on.
Geneva Moore is celebrating her 90th birthday this week. She and her husband C. O. Moore ran the Moody paper at one time. He died six years ago.
Again we are reporting on people’s life and death. This is our mission.
The state of Texas is using our papers to publish official notices for changing our Texas constitution. We vote on them Nov. 8. This happens about every two years. Some people want to take this information away from us and put it on the web. We must fight against this. Older people would never see it. But in the paper you can cut it out, study the issues and even take the paper to your polling place. That’s why we are called a legal newspaper. Paid circulation thru the U S Post office with our periodical permits.
One paper is 121 years old and the other is 66 years old. We publish stories about real people and their lives. We fill a mission.