Wallace Appointed Interim Chief Administrator; Law Joins Hospital District Board
Following a meeting Monday, Donna Wallace was appointed interim Chief Administrative Officer for the Hopkins County Hospital District and will spend 20-hour per week in those duties as she continues her work as local financial officer for CHRISTUS Mother Francis. The hospital district continues to make transition in responsibilities related to the local hospital. Kerry Law was sworn in as a new member of the district board. Law was appointed to the seat on the board after no one filed for election the place on the board when Ralph Preuss announced he would not seek reelection. Law will fill the office for one year.
In other action, the board officially terminating the employment relationship with CEO Michael MacAndrew and acknowledge his past service. Next week in regular session, the board will hear a report from the Chief Administrative Officer Search Committee as they begin the process of employing the CAO. Five candidates for the position will be interviewed Friday.
Attendance at EDGE Increases
Wildcats Athletic Director and Head Football Coach Greg Owens and his staff were pleasantly surprised Monday when the number of high school athletes attending The Edge conditioning program actually increased. Usually they see a steady decline each week from the first days. There were just over 100 athletes attending Monday including close to 30 girls.
Included on the menu Monday were running of six 100-yard dashes with brief rests in between. The athletes have been gradually building toward this over the previous five weeks. Coach Owens showed us a large white commitment board posted in the weight room for The Edge. It lists all attendees since day one. Several athletes showed perfect attendance. Coach Owens says the goal for attendance is for an athlete to attend 20 of a possible 24 sessions.
Also on the board, athletes list their body weight in black ink when they are present or they have a red A for absent. Coach Owens says coaches monitor body weight to make sure athletes are drinking enough water after The Edge. He says a big weight loss may indicate that fluids were not replaced. Coaches may expect those athletes to struggle.
Tuesday will be a big testing day for The Edge. The emphasis will be on squats in the weight room and a gasser test. The gasser test features a series of sprints done in a short period of time with each to be completed in a set number of seconds. Football players must pass the gasser test either during The Edge or sometime after the start of two-a-days in August.
Historical Impact of Christianity on American Culture
By Intern Steven Payne
In the past decade, American society has begun a transition to an increasingly more secular state of existence. Petitions on www.change.org call for the removal of the phrase “In God We Trust” from American currency, as well as the removal of all references to religion from the Pledge of Allegiance. The military has also recently lost a legal battle against the Military Religious Freedom Foundation who had demanded that the Bible be removed from the “Missing Man” display, which honors members of the armed forces that went missing in combat. The Christian Mingle dating website recently lost a lawsuit against allowing homosexual couples onto the website, and Christian owned bakeries have been sued for not baking wedding cakes for gay weddings. Even this past week, after the new federal law requiring bathrooms to be inclusive for people who identify as transgender or identify as members of the opposite sex was passed, several churches in the Rust Belt and Bible Belt of the Continental US were informed that they may face Title IX trouble if they do not remove their male/female bathroom system in favor of a more inclusive bathroom. This has led members of the religious population to believe that a war on religion is beginning, or at the very least, that they are less welcome in America than before.
“We understand that not everybody is going to become a Christian, but we do believe that, as Jesus said in John 14, ‘I am the way, the truth and the light and no one comes to the Father except through me,'” First Baptist Church pastor Mark Bryant said. “So out of a sense of love for humanity, we want to share the gospel with them. That being said, with the freedom of speech and the freedom of religion, everybody has the choice to choose whatever religious practice that they want to have.”
Much of this stems from the concept of the “separation of church and state” which is found in the Establishment Clause of the First Amendment. This clause was written by the framers of the Constitution in order to ensure that religion does not become influenced by government authority, and to also ensure that religious groups could freely practice their faith without federal-imposed restrictions.
“The separation of church and state was never meant to keep the church out of the world, but rather to protect the church from the government having too much say,” Central Baptist Church pastor Bruce Stinson said. “The Church of England, the Pilgrims and other religious groups had come from countries where the government was heavily involved in the church, regulating things such as giving financially, marriages, who could own a copy of the Bible and who could not. If you disagreed with the governments stance on religion then you could be tried for treason. The new American settlers and writers of our constitution did not want the government having that kind of control.”
Given that the majority of the framers were Christian, as is evident by the inclusion of multiple references to God in both the Constitution and the Declaration of Independence, it would almost seem strange that they would write a clause that kicks religion out of the house of government. But years of persecution by a State Church, as well as the disastrous aftermath of witch hunts and public trials by Puritan courts, emphasized the importance of ensuring that the body of government and the body of religion both be able to operate outside of each other’s influence or control. And while the framers did ensure that the future of America would be safe from theocratic authority or religious persecution, it is still vital to note the more important ways in which their faith, more specifically, the Christian faith, has made a significant impact on American culture.
“Their faith was so strong and so ingrained in them that they couldn’t help but use it as the language for those historic documents,” Pete Adrian, Senior Pastor of First United Methodist Church, said. “The Ten Commandments is a good example of that idea that you do not tread on other people, you don’t take or covet what they have. All of those ideas are found in the Constitution, but they’re also found in their religious code.That was their language, it’s how they spoke, it’s how they thought, so that’s part of why they wrote the Constitution and the Bill of Rights and all the rest.”
A more subtle yet significant impact by Christianity on American culture is in the model of government the Founding Fathers established upon writing the Constitution. Here in America, the Constitution is the supreme law of the land. We have a civil government under the law where all civil authorities must obey the Constitution and uphold its principles while in office. This is similar to the Bible with a model of civil government where civil authorities, kings, must obey God’s law and uphold His principles during their rule. Evidence of this model of civil government under the law can be found in Deuteronomy 17:18-20, and 1 Kings 2:1-4. In both models of civil government, just as God’s law was the supreme law that all civil authorities must obey, so the Constitution is today the supreme law that all civil authorities must obey. Further comparison is found in the fact that God was the lawmaker and the kings applied God’s law to the people. In the same manner, the Constitution has made the law and the government applies the constitutional law to the people of America. Even the branches of government are modeled after the roles of God in his model of civil government. Isaiah 33:22 describes God as “the judge, lawgiver and king,” just how our Constitution created three branches of government: Judicial, Legislative and Executive.
Scene at the Signing of the Constitution of the United States
Some basic laws and social practices also have ties to various religions, including Christianity. The Ten Commandments have a number of commandments which are found reflected in American law and culture. The Fourth Commandment: “Remember the Sabbath day, to keep it holy. Six days you shall labor and do all your work, but the seventh day is the Sabbath of the Lord your God.” This commandment, while not law, is certainly seen in the work place, where people normally have the weekends off or don’t work Sundays. The Sixth Commandment: “You shall not murder,” is fairly obvious in that murder is illegal. This is not exclusive to only Christianity, but this moral code turned law is a important part of the belief in punishment in the afterlife, with the famous Florentine poet Dante dedicating a circle of Hell entirely to violence, mainly murder, in his masterpiece “The Divine Comedy.” The Seventh Commandment, “You shall not commit adultery,” is not illegal, but anyone who cheats on their spouse or significant other is typically vilified by his or her community. The old phrase, “Once a cheater, always a cheater,” reflects the way in which adultery is seen as morally abhorrent in American culture. The Eighth Commandment, “You shall not steal,” is also a criminal offense reflected in America and various cultures and societies all over the world. The last commandment seen in American culture is the Ninth Commandment, “You shall not bear false witness against your neighbor.” In legal lingo, this is known as perjury, and by extension, slander and libel, all of which are punishable offenses under the law.
While these impacts are more subtle with no obvious or visible ties to the Christian Faith, there are a number of historical quotes and engravings that hold biblical quotes or ideals. The famous Liberty Bell in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania has a quote from the book of Leviticus 25:10 which states, “Proclaim liberty throughout all the land unto all the inhabitants thereof.” Liberty, the state of being free within society from oppressive restrictions imposed by authority on one’s way of life, behavior, or political views, is a cornerstone of the American Constitution. The concept of Liberty as it is found in the Bible means that God’s people need not fear persecution or mistreatment at the hands of others, that they may practice their faith freely and openly throughout their lives in a world which is governed by God’s model of civil government under the law. While persecution continued to fester in American society in the generations after the Revolutionary War — slavery, atheist/state church persecution, women’s oppression, marriage inequality, etc — it was always the promise of Liberty that drove the American people to overcome these issues and make America a place of freedom and justice for all.
“The concept of human rights actually comes from scripture,” FBC pastor Bryant said. “It’s a biblical idea that all men were created in the image of God. Women, for example, in ancient cultures were considered property, and they still are in some cultures today. But in the Bible, Jesus talked to the woman at the well who according to their culture it was unacceptable to even have a conversation with her because she had been married five times and was living with a man she wasn’t married to. But Jesus engaged her in conversation because he saw her as valuable. So when we look at how he did it, he sees every human being as valuable, whether they’re free or not.”
For early American settlers, those of the Christian faith helped in forming the education system thanks to the biblical and religious texts they brought with them when arriving in the colonies. Out of the 123 original colonial universities and colleges, all but one were faith-based schools. “The texts that they used for teaching English was the Bible,” FBC pastor Mark Bryant said. “They were very involved in education, and they have been involved in education. That’s why when people look around many of the schools in the northeast — schools like Princeton and Harvard and Yale — all of those ivy league schools actually began as schools of theology. They were seminaries for pastors of different denominational groups. And if you look around the United States, you’ll find colleges in nearly every state that have been founded on religion. You have catholic schools, baptist schools, Church of Christ schools, methodist schools; so Christianity has always played a large role in education.”
In the fight to ensure civil rights and equal treatment under the law for African-Americans, Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. would call upon the words of the Declaration of Independence to remind the people that it was God who granted them their right to be treated like human beings, and that it was everyone’s responsibility to see this promise fulfilled. “I still have a dream. It is deeply rooted in the American dream. I have a dream that one day this nation will rise up and live out the true meaning of its creed: We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal.” – “March on Washington” speech, 1963. This belief, this promise, that God has endowed all of his children with basic, fundamental rights that no one can take away, was one of the primary speaking points of the Civil Rights Movement. It gave them a purpose to pursue and an argument to use against those who opposed their movement. M.L.K. Jr. also called into question the validity of existing laws at that time, namely the laws surrounding the treatment of ethnic minorities. “How does one determine whether a law is just or unjust? A just law is a man made code that squares with the moral law or the law of God. An unjust law is a human law that is not rooted in eternal law or natural law.” – M.L.K.
“In terms of race relationships, Christianity has been at the fore-front of trying to develop those relationships,” FBC pastor Bryant said. “I recently saw an interview with a member of the Ku Klux Klan who called himself a white supremacist, but he had no scripture to justify what he considers to be truth. What he believes to be truth actually comes from the idea of The Enemy — it’s separation, it’s segregation, and it’s actually demeaning. That’s not who Jesus teaches us to be.”
For 240 years, Christianity has been a fundamental aspect for many Americans across the nation. It helped shape the early government, the first educational schools, and established a principal on which many political and activist groups would change the American landscape for generations to come. It gave Americans the concepts of freedom, equality, and liberty. It taught the message that all people have value regardless of gender, ethnicity, or socioeconomic background. While it is true that there have been many Christians throughout American history that have used their faith for destructive purposes, it has always been the unity, love, and peace of other Christians who combated these regressive forces. And even though there have been Americans who are not Christian and yet have championed the principles of the Constitution and the Declaration of Independence, they have still fought to maintain those Christian principles on which the United States was founded. America may not be a Christian nation, but there is no doubt that it stands on a foundation built by the faith of men and women who believed in something far greater than themselves. It is because of their faith that they sought to form a more perfect union, establish justice, ensure domestic tranquility, provide for the common defense, promote the general welfare and to ensure the blessings of liberty to ourselves and our posterity. It is because of the principles of the Christian faith that there exists an American nation.
PJC Planning to Sell 47 Acres Back to Local Industrial Fund
With a view to future expansion and knowing that their 20-year lease of a building on the Sulphur Springs High School campus would soon end, Paris Junior College purchased 47 acres of land in Sulphur Springs next to TxDOT offices on State Highway 19 several years ago. The intent was to build a new Sulphur Springs campus. However, those plans changed.
PJC secured an architect who provided plans for a future campus at the sight but the junior college regents quickly realized the cost would be prohibitive at that time and with the number of students enrolled. They began to seek a different location.
Recently, PJC has opened a new campus in the renovated facilities that had once housed a lumber/hardware store locally. The cost was more reasonable and fit the criteria that would allow the addition of courses the college desired to offer locally.
Currently, the college is planning to sell the 47 acres purchased from the Hopkins County Industrial Fund. They plan to sell the property back to the Industrial Fund.
Damaged Tail Lamp Opens Door to Arrest
July 18, 2016 – A Cumby Police officer noted a damaged driver side tail lamp on a gray minivan that passed the officer Saturday afternoon around 1:30 near the 111 mile marker on I-30. A traffic stop for the violation followed and opened the door to much more.
When the traffic stop was made, the driver was moving erratically in the driver’s seat and reaching into the passenger side seat. When the Cumby officer approached the minivan, the driver was extremely nervous. The officer asked Harold Joseph ‘Joey’ Marcantel, 52, of Cedar Hill to exit the auto. When he did exit, in plain sight was a pipe commonly used to smoke marijuana. With permission to search the vehicle, a small black baggie containing a substance suspended to be methamphetamine. The substance weighted approximately 6.1-grams.
Marcantel is in Hopkins County Jail charged with possession of a controlled substance, penalty group 1 over 4-grams but less than 200-grams. He is being held on a $20,000 bond.
Cumby Man Arrested for Aggravated Assault with a Deadly Weapon
Robert Crawford Templeton, 53 of Cumby is in Hopkins County Jail charged with Aggravated Assault With a Deadly Weapon ( a Felony 2) and is being held on a $30,000 bond after he brandished a handgun during an argument with his stepson.
Hopkins County Deputies responded to a call regarding the assault Sunday evening around 6:30 p.m. on FM 275 North near Cumby. Templeton was exiting the residence when officers arrived. According to witnesses and the victim, Templeton had brandished a handgun during the argument and the stepson had tried to disarm him. Templeton punched him causing bruising and swelling around the right eye. A chokehold administered by Templeton had caused red marks around the victim’s neck.
Schlotzsky’s to Open July 21st
Schlotzsky’s on Gilmer Street is set to open at 10 am on July 21st. On the day of the grand opening, door prizes and give-aways will take place all day. Once they’re opened, the first 100 to purchase a 6 pack of Cinnabon cinnamon rolls will receive one free small original sandwich per week for an entire year.
Schlotzsky’s is locally owned and operated and they commented, “We look forward to making Sulphur Springs lotz better!”. They offer catering and will deliver any order over $50. The building was constructed by Outback Construction. Schlotzsky’s offers a full menu of sandwiches and is affiliated with Cinnabon.
Hospital District Board Meets As Transitions Continue
hospital
Hopkins County Hospital District Board will meet Monday at noon in the Plaza conference room at CHRISTUS Mother Francis Hospital. The Board will receive an update on the a new office location and records to be relocated as well as take action on relocation or acquisition of furniture or equipment as appropriate and authorize a designation of an official address. The Hospital District office will be moving now that CHRISTUS owns 51% of the local hospital.
They will also be updated on New District Administrative Office Search, consider and take action on terminating the employment relationship of CEO Michael MacAndrew and acknowledge his past service. Consideration and action will be taken to designate a new chief administrative officer and consider any action necessary to continue operation of the district following the transfer of Hospital Operation to CHRISTUS Hopkins Health Alliance.
Can You Fly from DFW to Madrid, Spain for Just $1???
Well the answer is mostly No, but now that I have your attention, it is a good time to explain the way airlines calculate their fares in conjunction with all of the extra taxes and fees. I actually found a flight from DFW to Madrid on American Airlines leaving August 24th and returning September 1st and the BASE fare was only 50 cents each way?!?!? As you can see below, after the total fare calculation (with taxes and fees) the total round trip ticket comes to $594 which is unbelievably cheap!! The reason I bring the 50 cent fare up, is this is absolutely the cheapest this flight could be with all of the other taxes and fees. Of course, American Airlines could always lower their biggest fee (the YR surcharge) which is their fuel surcharge, but I don’t foresee jet fuel going down any time soon. We have booked many tickets lately that our “base fare” was cheaper than all of the other fees. American is having a fare war right now on some European destinations and offering the 50 cent base fare on many flights for late August and part of September. Since all of the other taxes and fees will never go down, these are the absolute cheapest fares you will see.
To find the best deals email me at [email protected]
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PJC Sets Listening Sessions To Discuss November Ballot Measure to Extend Tax Base
PARIS, TX – Paris Junior College President Pam Anglin will hold five community listening sessions across five East Texas counties next week, as voters this November will consider a ballot measure to expand the junior college’s tax base to Hopkins, Delta, Hunt, Lamar and Red River Counties, all counties the junior college currently serves. The listening sessions are open to the public.
Here is the schedule:
Tuesday, July 19, 5:30pm
PJC, Sulphur Springs Center
1137 East Loop 301
Sulphur Springs, TX
Monday, July 18, 5:30pm
PJC, Math & Science Building, Room 101
2400 Clarksville Street
Paris, TX
Wednesday, July 20, 5:30pm
Hub Community Center
501 West Broadway
Clarksville, TX
Thursday, July 21, 5:30pm
Delta County Community Center
221 E. Bonham Street
Cooper, TX
Monday, July 25, 5:30pm
PJC – Greenville Center
6500 Monty Stratton
Greenville, TX
