Twenty-six months ago, Kilgore school board members directed Superintendent Jody Clements to put together a citizen committee and task that group with defining the district’s campus shortcomings.

Less than a year ago, voters authorized the district to borrow as much as $55 million to build a new elementary school, a new middle school and to upgrade the intermediate school.

Tuesday, the same board members who initiated this project in 2010 gathered with members of the facilities study committee to symbolically turn the first shovel of dirt, marking the construction of a new elementary and middle school. They were joined by parents, business leaders, teachers, aides and administrators – all committed to the notion of improving Kilgore schools.

Sixteen months from now, July 15, 2013, the district plans to move into the new buildings.

Construction of new schools is a monumental event. At class reunions years from now, KISD alumni will recall the construction and the move to the new facilities.

Board members, teachers, administrators, parents – all will tell you construction of a new school is the easy part. It’s the fun stuff.

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The old Tyler Street Church of Christ in Jacksonville had it right with the sign in front of their building: The Church of Christ Meets Here.

As a comfortable sanctuary facilitates worship and mediation, a comfortable school makes it easier to be a good student. But a comfortable sanctuary doesn’t make one devoutly religious; a new school does not guarantee a good education.

The facilities will soon be in place for the district to comfortably and teach the ever-expanding list of subjects and skills required by the state. With luck and, one supposes, proper design, students will be inspired.
That’s what a new, modern school building does.

The district must continue to attract good teachers. Teachers must continue to inspire students. The community must continue to support efforts like the education foundation and job shadow day. Parents must participate in homework and show up on the sidelines, offering encouragement at every turn. Students have to dedicate themselves to the idea of learning and understanding.

That’s the hard stuff.

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The school district is knee deep in the fun stuff and – with the students, teachers and administrators – we recognize the multi-layered value of a new campus.

We congratulate the community on the achievement. We look forward to the results.

Last week, only moments after the stars atop the derricks were lighted, we joined the crowd at First Presbyterian Church for the the final performance of the Pipe Organ Festival. We shared a pew with Mayor Ronnie Spradlin, new city manager Scott Sellers and new Main Street program manager Clara Chaffin.

Mayor Spradlin pointed out the city has a nearly-new police chief (Todd Hunter) a new fire chief Johnny Bellows in addition to the new city manager and Main Street manager. "You know what they're calling this around town, don't you? The dream team."

The new group of department heads may eventually disappoint, but they certainly bring a ton of enthusiasm to the community. Chief Bellows and Sellers even attended the unveiling of the new historical marker on River Road yesterday. Obviously, they didn't have to be there but they appear to be focused on getting to know the community.

While we've always had an able police department, Chief Hunter is determined to emphasize SERVE in the protect and serve motto.

It's Sellers lights a room with his enthusiasm. He's continually adding to his list of ideas for the community, looking for ways to partner with the various community groups.

Chaffin has been here a couple of times, most recently to find a place to live and enjoy the derrick lighting festivities, and will be here shortly after Thanksgiving to be part of Main Street's Mingle & Jingle.

We were fans of their predecessors and disappointed when they left, but the combined energy of this group of new department heads -- all arriving at the same time and pooling their enthusiasm -- offers a world of potential. The next few years at city hall should be a great deal of fun.

In 1850, the United States was in trouble. We'd acquired a lot of land from Mexico and California was seeking annexation. Both those issues were tangled up in arguments surrounding the Missouri Compromise and the Fugitive Slave Act. The country was terribly, bitterly divided.

Senator Henry Clay of Kentucky proposed a compromise. In sum, his plan required all Americans to adhere to the Fugitive Slave Act, allowed California to join the nation as a free (no slavery) state, and allowed the newly-acquired southwest to make their own decisions on whether they would or would not allow slavery.

Senator John Calhoun, an influential South Carolinian, was loudly opposed.

Senator Daniel Webster of Massachusetts, at great political risk, threw his support behind Clay's idea and in March of that year, the spellbinding orator delivered a three-hour speech endorsing the complicated plan. His speech, historians say, carried the day. He lost a lot of support from abolitionists in his home state, but his speech in all likelihood swung the vote.

The civil war was delayed for a decade and during that decade the Pacific Northwest was settled and developed, California found its muscle and New Mexico and Utah were settled mostly by non-southerners. The nation was eventually caught up in civil war and -- eventually -- the northern states prevailed partly, some believe, because the 10-year delay allowed for the development of resources in the northern and Pacific states.

Today the country is paralyzed by a hard-headed set of congressmen who appear unwillilng to find a Henry Clay compromise or a Daniel Webster voice. I'm no end of tired of the politicians in Washington. I'm no end of tired of politicians from the left and the right who choose ideology over leadership.

If we want to reduce the budget by 10 percent tell EVERY agency to cut spending by 10 percent. Ten percent of salaries, ten percent of office supplies, ten percent of car allowances, ten percent of new weapons, ten percent of lawn maintenance, ten percent of highway maintenance. Ten percent of EVERY budget. If that's not enough, cut 12 percent.

And, please, save the left-vs-right moralizing until later.

I've never met an American who didn't worry that our students learn less than students in other parts of the world.

Turn on the political talk shows on TV today -- whether left-leaning or otherwise -- and the talking heads are doing their best to convince us that China is the next hegemon. Our Achilles heel, they tell us, is our educational system.

And everyone who watches those political talk shows -- whether right-leaning or otherwise, young or otherwise -- agrees. America is falling behind China and much of the world when it comes to training scientists of any discipline. Agreement with that thesis is essentially universal.

Yet, it's as if we expect someone else to educate our youth. Certainly, a large number of us are unwilling to pay for it..

In Texas, the state sets a minimum teacher-to-student ratio for young students. The state (and the federal government) issue requirements in connection with meals and nutrition. The state now requires every high school graduate to have four years of math and four years of science. We are constitutionally required to educate all students whatever their disability, their primary language or their nationality. The state has established minimum levels of achievement and measures that achievement through a series of standardized tests.

Yet, it's as if we expect our local school districts to accomplish all of that in facilities built for the 1940s, 1950s or 1960s, for certainly a large number of us are unwilling to pay for it.

The truth is Kilgore's schools are not in good shape. No matter your age or political orientation, the campuses are a mess.

Kilgore Heights is a security risk as well as overcrowded. Kilgore Middle School is surrounded by decades-old portable buildings, the kitchen/cafeteria is far too small to handle the student population, it couldn't be much less energy-efficient, handicapped access is inadequate, its technology infrastructure is, well, it's not. Both Chandler Elementary and the intermediate school need technology and science labs, new restrooms and restroom renovations, and electrical upgrades.

A committee of taxpayers just like you -- men and women who believe Kilgore, Texas and America need to offer modern, efficient education -- put together a plan to replace two of the campuses and significantly upgrade two more. And they make that recommendation knowing we're in a difficult economic environment.

They know, as we do, when schools, cities or states ask for new facilities the request invariably comes when we're "in a difficult economic environment." There simply is not a good time to ask voters to approve a major bond issue. But it has to be.

Our grandparents and our parents built schools for us -- schools that were appropriate for the population and the technology of the day. Why should we refuse to provide comparable facilities for our children and grandchildren?

It's not enough to say that the population growth is all Hispanic. It's not enough to say it's a difficult environment. It's not enough to say the district shouldn't have built a covered practice field. It's not enough to say the district shouldn't have put artificial turf on the field at R.E. St. John.

It is time to remember that the law requires us to educate all school-age children. It's time to remember that our children need skills that will allow them to compete in the marketplace they will become part of and that those skills require a minimal level of quality infrastructure. It's time to remember that previous generations educated us, that it's our turn now to educate the next generations. 

Kilgore school district needs a maximum of $55 million to provide facilities for safe and efficient education. It needs a maximum of $55 million to efficiently meet state and federal requirements. The school district needs as much as $55 million to provide facilities conducive to learning and teaching.

We should vote for the school's bond issue on May 14.  We should.

NEWS FLASH: The president of the United States is going to address public school students.

When Franklin Roosevelt said we have nothing to fear but fear itself, he obviously didn't know that Barack Obama would be president some day.

If this isn’t the funniest, most poorly-informed controversy in years, I can’t imagine what might be. The Fox News crowd is working itself into a lather in fear that the president might persuade youngsters to grow up and vote for him or convince their parents that he’s a good guy.

As those students might say, “well, duh.”

When did a president not hope to inspire students to vote for him, lobby for him, march in support of him? (Okay, maybe George Washington did not, but he didn’t really want to be president, so that doesn’t count.)

Like those who are worked up about the president’s speech, I’ve neither read the text nor heard the presentation. I have read several proposed lesson plans, some bothersome, some less so.

None of this is particularly new. I was distraught over the Bush administration’s no-bid contracts to Dick Cheney’s former company in Iraq. My anger was visible when Bill Clinton tried to blow smoke with his comments about defining  the word “is”. I was appalled by Richard Nixon’s “I am not a crook” speech. Going back as far as Lyndon Johnson – in office when I reached voting age – I can’t remember truly trusting a president.

But I certainly never threatened to home school my children because they might be exposed to something said by a politician I disliked.

Here’s an idea: Encourage your student to watch it. Find out what they thought about it. Discuss it. Encourage them to think independently. Did he say anything motivational? Did he say anything that was purely political?

But, please, turn off Beck and Limbaugh for at least the duration of the conversation.

On September 11, 2001 terrorists commandeered three fully-loaded commercial airliners and crashed them into the World Trade Center towers and the Pentagon. Thousands of people lost their lives. My memories of that date are exceedingly clear. Your memories are probably equally sharp.

My recollections of the next day, though, are a little fuzzier. I know I listened, enraptured, to one talking head after another (some elected, some not) rail against terrorism and preach about the pressing need to live free from the fear of another terrorist attack. Fuzzy as those memories might be, I’m fairly certain I spent virtually no time thinking about taxes, federal deficits, bail-outs of the banking and auto industries or even health care reform.

Yet, somehow, the Glen Beck wing of my political party has chosen to politicize 9/11 in the most distasteful way. That faction is organizing a September 12  “National Tea Party March on Washington.” For those who can’t travel to D.C., there will be little rallies like the one planned for Longview on that date.

As it was described at a town hall meeting in Kilgore Tuesday night, the event is supposed to “take us back to the way we felt on September 12, 2001.”

Allow this digression: this whole notion of modern tea parties grew out of a comment made on CNBC’s morning stock market show early last spring. One of the market commentators, on a soap box about TARP (the Troubled Asset Recovery Program created by President Bush and Hank Paulson), warned that government bailouts will lead to a new tea party. Now back to my rant.

On September 12, none of us were thinking Tea Party. For the advocates of today’s Tea Parties to seize upon the terror of 9/11 – and the deaths of some 3,000 persons – and turn it into an anti-tax rally is a shameful example of the poisonous attitudes that have all but destroyed the open, fruitful political debate that set this nation apart from so much of the world.

Shame on us for allowing America’s greatest tragedy to become a symbol of something – anything – other than what it was: the day that Middle East terrorists brought their war to us.

This week the White House Director of New Media, Macon Phillips, encouraged citizens to report to the White House “fishy” speech opposing the administration’s health care goals.  Phillips pointed to private, unpublished, even casual speech, writing that “rumors often travel just below the surface via chain emails or through casual conversation.”  Phillips wrote “If you get an email or see something on the web about health insurance reform that seems fishy, send it to flag@whitehouse.gov.”

Frankly, I would not have been at all surprised if Dick Cheney had asked us to spy on our neighbors. He is the former vice president who (a) asserted that he works only for the president and was not answerable to Congress and (b) asked the military to arrest suspected terrorists in New York. I would have expected this from him. And I would have been outraged.

I am at least as outraged that this comes from an administration that represents itself (falsely, we think) as supporters of individual freedoms and the U.S. Constitution.

I’ve done today what the White House Director if New Media asked; I’ve reported subversive behavior.

The text of my email follows:

“I have received and sent email which I believe to be fishy. Much of it contains political opinion which may be an attempt to subvert the administration's goal to assure ownership by the federal government of automotive, health insurance and financial companies. Even worse, I believe I know others who actually think shareholder-owned insurance, manufacturing and financial companies may be a desirable goal.”

I’m as eager as you are to see the how the administration responds to all this fishy conversation.

The city is on Bobby Florence's case about the decrepit condition of the Lou Della Crim house. That's understandable.

Bobby bought the rambling old frame home, which dates back to about the turn of the previous century, in the early 1970s. In the almost 40 years since, the house has fallen into disrepair. The derricks in the yard have rusted, the cutout of Texas Ranger Lone Wolf Gonzaullus is looking pretty ragged and front porch looks to be rotten.

We sympathize with Bobby. His heart was in the right place. He bought the house because he felt it should be preserved. The Crim family history is central to the history of Kilgore.

Unfortunately, Bobby says he can't afford to spend much on maintenance or repairs and, unlike some other communities, Kilgore offers no property tax relief for privately-owned historic structures. No historic preservation groups have offered help -- and even if they wanted to they probably couldn't come up with the cash, either.

The property's future is a significant conundrum for city hall. The structure can only be described as frail; the city's health officer describes it has a health hazard and attorneys would likelyu call it an attractive nuisance. If the city orders the building demolished -- or has a city crew do it -- we can imagine there would be significant outcry from the community.

Discussion of the issue, and likely a vote to take action, is on the city council's agenda for next Tuesday, July 28.

The "health reform" measure being promoted by the White House would greatly expand the number of people eligible for Medicaid. On average, the states (that's you and me) pick up 43 percent of the cost of Medicaid and the federal government (that's you and me, too) picks up 57 percent.

The Senate Finance committee is actually considering a proposal which would encourage the states to issue bonds to help pay the increased costs. The new financial burden, as envisioned by the Senate Finance Committee, would be so large that states couldn't cover the cost without borrowing money.

The Senate Finance Committee has issued no recommendations for repaying that borrowed money.

A friend who works at the Humane Society in Longview told us Sunday that "the pound" euthanizes about 20 animals per day.

Last year, she said, the Humane Society took in about 10,000 animals. Something like 2,000 found new homes. The remainder were killed.

We're not naive. We know the vast majority of domestic animals are pets in only the loosest sense of the word. Most aren't pampered, most never see a vet. The old expression about being treated "like a yard dog" has its roots in reality. So it's natural that those unsupervised pets give birth to pups and kittens that must forage for food and, all too often, wind up at the pound and -- eventually -- in the incinerator.

There probably is not a solution. But the thought of killing 20 pets a day is sobering.