Opinion

Do you recall? Forty-five years ago, in December of 1978, Madisonville High School’s senior class performed one-act plays. A photo from one, entitled Martians and Moonshine, included Jeff Watts, Kim Smith, Dennis Prescott, Clark Osborne and Jill Sharp.

The ink was barely dry on a law signed by Gov. Greg Abbott that makes unauthorized entry into the United States a state crime before a lawsuit was filed by civil rights groups and El Paso County challenging its constitutionality.

I found the following while looking back through old Madisonville Meteors. Twenty-five years ago, or in December of 1998, when our local Toys for Tots program had gathered gifts, Peggy Cassel and Shelly Stover were both pictured beside the article about that.

A total of $18 billion in property tax cuts were approved by more than 80% of voters in the November general election and should be reflected in property tax bills that are due by Jan. 31. The cuts come in the form of increased home exemptions, lower school district rates, and limiting the amount property appraisals can rise.

Nowadays Madisonville is short on entertainment, but that has not always been so. Thank Heaven for proof of such in our local history books and old newspapers.

Madison County’s Cedar Lake Community is located three miles northeast of Midway, near Old San Antonio Road. Early families there included those of Sim Washington, Gus Jones, Calvin Malone, Jim Johnson, Emanuel Bradley, Presley Glazes, Eli Coleman, Arie Bailey, Sam Cotton, Tuck Smith, and the Dankins family. There would be box suppers and community serenading at Christmas and New Year’s. A group of folks would start at one house and get larger as it went from house to house in the community. They would be singing, ringing bells, jingling tambourines and playing fiddles, to make a festive occasion.