Thanksgiving has become the stepchild of second half of the year holidays. We so easily slide from Fourth of July into Halloween, then take a brief respite to be thankful at Thanksgiving before stepping into Christmas and New Year’s.

Seems like I am noticing a trend – and not a healthy one. As a whole, our nation is losing the ability to pronounce some words. In fact, people seem to have forgotten some words exist in the English language. Phrases like, “Thank you,” “Thanks so much,” “I appreciate that,” seem to have slid into a dark hole somewhere and vanished. And if you do hear those magic words spoken, it is more of an auto-reply rather than a sincere response.

The very first movie my wife and I saw together was the original Rocky. We went with a group because we weren’t officially dating yet.

regularly celebrating an annual Thanksgiving holiday, and in 1827 published a novel, “Northwood: A Tale of New England,” that included an entire chapter about the fall tradition, already popular in parts of the nation. While at “Godey’s,” Hale often wrote editorials and articles about the holiday and she lobbied state and federal officials to pass legislation creating a fixed, national day of thanks on the last Thursday of November – a unifying measure, she believed that could help ease growing tensions and divisions between the northern and southern parts of the country. Her efforts paid off: By 1854, more than 30 states and U.S. territories had a Thanksgiving celebration on the books, but Hale’s vision of a national holiday remained unfulfilled.

A POLICE HOLDENVILLE POLICE FORCE FROM DAYS GONE BY... Pictured above is the Holdenville Police Force from sometime in the 1970’s. Officers pictured are: Jimmie Owens, A.C. Fare, George Cox, Jim Browning, C.E. Graham, and Ed Turner.

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Two county 4-H members were recently named as the 2023 Hughes County 4-H Hall of Fame honorees. Genna Haney of Stuart and Reiley Gerard of Calvin accepted the honor at the County Banquet held on October 17th at the Hughes County Expo Center. Both young ladies serve as local club officers, Hughes County officers, and have earned leadership project awards. Congratulations to the newest Hall of Fame members.

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Annie Davis from Ag in the Classroom, Oklahoma Department of Agriculture, Food and Forestry presented members of the Holdenville 4~H with a bushel of books. Ms Davis traveled from Oklahoma City to Holdenville to personally present the Holdenville 4~H members that participated in Read An Accurate Book week during an assembly held at Thomas Intermediate School a “Bushel of Books!” The bushel contained 35 hardback Accurate Ag books.

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