To recognize October as Family History Month, the Butt-Holdsworth Memorial Library will join the Genealogy Network of Texas for a series of webinars starting at noon Oct. 18 in the library’s first floor meeting room.

They refer to themselves as “Mooney Drivers” and since the 1950s, their enthusiasm for piloting Mooney Aircraft has brought visitors, business and new residents to the Kerrville area. 

Growing up in the country in the Permian Basin of the High Plains of Texas, I have many fond memories of finding horny toads and box turtles and of listening to quail calls and the sounds of pump jacks. But after leaving Texas to finish my graduate education, I did not spend much time in the…

It was Sunday, July 4, 1976 and we were out of ice.  Old Hickory Lake, about 30 miles northeast of Nashville, was white capping that morning from the gusty winds. Our modest houseboat was tied securely to some trees in a protective cove. Leaving Mom behind, Dad, my older brother and I hopped…

“Turn that frown upside down,” my mother said to me during my childhood if I was pouting and unhappy about things not going my way.  Before my first day of high school she told me, “Smile and say ‘hi’ to people when you pass them in the halls.”  

In the practical little New Testament book, the Letter of James, he admonishes his readers in chapter 3 about the dangers of a loose tongue:

The First Baptist Church is hosting the annual Friend Day this Sunday in order to celebrate the Kerrville community.

It’s all there: the famous water lilies, the wisteria-draped Japanese bridge and the glorious explosion of natural color and texture that is Giverny, the home and gardens of Claude Monet, French painter, a founder of French Impressionist painting. In the 43 years he lived and painted in Give…

I received a nice letter last week from the daughter-in-law of Louise Hays, telling me about some photographs of the building of the Louise Hays Park in a single day. The letter told how the images had been copied and given to the city of Kerrville, and the folks at the city were kind enough…

It was a hot summer day in 2009, and Joe, my late husband, and I were sitting in our living room. He was battling a rare cancer, Merkel cell carcinoma, and was recovering from a surgery that removed a 19-centimeter tumor from his shoulder. He had lost function of his arm.

“Eleanor Rigby,” recorded by The Beatles, with vocals by Paul McCartney, marked a new musical direction for the baby boomer generation’s most prolific rock band. The song is often described as a lament for lonely people. Eleanor Rigby’s lyrics conclude with the chorus: 

Week after week, the Rev. Todd Peperkorn listens as pastors talk — in private — about people wrestling with loneliness, depression and urges to commit suicide.

Pastor Peter Marty, publisher and editor of Christian Century Magazine, tells in a recent editorial of what the German psychologist Hermann Egginhaus published in 1885 about his work on what has been called “the forgetting curve,” the phenomenon that many researchers still study about.

Merriam-Webster Dictionary defines the word “change” in a verb tense: “As to become different or to undergo transformation.” 

Last weekend, I hopped in my truck to explore parts of the county I don’t get to visit very often, traveling along Wharton Road, crossing the Guadalupe, continuing on to Center Point, and then around several sites in that city.

Trees are an important part of the Hill Country landscape. With our environmental factors including heat, drought and soil conditions, trees in the Hill Country are fighting continuous challenges. 

Regular readers will be familiar with the fact that while the vast majority of my columns deal with nature in the Hill Country, I do sometimes write about topics having a wider scope. Last week, I wrote about being a good citizen of the Earth. It got me to thinking about a National Geographi…

Texas is a large, diverse state, and plants that work for one region may not always be the best choice in a different region. The Native Plant Society of Texas (NPSOT) created the N.I.C.E. Native Plant Partners program (formerly called Operation NICE!) to help nurseries offer natives that ar…

On May 7, at around 7:45 in the morning, my mother passed from this life into eternity, from this Earth into heaven, from a hospital bed, catheter and pain patches into the pain-free presence of God. The Lord allowed me to be by her side when she breathed her last. Her face re-

The Kerrville Coyotes Pathfinder Club has returned from their trip to the International Pathfinder Camporee in Oshkosh, Wisconsin, and they are ready to start their new Pathfinder year with gusto.

Philip Johnson has been named Concertmaster of Kerrville’s Symphony of the Hills, beginning with the 2019-20 season.

At the risk of being obvious, my topic today is avoiding the obvious.