A tale of two cities

(From Monday’s Howe Enterprise)

Okay, so Howe isn’t quite the dramatic Charles Dickens story of London and Paris, however, he might even be impressed with the differences of this one city from just a few years ago to the one in which we find of current state. Two years ago this month, we had the worst football facilities, a defunct downtown commercial district and one of our most historic landmarks in complete disarray.

Before we can get to 2013, we have to go back in time to 2007. That’s when some mismanagement of city funds by prior city leaders coupled with the ramifications of expected growth of the mid-2000’s housing boom that soon followed by the housing crisis strapped Howe with an enormous water and budget crisis. Tough decisions had to be made by new Mayor Jeff Stanley and new City Administrator Joe Shephard. They weren’t faced with righting the ship, they were faced with keeping it above water. The move to raise water bills was something that the city was not interested in doing, but had to do in order to fix the financial atrocity.

Those moves led Howe to make it through those desperate times during the depths of the economic cesspool that the country found itself in. It hit Howe at the absolute worst time. Had the housing crisis not happened, Summit Hill would have over 120 homes already on the ground and that is just phase one of five that will expand to the south of the current property. But the crisis did happen and houses were not being built in Howe and Summit Hill began to look like a leftover Hollywood movie set that everyone forgot about.

But lets fast forward to 2013 because it seems like so much has changed with our city since then. In April, My Estrella Mexican Restaurant opened under new ownership in Downtown Howe. The restaurant left six downtown units vacant. Howe landed Salvage Junky in September to go along with M&M’s Hardware, Designer Cuts and Clinton Upholsery. That, my friends, were the only downtown businesses. Before My Estrella, seven of the nine downtown units were vacant. About the time My Estrella settled in, Howe ISD was in the process of hiring a young energetic athletic director/head football coach/salesman. I included salesman in that because it may be his best professional feature and that is saying a lot based upon his recent accomplishments in his other official titles. The man I’m referring to is Zack Hudson. The first glimpse of the new coach was seen in a video compiled by the H-Association (athletic alumni) where he busts through the doors and signals a new era has begun. Yes, a new football era began, but also the ability of Hudson to talk the Howe ISD Board of Trustees and Superintendent Kevin Wilson to scrap a five year plan to renovate the athletic facilities and do it in one year was not only impressive, but on a different planet from other athletic directors who had been in Howe over the past 21 years prior to Hudson. In January of 2014, a plan was finalized to raze the old rugged, decrepit eyesore of a field house at Bulldog Stadium in preparation of a new field house to take its place. But wait, there’s more. Not only will it be just another building thrown up in its place, it will be an exact matching duplicate of the extension of the old field house that was erected in 1989 under then athletic director Jim Fryar. The plan was to not only replace a field house with a usable structure, but to do it with an aesthetic uniformed appeal that is not common for this city that has been known to do everything the cheapest way possible, regardless of appearance. In March, the old field house came down with a giant slug from Coach Steve Simmons with help from machinery.

That same month, March of 2014, saw a city regain its hometown news for the first time since 1997. The Howe Enterprise changed to more of a regional publication and changed the name to The Texoma Enterprise, which evenually stopped print publication in 2010 to go strictly online. The popularity from Howe citizens never regained the steam it once had from the 1960s through the mid-1990s. Without the local coverage dedicated to Howe and only Howe, things began to get lost and eventually the city’s news information primarily came from an arrow sign at the four-way stop in front of the bank.

With an agreement in place for Monte Walker to purchase The Howe Enterprise from Dale and Lana Rideout, it once again gave Howe their own news and their own opportunities for their own businesses to advertise to their own people. During those years of not having a dedicated news source for our school and our community, it hurt local commerce and restaurants and businesses would come and go and Howe got the reputation in the 2000s of being a great place to kill a business. But just as the old field house was knocked to it’s knees, two other businesses opened in downtown. Abby’s Restaurant and Don’s Smokehouse opened in April of 2014 to leave only three downtown units needing a tenant.

Meanwhile, the field house took shape over the summer along with a new scoreboard and a new press box replaced the old and outdated 1981 originally placed structure just in time for the season’s start. As a matter of fact, the entire athletic facility at Bulldog Stadium was completely renovated with new gravel parking and construction on a brand new softball field.

The school was doing its job to recreate a new atmosphere and eliminated one of the three major complaints from citizens. The athletic facility was now something to be proud of. And it would be impossible to imagine that happening without the key hiring of Hudson and the leadership of Superintendent Kevin Wilson.

Speaking of Hudson and Howe ISD, they hired an assistant football coach by the name of Dale West, who installed a throwback offense that propelled them to the area championship for the first time in 24 years. Offensive team and individual records were broken and the football program which had been, as a whole, mediocre at best for the past 15 years started getting attention from their city. A good team with good facilities was a far cry from 2013.

Before the season, the Bulldogs’ Victory Light, which was a tradition started in 1977, was taken down off of the old press box and hung downtown at the four-way stop on a building that had just been purchased. The light that serves as an inspiration and a community-wide apathy killer was now front-and-center for all to see.

M&M’s hardware closed shop in September of 2014 and construction began a few months later to house the Howe Development Alliance, which Walker had been hired to oversee. Walker recruited individuals to upstart the chamber of commerce and instituted a Howe mural downtown that stated “Shop Local.”

In 2015, Advantage Business Machines relocated from 200 S. Denny to the old Chisum building which left only two vacant units in downtown. The sale of the Stockton buildings from O.B. Powers to Georgia Caraway meant that at some point every downtown building would be occupied in 2015. This coming with seven of the nine open units and a ghost town just 17 months prior.

The long-time downtown merchant, Clinton Upholstery was moved out of downtown by the new owner but relocated and found a new home just down the street on Haning. Howe Mercantile opened for business in April of 2015, Salvage Junky relocated to 200 S. Denny which opened up space for Texas Home Emporium.

It was a year of change. It was a year of somewhat turbulence at times due to change, but when all was said and done, the city had taken care of part two of the equation. Downtown was no longer in shambles and every unit was full and open for business. No longer an eyesore, but it was something to be proud of and just as the new stadium facilities sparked winning ways, it also happened in downtown. The city’s investment in their economic development plan paid off as 2015 was the largest increase in sales tax revenue in Howe history.  The $308,000 in revenue was the most Howe has ever seen and the 12.44 percent increase has Howe ranked 256 of over 1152 cities in Texas in that category and had by far the biggest jump of any city along the US 75 corridor from Denison to Dallas.

Bulldog Stadium facilities had been completed thanks to Howe ISD. Downtown Howe had been completed thanks to the City of Howe. And the third issue and complaint of the citizens was the old First Christian Church. And this task would be monumental because there would be no involvement from the city or the school. It was left up to the community. But with the improvements to the other areas and the victory light shining bright on 10 of 12 tries lately, the citizens’ apathy meter, which was at an all-time high during the recession, were now willing to do something about it.

Great Days of Service kick-started the project and cleaned up brush around the perimeter. Jean Norman presented enough money from the defunct Howe Historical Society to fix the foundation on the building.

Roger Brown and Clyde Hepner painted the top of the building with their own time and materials. The Collins Family had left enough money to get the facade recovered with new siding. Georgia Caraway contributed new windows to replace the broken ones. Finally, a live auction and barbecue dinner was planned as a community-wide fundraiser for the old structure. This is where the transformation and a culmination of a city truly spoke loud and clear that something is different here. Something special has taken place here. The fundraiser brought in over $25,000 which included a $10,505 donation from another local group that cared about Howe. The church is no longer an eyesore and the community is responsible for that.

To make a great community, it takes a partnership. A school, a city, and the citizens. All three of those elements played huge roles in the last two years to knock out what probably was the top three complaints about our city in 2013.

Howe has gone from shanty town to victory town in two short years. The citizens, who once would rather complain about the situation rather volunteer for solution are now gathering in herds for the good of the community. The apathy meter in this little town on the hilltop is the lowest, one would presume, in at least 25 years.

“I see a beautiful city and a brilliant people rising from this abyss. I see the lives for which I lay down my life, peaceful, useful, prosperous and happy. I see that I hold a sanctuary in their hearts, and in the hearts of their descendants, generations hence” – Charles Dickens, A Tale of Two Cities.