Category: Howe News Bulletin

An announcement was made on Tuesday at the Commissioner’s Court that will honor the late Chad Key with the naming of a portion of US 82 in Sherman after him. Key was killed by drunk driver, Ricky Trent Stanley, Jr. on the night of April 20, 2013 on the particular portion of the highway that will now be named in his honor.

The portion named for him will be from Junction Road to Bethany Road on US 82 . About a year ago, Key’s widowed wife April said something her my mother and Lt. Ricky Wheeler at the Sheriffs Office that she wished they could name part of the highway after her late husband, since that’s where he was killed at. According to April Key, for the last year, Lt. Wheeler long with her month, the Grayson County Sheriffs office and Senator Larry Phillips were working on it.

“It was kept a surprise and I received a call last Thursday night that the County Commissioners were going to vote on it this morning.” April Key said on Tuesday. “So I was there this morning and it was a unanimous vote yes.”

Now TxDOT will make the signs and there will be an unveiling and dedication at a date to be determined.

“On behalf of me, our boys and the family, we are so honored and grateful that Chad is remembered everyday by so many people, and that he is being honored in such a huge way by naming part of Highway 82 after him.” April Key said in a released statement. “Thank you to everyone involved in making this happen, especially to Grayson County Sheriffs Office and Senator Larry Phillips.”

Stanley was sentenced to 99 years in prison for the felony murder, and 42 years for the first degree aggravated assault causing serious bodily harm to a public servant charge, along with fines totaling $20,000.

In April of this year, a 5K run at Loy Lake Park in which over 550 registered to run to benefit the scholarship fund in the name of Key. The run not only benefited the Chad Key Memorial Scholarship Fund, but also will benefit the Grayson County Police Academy and the Austin State Memorial for Fallen Officers. Half of the proceeds go to the scholarship fund and half will go to the memorial.

The event raised over $12,000 and is planned to be a annual event.

In irony of irony fashion, a young man with the last name of Key finished first in the race. Kasey Key of Denison.

The Howe High School Marching Band, who has over the years become known as “The Pride of Howe,” went to Ponder on Saturday to compete with 12 other bands in the preliminaries. After their pre-lim performance, they sat as first place overall and and named best auxiliary and best drum major.

After the pre-lims were finished, they took six bands to the finals. Howe competed with Bridgeport, Decatur, Graham, Callisburg and Sanger, all of which are larger schools. None of that mattered as Howe received first place after the Saturday night performance.

Howe is no stranger to band domination. The program has been state champions in 1980, 1995 and 1997. This type of result could give the program the confidence to become Howe’s fourth state champion.

“We won this competition and we were very proud and excited to except the award but we accept it with humility.” said Ashlyn Ellis, captain of the color guard. “We all feel very good about this year and this competition just goes to show us that hard work pays off. I believe that we have what it takes, we just need to continue on the path we have stared and finish it strong.”

Band Director Angie Liss dodged the question of whether or not this band was capable of winning state, however she is quite confident in her performers. “I’m extremely proud of how hard the kids are working and each performance is better than the one before. We all really love this show so we’re having fun and learning so much as we tweak and fine tune all aspects of it. Our football crowd doesn’t get to see it with all the props and bells and whistles since we only pull those out on turf fields but we’re proud of the concept we’ve put together and anxious to see where we can go with it.”

Award winning Drum Major Jessica Doty said, “A performance like this weekend definitely gives you confidence going into future competition especially with UIL starting this week. A great run this weekend was definitely needed as a confidence booster for everyone. We know we need to continue to work even harder to clean our show but this weekend shows how capable our band is of achieving our goals and succeeding this year.”

Great things could be in store in 2015 as the band keeps progressing each week. The Pride of Howe showed why on Saturday.

Mrs. Rebecca Luna is pleased to announce the successful completion of lease negotiations with Ben E. Keith Company for her property located at 701 W. Haning St. The property will be used as a Shuttle Depot for their food service division and will provide a strategic and logistically advantageous site for servicing the US-75 corridor and rapidly growing area of North Texas.

“No warehousing, nor inbound freight handling will occur”, according to Mark Mullins, Ben E. Keith Co. Director of Transportation DFW. In addition, Mullins stated, “we would hire resident Class A CDL drivers in the area to run our existing routes as well as focus on expanding our service in the area with new customers and expected growth in the area. A real potential of employment for 2-20 qualified people in the first year of our residency is our expectation.”

“Ben E. Keith Co. is a familiar and highly respected name in the food and beverage distribution industry.” said Luna. “I am extremely pleased that I was in a position to compromise my investment strategy so that a mutually agreeable lease could be finalized. Not only will Ben E. Keith Co. bring new employment opportunities to the community, but they are very well known in other areas for their contribution to and civic involvement in the communities they serve. Please make them welcome.”

Oct 1 – At approx 6:30 am, Officer Jamie Morris arrested a 56-year-old Arlington man for DWI. The arrest was the result of officers responding to a two vehicle accident in the 1400 block of N Collins Freeway. The suspect was the driver of one of the vehicles involved in the accident and found to be at fault. Officers smelled the odor of alcohol on the suspect and the man subsequently failed a sobriety test. He was taken to a nearby hospital for a blood draw, which resulted in a final trip to the Grayson County Jail.

The Howe Area Chamber of Commerce announced last week that they will have their annual Christmas parade on Dec. 12 starting at 4:30 pm. This will once again allow for the Highway 5 Band to perform in all three Christmas parades on Dec. 12. The Anna parade starts at noon, and Van Alstyne will start at 2 pm. That allows time for the entire three-city-communities to spend the day watching parades.

The Howe Chamber is still in its infancy stages after regrouping and reorganizing late last year. Keep Howe Beautiful actually sponsored the Christmas parade in 2014, but the chamber has taken over those responsibilities which allows for Keep Howe Beautiful to focus on the things in which they were established to do.

The chamber will have no fee to enter a float in the parade, but some parameters must be met in order to enter. No theme has been announced just yet. In 2014, the parade theme was entitled “It’s A Beautiful Town” – inspired by the legendary film, “It’s a Beautiful Life.”

Information regarding registration for floats and routes will be released shortly by the chamber. Assumed route is the same as 2014 with a trip through downtown.

On October 1 at 3pm, Howe will feature a farmers market located on the property of Salvage Junky at 200 S. Denny St. The market will take place every other Thursday in the beginning unless demand requires for more days.

Wesson Farms and Salvage Junky have committed to work together through this fall. Time will tell if the partnership continues in 2016. “This growing season is just a couple of months.” said Salvage Junky owner Debbie Wallis.

“They’re in it full-time and they say that all day doesn’t really pay off so they wanted to do it from 3pm to 6pm. I figure we can test the market that way and hope it does good.”

Wesson Farms is part of a co-op of local farmers that follow the same growing practices. They say this allows them to offer a wider variety of quality, locally grown produce for their customers to enjoy.

Wesson’s products include a vast variety of fresh vegetables and fruits, as well as pickles, honey, pecans and more. They offer a full line of bath and skincare products that include soaps, lotions, bath balms, scrubs but no word whether those products will be available in Howe.

“They have this one truck called the veggie truck and I hope they bring that.” said Wallis. “I can’t wait to see them when they come out.”

In conjunction to the farmers market, Wallis says that Udderly Rustic will be on-site as well with their soaps that are made with raw milk from their own goat herds. Their soaps are rustic and incorporate a little color to the natural beauty of the goats milk.

Also at Salvage Junky during those hours will be Mama Suzy’s Sweets and Eats. Mama Suzy will bring her breads, pies and lots of sweet treats on the days of the farmers market.

Wallis also said that she will be holding a pumpkin patch during the month of October at her location. 500 pumpkins are on their way to her location and she will begin sales of those on October 6.

“We’ll have to unload the truck and get them all set up.” said Wallis. “What I’m hoping for is sales for pumpkins and to set up a picture prop to have family pictures made. Everyone loves to have their pictures made with pumpkins. I’m going to invite the preschool and the daycare to come over for a field trip.”

Wallis says that he hopes the community takes to the farmers market because of the need of fresh produce in Howe. Without a grocery store, she thinks it will be very popular.

“I told them that there was no competition.” said Wallis. “If people will support them, they’ll probably be back for the spring.”

Typically, farmers markets are a seasonal business starting around May and ending in October or November.

“If smaller vendors want to get involved and want to be involved every Thursday, we’ll be open for that.” said Wallis.