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Incoming Howe sophomore Marissa Agee is starting to compile quite the resume for an amateur track athlete. Recently, Agee qualified as part of a relay team to the AAU National Meet to be held in Des Moines, Iowa from July 29 – Aug 4. The 4x800m relay team took the gold medal with the second-fastest time in the nation of 9:53.63 in Abilene, Texas.

This spring, after making it to the area round of track for Howe as a freshman running varsity, she wanted to continue running and competing, therefore, she found a summer team called Team Quest to not only continue competing but improve and enhance her performances. She and her father Brian became interested in Team Quest due to Kelcie and Natalie Simmons, a pair of sisters from Leonard that also went through their program and dominated North Texas in track events.

“We were looking around for more training, then we found summer track and that seemed to be more affordable and lasted all summer,” said Brian Agee. “And then if you improved, you got an invitation to run indoor track.”

Marissa Agee said that she was nervous during her first trip to Team Quest because she knew that she wouldn’t be the fastest girl there. The training is much more difficult than what she’s been used to in high school. She says that she doesn’t particularly like practice running but is driven by competition.

Agee had never run an 800-meter event before going to Team Quest, but placed third in the first race she was in among athletes from all classifications, not just 3A. Because of her outstanding performance in the 800 meters, the distance coach took her and teamed her with other similar runners such as Jamison Gladney, Cassandra Cruz, and Suzanne Ramirez who eventually would combine to run the second-fastest time in the nation. In her freshman varsity year, she was a member of the 4×200 relay and the 4×400 relay but now feels like she’s found her race.

Upon laying claim to the 800-meter race, she’s now working on perfecting that race. As a matter of fact, she placed fifth in the USATF division event in Lancaster which will send her to the Regional 12 Junior Olympic Championships in San Antonio starting tomorrow.

“We just thought we’d run the USATF event as a tune-up and run unattached with no team affiliation,” said Brian Agee. “We went and she got third in the 800-meter individual so we’re going to go to San Antonio and if she does well, she could earn a right to go to the USATF Junior Olympics in North Carolina.”

Agee is currently working out twice per day lifting weights combined with a mile run for breakfast. In the afternoon, she has Team Quest practices where she was running 20-25 miles per week until recently cutting the distance down to work on more speed. Last week she was very close to breaking a 6-minute mile which is quite the accomplishment.

“Training at this intensity, she definitely has to have the right vitamin mix, proteins, and has to stay hydrated,” said her father. “It’s really hot – training is difficult in 100-degree weather. She’s drinking Pedialyte and coconut water.”

The Howe Lady Bulldogs track team should be highly competitive in 2019 with the return of Agee, Kacie Segleski, Jamie Taylor, and Bethany Masters. Sidney Rector, who was injured late in the season will also return to form a dynamic relay team.

Agee moved to Howe in the summer of 2013 from Anna. She’s currently second in her glass grade-wise and is hoping to become the valedictorian of her class over the next three years. Agee was once awarded the HMS Award for the top student. She’s also the president of the Business Professionals of America.

“I definitely like Howe better,” said Agee. “At first, I was really shy, but I liked it because it’s smaller.”

Her goal is to run track in college and prefers to stay in Texas. Her Chickasaw heritage could help her in that area as well.

Her father said that the reason they even participated in summer track was to improve for next track season so that she can shine as a Howe Bulldog. They’ve already begun talking with the track coaches and requesting to run the 800 meters next season. One Howe coach, Derek Lands, may want to have a discussion with her as she was also a varsity basketball player a year ago and one would think Coach Lands would like for her to not be a one-sport athlete.

“I still plan on playing basketball, but that does kind of go into the indoor track season,” said Agee. “I did like being on the team.”

Basketball is a long way away and Agee is focused on one thing right now and that’s San Antonio followed by Iowa. If she continues her current 800-meter times and improving upon them, she will have a great shot at qualifying for state over the next three years.

“Our goal is next year,” said her father. “We’re going next year.”

by Monte Walker, editorial

Nearly two-hundred and fifty years ago, 56 gentlemen united to join in a movement for independence. They felt that there were two basic problems in the land. One was that taxes were too high and the other was that they were controlled by authoritarians. They made tremendous sacrifices by signing their death warrants to that official document. Today, those 56 men would be considered the “far-right” or “radical right” by the dissenters.

The concept of this new republic included a legal right and wrong of society. The constitution was based on law and not the judgments of men.

” Yes, we did produce a near-perfect republic. But will they keep it? Or will they, in the enjoyment of plenty, lose the memory of freedom? Material abundance without character is the path of destruction.” – Thomas Jefferson

While it is very enjoyable to be able to drive hours away and attend a ballgame, or a concert, or a fishing trip, too many have not been willing to step forward and protect the system that allows such simple freedoms.

The concept of this new republic also included what we refer to today is the free enterprise system, although it is more of a lack of a system that makes it special. In short, the government was to stay off our backs and out of our pockets. The government was not to be involved.

We’ve seen a great change starting in the 20th century. The Bill of Rights were essentially negative documents restricting the growth of government, but today we find the government telling doctors how to doctor and teachers how to teach. Today, there is hardly any area in the country, or yet, the world that the United States Government is not involved. This also has contributed to massive spending and deficits leading to a feverish debt. Because of the large government growth, a federal reserve banking system was invoked which has become the engine of inflation.

” I place economy among the first and most important of republican virtues, and public debt as the greatest of the dangers to be feared.” – Thomas Jefferson. “If we can prevent the government from wasting the labours of the people under the pretense of caring for them, they must become happy.”

Today, we have politicians that love inflation because it is the mechanism by which they can expand the currency to pay for the expanding federal programs which satisfy special interest groups which in turn guarantees their elections. In other words, “follow the money” – a phrase we’ve all been told by our educational mentors. Today, we have a national debt of $21.1 TRILLION. From 1789 to 1913, the U.S. government created $2.9 billion in debt. However, from 1914 through the Great Depression, there was a healthy surplus. But we’ve not had a surplus in America since “I Love Lucy” was on television in 1957 and Dwight D. Eisenhower warned us of the rising military-industrial complex. While Lucille Ball is not involved in the debt crisis, the latter surely is.

Contributing to the stagnation was the alphabet soup of government regulatory services such as the EPA (Environmental Protection Agency), OSHA (Occupational Safety and Health Administration), and others. These regulations did a great disservice to American manufacturers which eventually led to Ross Perot’s famous NAFTA prediction of a “giant sucking sound” headed south of the border.

While President Trump is making strides in slashing regulations, one might worry about the tariff situations that resemble or at least bring fainted notion of the Smoot-Hawley Act.

The government’s responsibility was initially formed to protect life and property. However, it has increasingly become the agent of distribution of income. The transfer payment numbers are staggering from 1964 to 2017, leaping from $2 billion to $224 billion. Transfer payments are those in which take money from those who earned it and transfer it to those who did not. With this, we have become a government that penalizes the productive sector and subsidizes the non-productive sector. Our government’s major function today is being society’s redistribution center for income. But in reading the U.S. Constitution and especially the Bill of Rights, our forefathers did everything they could to ensure the leveling of income by the federal government unconstitutional. But today, it is the majority of the function of government.

The growing role of welfare and other social programs in the last 50 years has changed the perception of many as to what the role of government actually is. As stated before, the role is the protection of life and property. Not internal protection of failures.

In 1955, 55 percent of the budget was set for national defense. Ten years later, it was 40 percent. In 1975, it was down to 25 percent. Today, it is at 15 percent.

” We the People of the United States, in Order to form a more perfect Union, establish Justice, insure domestic Tranquility, provide for the common defence, promote the general Welfare.” – Preamble of U.S. Constitution.

Today, we have reversed the Constitution verbiage to “promote for the common defence, and provide the general welfare.”

Our founding fathers also provided the third pillar of strength for our new nation which was a morality standard based on biblical concepts including the Ten Commandments. It was the glue to hold our society together. While it is difficult to legislate morality, all law is morality enacted. But humanism (not to be confused with humanitarianism) is the removal of God and adding man and man’s technology as the substitute. Therefore, eternal truths are expunged which leads to a decrease of morality standards.

In this changing crisis of our country, we must become involved. Washington is the key, but Washington is divided into three sections of government and 4,000 sections of humanism. The executive branch of government, including the alphabet soup, makes up 98 percent of the federal government. The judicial branch includes the Supreme Court and the federal court structure. This is where the process of healing will be slow and painful as the reversal of unconstitutional interpretations moves back to constitutional statutes. This will then move us away from social law as the basis which is increasingly the gravest threat to our form of government as we know it.

This is not a party issue because history shows us that neither a Republican President nor a Democrat President or a Republican Majority or a Democrat Majority is more susceptible than the other.

Not overlooking the third branch of government – the legislative branch which is divided between the house and senate and divided over nearly everything else one can imagine including ham or turkey for Thanksgiving. But while the judicial changes can take many years, the legislative changes can be somewhat quicker because of their immediate ties to “We the People.” People can make a change and make that change felt in Washington (especially at the House of Representatives level), but the small government conservatives won a huge election in 2016 and feel as if the speeding bullet of socialism fired at the United States was stopped by a bulletproof vest with an unhinged Twitter account and orange hair.

It wasn’t too very long ago that the John Birch Society was led by conservative Democrats. But now that organization is pegged as a “far-right” group. When some think of the non-political party affiliation, they think of a bygone era of sock hops and poodle skirts, but “Birchers” (far different than “Birthers”) have made a resurgence, especially in Texas, due to Americans seeking answers.

The Tea Party is similar in nature, but is more grassroots and focused more on fiscal responsibility. Both groups are fearful of over-governing and overspending. Both groups want to build an informed electorate.

All too often, we elect political transvestites (not literal). Our representatives come to our districts and speak like JFK and go back to Washington and vote like R2-D2. They come to town, give three jokes to open a speech, then quote traditional American values, get a standing ovation, and then laugh their way back to Washington.

As long as our basis of our congressman’s worth is based upon whether they attend our local Rotary and Kiwanis Clubs and make us feel important, our shallow self-serving importance will allow for us to continue to vote for those who move forward with more government, more controls, and more spending.

It’s really easy every four years to put a bumper sticker on for two weeks. But to those individuals willing to take a look at the background of their congressman and their voting records, it will make much more of an impact than the presidential vote. Although, the last particular presidential outcome has made the previous sentence look a bit foolish due to the vast differences between candidates and their agendas. Over the last 50 years, presidential candidates generally had the same agendas and the same outcomes. More spending, more government. Only two outsiders dared to threaten the status quo in Washington and that was Ross Perot in 1992 and Donald Trump in 2016. Both candidates ran on virtually the same platform – rid Washington of snakes and buffoons and fix the horrendous trade deals. Perhaps we could have salvaged the last 25 years of trillions of debt and unnecessary wars in the middle east with an unconventional independent electorate in 1992. If only Perot would have made up silly nicknames for Clinton and Bush perhaps Trump would still be a TV character and not a political name. But nonetheless, here we are on our way to recovery after a 60-year drunken binge. But we’re only one bronze chip in.

If the forefathers that constructed the Constitution were to try and do that in today’s society, they would be labeled as “far-right extremist” or “right-wing nuts.” None would be on our currency and most would be chewed up by the American media. The Bill of Rights perhaps would have never made it past the Supreme Court in 2015. But in 2018, there would be a better chance.

Those that understand freedom and liberty and value the meaning can understand that today’s probability of maintaining such is greater than only a few years ago.

The Constitution is the solution.

MileSplit has recently completed a documentary on Jake Merrell’s journey to becoming one of the greatest high school track runners in Texas history.  The self-driven athlete is the son of Brandi Hash Merrell, a Howe 1993 graduate, and the grandson of Vincent Hash, an outstanding Howe multi-sport athlete in the 1970s.

https://www.facebook.com/MileSplit/videos/10155364629326856/

The Howe Police Department was alerted to a vandalism call at the Howe Athletic Complex on Tuesday morning, July 3.  The vandal used red Rust-Oleum Painter’s Touch 2X which was found near the scene of one of the vandalized areas.

The damaged areas included the back of the third base dugout at the baseball stadium, the right-field wall at the baseball stadium, and the back of the first base dugout at the softball stadium.

Those with information are asked to contact the Howe Police Department.

Click for full photo album

We are one week away from the 18th Annual Lone Star Hoops Camp in Howe.  They are encouraging any “late-comers” to take advantage of an extended period for boys and girls to enroll at the $110 early rate.

The Howe Police Department overheard radio traffic from Van Alstyne that the McKinney Police Department was in pursuit of a newer model green Chevrolet truck coming north on Texas State Highway 5.  Officers say speeds of the pursuit were around 120 mph. The reason for the stop was for a possible DWI.  Howe Police Lieutenant Michael Hill was able to get into position and set spike strips on Hwy 5 near Ponderosa Road.  The spike effort was a successful deployment as they took out the left front tire of the speeding vehicle. The vehicle continued onto the highway followed by McKinney Police Department units as well as Grayson County Sheriff units. The vehicle came to rest on U.S Highway 75 north just before the Red River bridge.  Five individuals were taken into custody from the vehicle.   As of now, it is unknown what charges McKinney PD will be filing on these individuals.

Howe ISD has been in the minority of not offering insurance to students. In the past, students have been injured and either did not have insurance or did not have adequate insurance. Fundraisers have taken place over the years to help the gap between medical bills and Superintendent Kevin Wilson says now is the time to provide insurance at the school level.

“I personally feel like for a fairly small amount of money, it’s something we can offer for our students and parents,” said Wilson to the school board on Monday night. “It will cover not only athletic events but if a kid fell off the monkey bars and broke his arm.”

The board looked at four different types of insurance that were specified for different services. Wilson recommended an unallocated plan to the board.

The plan would cover players in athletics that suffer an injury unless it is an injury due to repetitive motion (such as a baseball pitcher’s throwing arm).

Prior to this motion, any player that was injured in a football game or any other sport would be liable 100 percent for any injury cost. The school district had no liability prior to Monday’s action. School Board Member Clint Catching made the motion to provide student accident insurance and allow the administration to choose a policy.

All new heating and air at Howe High for 2018-19 school year

With the high school now 18 years old, the air conditioning and heating units are in need of being replaced and are now scheduled to be done by the time the students arrive.

Open bidding went out last month and the district received four bids which the lowest bidder was $343,843, however, Howe ISD Superintendent Kevin Wilson checked references and found that another bidder with good feedback. Wilson recommended to the board that they contract McDaniel Air of Collinsville and their bid of $358,400. McDaniel has done work for Howe ISD in the past and Wilson was comfortable with their work.

“I know there’s discussion of whether we have the money to do that or not, but the bottom line is that they have to be replaced,” said Wilson. “We’re spending a lot of money replacing some and if you’re going to rent a crane, you might as well rent a crane and knock them out instead of doing one or two at a time. It’s time. They’re 18 years old.”

The board approved the motion to accept the bid from McDaniel Air and the work should be completed by the summer’s end.

Howe ISD teacher changes

Howe ISD Superintendent Kevin Wilson announced at the Board of Trustees meeting last week that he has accepted resignations from Erica Allen and Priscilla Lankford, both aides at the elementary school. Allen is going back to school to pursue her teaching certificate while Lankford, a prior substitute indicated she wanted to go back to that role due to flexibility.

He said interviews were taking place for a high school history teacher/coach as well as a middle school history teacher/coach, assistant band director, two elementary aides, and an elementary physical education coach.

“We were rocking right along and then we’ve hit a lull,” Wilson told the board. “But I think they’ve done some interviews and are looking for that perfect fit.”

In the April 23 edition of the Howe Enterprise, it was announced that the City of Howe and Howe ISD would partner together to share a resource officer. However, the number of applicants were small and Howe ISD has moved forward with a different plan.

Howe ISD Superintendent Kevin Wilson has been reluctant in the past to have the district create a police force, but after visiting with Anna ISD and their situation, he feels now that having a Howe ISD Police Chief that answers to the district and not the city council is more favorable.

“Another pro for us to be able to find a police chief is that it’s an opportunity for advancement for possibly someone who is retiring from a city or county force and can get into the school business and get in our retirement benefits,” said Wilson to the board.

After visiting with Anna ISD’s police chief, Wilson felt more comfortable since the chief said they had wished it were set up sooner.

The first step in the process is to hire an SSD (safety and security director) which would be a police officer who would be commissioned by another organization. The officer would be armed security for the district and would be the police chief-in-waiting. There is a process to be approved to have an ISD police force which is a three to six-month process. In the interim through the process period, the SSD would have that title instead of police chief until the ISD process has been fulfilled.

“When everything gets approved, the SSD becomes the chief and we can hire additional officers at that time,” said Wilson.

The going rate for a school police chief is $70,000 to $80,000. Wilson said he and Howe ISD Finance Director Julie Snapp looked at the budget and were able to shift dollars around in order to make room for the hire.

Another expense that the district would incur would be a police vehicle. Wilson says that he learned from the Anna ISD police chief that they could purchase a Dodge Charger for far less than $31,000. The projected cost in year one is $57,000 plus the salary. Wilson says the bulk of that amount is in the vehicle but expects it to be far less than the projected amount. The total slot would be $110,000 for the first year to start the Howe ISD Police Force.

Wilson did discuss other options with the board including hiring security companies or off-duty officers.

“My main thing is that I want a person assigned here every day where it’s not a revolving door with an officer that doesn’t know our kids,” said Wilson. “I don’t want just an armed presence. A big part of this I think is becoming part of the district and building relationships with students and staff.”

Wilson also suggested that down the road if the officer has a degree, they could teach some courses.

Wilson suggested that he felt comfortable that the district could find a police chief by the beginning of this school year and be in a situation to have multiple officers by this time next year.

School Board Member Clint Catching made the motion which carried unopposed.