Opinion

The City of Alpine is excited to announce the native tree giveaway event taking place in celebration of Texas Arbor Day. Arbor Day is an annual observance across America that celebrates the role of trees in our lives and promotes tree planting and care. The City is the recipient of the Apache Corporation Tree Grant Program, a program by which the Corporation has been able to donate approximately 4.8 million trees since 2005.

Despite the many blessings of living in America, why aren’t more Americans happy? According to World Population Review, the 2021 World Happiness Report ranks America as the 19th happiest out of 146 countries. The report bases happiness on six categories, including gross domestic product, social support, life expectancy, generosity, perceptions of each country’s corruption levels, and the freedom for citizens to make their own life choices.

This is the second installment, written by a good friend and peer of mine. President Theodore Roosevelt once said, “Comparison is the thief of joy,” suggesting that making comparisons can be harmful, and detract from our own happiness, driving us further away from being the truest version of our self.

It’s very easy these days to say that social media is toxic. People act in ways they’d never do in real life because it isn’t real life. They act like feral wolves because they can. The Twitter police don’t carry guns, and their badges are imaginary. In fact social media is one big imaginary world, and we’re all way too wrapped up in things that don’t matter - the opinions expressed by strangers in public. Last week, Jon Gruden’s life exploded because of some private email exchanges that he had with a colleague between 2011 and 2018. The emails included comments that were objectively racist, sexist, and homophobic, and it’s hard to figure out how to defend them. You really can’t. Gruden doesn’t.

It has been six months since the City of Alpine changed leadership and from the city manager and city secretary. With this come changes, and a few folks disagree with them. There is a new vision for the city, and it’s all positive to move our city forward.

Mary Bell Lockhart submitted this column that her father wrote in 1974 during a polio epidemic. Old-timers sometimes tell me they miss letters to the editor from my dad, Dr.

On a daily basis, we get to be involved in so many great things that our students are doing. Our students continue to reach achievements that everyone is proud of. As we move into the month of October, the students are busy with activities and events.

Simply saying something over and over doesn’t make it so. I know because I’ve tried it. No matter how many times I say, “I’m a good golfer, I’m a good golfer,” the reality is I still stink, as anyone who has seen me on the course will verify.