Opinion

“You put your left foot in, you put your right foot in, you let your left foot out, and you jerk the car about.” — The Hokie Pokey stick shift driving school song Renewed my driver’s license a few weeks ago. Quite a few changes since I got my first license.

After reading Alpine ISD Superintendent Michelle Rinehart’s opinion on state education funding, and her call for transparency, I wanted to know what the district spends per student. Not finding financial information in the ISD website, transparency??? I looked elsewhere. According to an outfit out of New York City called Public School Review the Alpine ISD spends about $16,100 per student across its three campuses, above state average. I also found the district is well above state average in what matters most, student academic achievement. Way to go! Ms. Rinehart is worried about taxpayer dollars following students rather than funding legacy institutions. A well enough performing District like Alpine has little to fear about parents seeking better options elsewhere. But what her opinion ignores are the tens of thousands of students trapped in lousy districts across Texas with no hope. It’s these students the Texas legislature is seeking to help. It’s time Texans let dollars follow students so that we may have an educated population.

Right now, the Texas legislature is spending a disproportionate amount of time fighting over something that isn’t good for Texas and doesn’t align with Texan values: vouchers. Vouchers are publicly- funded entitlements that divert taxpayer funds to private or home schools without any accountability or transparency.

Our deepest appreciation On behalf of Jerry Johnson and his family, we would like to express our appreciation for the love and support the community of Alpine has shown. Thank you to the American Legion Post 79 in honoring Jerry’s military career at the memorial services at Elm Grove Cemetery.

The Kiwanis Club would like to thank everyone who participated in our Annual Easter Egg Hunt on Saturday. It was a beautiful day in Alpine. We would like to thank the Alpine Police Dept, the Alpine Volunteer Fire Dept and Lindsey Valenzuela.

Alpine is the happening place in West Texas. There are a lot of good things going on.

“Doing what you love is the cornerstone of having abundance in your life.” — Wayne Dyer (1940 2015), American self-help author and motivational speaker. “So, your mom was in the newspaper business and earned the nickname, Inky,” someone who knew my mother remarked last week.

Here we go again There are reports on the murder of Christians by a woman in Nashville TN. Organizations are once again blaming guns as a leading cause of death for children in the USA.

“Dogs do speak, but only to those who know how to listen.” – Orhan Pamuk, Turkish novelist, screenwriter, academic, and recipient of the 2006 Nobel Prize in Literature Spending time outdoors last Saturday was energizing. East Texas Spring at Mother Nature’s best.

Did you know the United Nations reports that 2.2 billion people lack access to safely managed drinking water services and that 297,000 children under five die every year from diarrheal diseases due to poor sanitation, poor hygiene, or unsafe drinking water.