Opinion

Every year there is a National Employee Appreciation Day dedicated to honoring and celebrating employees everywhere who work tirelessly to keep businesses moving forward. There are also dedicated weeks for national recognition, such as National Public Servants Week, National Telecommunicators Week, National Public Works Week, Professional Municipal Clerks Week, and many more.

Executive Assistant, Brewster County Volunteerism is a word not often seen or heard in our dayto- day life. At the same time we all have an idea of what it means, and we form our own opinion or definition of what something means according to our personal convenience.

JASE GRAVES Guest Columnist East Texas is hot, and not in the way you compliment your wife when she’s mad at you for performing an epic cannonball while she’s lounging by the pool with her laptop. For the past few weeks, Texas (and much of the world) has been suffering through a distressing phenomenon known as summer, that time of year when we all remember what it’s like being toddlers walking around with drenched undergarments.

World conditions Prior to 2020 our world conditions were improving as wars were being contained, global poverty was reduced, clean air and water increased, life expectancy was higher, child mortality was reduced, climate related deaths were lower, illiteracy was reduced, and U.S. borders were in a more controllable state.

Heading off war Last week, only Josh Hawley of Missouri voted no and Rand Paul of Kentucky voted present as a bill to approve Sweden and Finland as new partners to NATO carried in the Senate 95-1-1. I am a conservative, believing strongly in the Constitution, personal freedom, smaller government, lower taxes and the rest.

Can you believe it? It’s that time of year again, budget time for our city. If you are like me, it seems that time passes by in hyperdrive, and before you know it, another year has flown by. So here we are again, as residents of Alpine, trying to predict what the next year will hold. How much revenue we will receive, and how much will our expenses be? What improvements do we want to make? Or are we happy with leaving things just as they are for another year?

I’m a lucky American. Thanks to my wife Colleen’s job as a travel agent, in the last two weeks I’ve been to Europe and back.

I tell everyone I meet that Alpine ISD is an incredible district because of the incredible people who are in it. However, this statement is incomplete. Rather, Alpine ISD is an incredible district because of the incredible people who are in it - and the incredible people who support it.

Here’s a trend that may not bode well for the future of our country. According to data from the Bureau of Labor Statistics, only 40% of 16- to 19-year-olds have summer jobs, down from 75% of teens a generation ago.

Our city and county governments whine every year that they need more money for this or that, and raising property taxes is their usual solution. They’re going to keep raising and raising them every year! Didn’t their parents ever tell them “Money doesn’t grow on trees,” and “You can’t get blood out of a turnip.”