Opinion

My poor fins got worn to nubs on Saturday trying to get all the angles of the Cassville Christmas Parade on Saturday.

Amidst the lawsuits, citizen groups and heightened community interest, there has been a change in the state’s tune in the last week on how it is handling Denali Water Solution’s land applications of processed waste in Missouri.

It began with a newspaper article about a woman who had started an Imagination Library affiliate in our county. I had learned that, due to the Purdy community’s lack of access to books, we qualified as a book desert, which greatly bothered me.

Holiday traditions are a dime a dozen, but creating new one that stands the test of time is easier said than done — yet, we have a new Black Friday tradition at the Troutman house. We always host Thanksgiving for my mom’s side of the family, as we are the most centrally located between Little Rock, east Oklahoma and southeast Kansas where they all live.

In many places, groups of Christians observe seasons of the year as they correspond to events in salvation history or in the life of Christ. In many places, the beginning of a Christian year would be marked by a season commemorating the coming of Christ, called Advent.

This week is one in the year where everyone young and old is posed the same question, “What are you thankful for?” When I answered this question in years past, it tended to be pretty monotonous. I’m thankful to have a job, have the love of my family and to be generally surviving the world as it is.

For the historical editorial for this month, I was going to write about why the original St. Louis and San Francisco Railroad spur line from Plymouth (Monett) to Fort Smith, Ark., didn’t go through the county seat of Barry County, or through Cassville. There’s got to be a story there, but I was not finding much information, so we will pursue this story at another time.