Issue 28
Published August 18, 2026 · Bilingual edition
The new school year has swallowed the old one whole, so before it disappears, here is how last spring actually came out. Then three places in this county you can walk into, enroll in, or rent, and most people never have.
Schools · Test Scores
Magnolia ISD Beat the State on Nearly Every STAAR Test. One Score Went Down.
Biology finished at 97 percent, the district's best mark anywhere on the exam. Eighth grade social studies slipped a point to 62, and it still came in above the state. Both of those are true at once.
Read the story →Business · Education
A Private School Opens on Sweetgum Road This Month. High School Comes in 2027.
Six acres, pre-K through eighth to start, and a plan to add a grade a year until it reaches twelfth. What families should ask before signing on to a school that is still being built out.
Read the story →History · Museums
The Depot That Started the Town Is Open Every Saturday. Most People Drive Right Past It.
Built in 1902 as a railroad station, retired in 1963, moved to Melton Street and turned into a museum. There is a caboose, a sawmill and a doctor's office on the grounds, and the society that keeps it running takes new members.
Read the story →Greater Magnolia · Dobbin
Eighty People, a Full Kitchen, and $200. What the County Building in Dobbin Actually Rents For.
A refundable $500 deposit, ten tables, sixty chairs, and a precinct line that explains why your calls have been going nowhere. Dobbin is Precinct 1, not Precinct 2.
Read the story →Coming next
More on Friday. Openings, milestones and events in Magnolia, Dobbin and Montgomery are always welcome at the newsroom, and so is anything you think this paper has been too quiet about. If your family has papers, photographs or tools from the mill years, the historical society would rather see them than lose them.