The Magnolia Standard in 5 Minutes
Issue 39: The Ten Days Edition

This is The Magnolia Standard in five minutes. It's Friday, September twenty-fifth.

Three stories today. Ten days to register, and where to vote early. Country music that buys boots for the troops. And a date for the school bond's first shovel.

We'll start with the deadline.

The last day to register for the November third election is Monday, October fifth. Ten days from today.

At the start of the month, the county hadn't said where anyone would vote early. Now it has. Early voting runs October nineteenth through the thirtieth. The first week, eight to five. Saturday the twenty-fourth, seven to seven. Sunday the twenty-fifth, eleven to five. And the last week, seven to seven.

Any registered voter in the county can use any early site. There are ten. Two have a Magnolia address. One is the West Montgomery County Community Development Center on Friendship Drive. The other is new this year: the Magnolia Event Center Annex, at eleven seven thirty-one F M fourteen eighty-eight.

And the ballot has names on it now.

Three seats on the county appraisal district board are on every ballot in the county. In Place One, Dale Inman and Gary Beck. In Place Two, Frank Smith and Creg Mixon. In Place Three, Sherry Tavel and Webb Melder.

The first time these seats were filled, in May twenty twenty-four, Place One and Place Three went to the same names you'll see again. The Place Two winner, Pete Palmer, isn't on this ballot. That seat goes to someone new either way.

What does the board do? It picks the chief appraiser and adopts the district's budget. It does not set the value of anyone's house.

One more number. In that May twenty twenty-four election, turnout was four percent. Seventeen thousand eight hundred ballots, out of four hundred thirty-five thousand registered voters.

This time the same three seats sit on a ballot that opens with the races for Senate and governor. Far more people will reach this race this time.

Next, a concert with a shoebox behind it.

In twenty fifteen, a sailor named Jimmy Rogers was deployed, in his last year in the Navy. He wanted to start a charity and didn't want to wait until he got home. So he built it by email. He called it Boots For Troops. Every care package it sends to a deployed service member has a new pair of boots in it, and the service member picks them.

Its fall fundraiser is the Concert in the Country, the eleventh one, October sixteenth and seventeenth at Show Sports Farm on Wright Road.

Friday, gates at five thirty. Bubba Westly, then Walker Montgomery, and Aaron Watson closes from nine to ten thirty.

Saturday, gates at four. The Steve Helms and Ben McPherson duo, Scooter Brown, Josh Ward, and Travis Tritt from nine to eleven.

A few things to know before you go. It's all ages. Kids twelve and under need a ten dollar ticket. Parking is ten dollars. There's no re-entry, and there's no shade outside the V I P area, and umbrellas and tents aren't allowed.

The group's own count for this year: a hundred and twenty-six care packages sent, and three hundred sixty-two troops flown home. That's the travel program, which buys plane tickets for junior enlisted who haven't been home in two years or who need to get home in an emergency.

Last story. The school bond.

Magnolia I S D voters approved a four hundred sixty-five million dollar bond in May. On September fifteenth, the school board approved the construction contracts. B and C Constructors gets Elementary Ten and Elementary Eleven. Stewart Builders gets the third high school, and the additions at Magnolia High and Magnolia West.

Elementary Ten goes first. Its plans are due in December. On February eighth the board votes on its guaranteed maximum price, and construction starts in March.

Under this kind of contract, the builder commits to a top number, and anything over it is the builder's problem. February eighth is the first real dollar figure for one building. For the high school, that's next summer.

Why the hurry? The district counted six hundred seventy more students this January than the year before. That's a hundred ninety-one more than it had planned for.

Coming up. The Saturday money column is out tomorrow. Early voting opens October nineteenth. And the Renaissance Festival opens its fifty-second season on the tenth.

The full stories, with every source, are at the magnolia standard dot news. That's the Magnolia Standard in five minutes.

Thanks for riding along. See you next edition.

Written by our newsroom, voiced by computer.