For those of you in mailing addresses for Bridgeport, Chico, Alvord, Paradise, Boyd, Rhome or Newark, you’ve probably noticed a new insert once a month in All Around Wise for your community called “Community Focus.” It’s our newest product, one designed at highlighting the people, accomplishments and events that take place in your community. It is designed to do just what then name implies: focus on the community.

We do our best to find stories and photos for this section, but we are relying on you to submit your information and photos as well. You’ve probably seen a few of our submitted photos under the heading of “Your Life in Focus,” or maybe even on the cover of the section.

We know it will take some time for readers to get into the habit of sending in information, but we have started to receive a few submissions. Sometimes, those submissions even make us smile. I’m not sure if the photo above was sent to us to get a chuckle, but it did when we saw this little dog in the photo. We’re running another photo of the home in this week’s Boyd/Paradise edition.

You can e-mail submissions to focus@wcmessenger.com or click on the above link.

And let us know what you think of this new product.

There were lots of activities in Wise County over the weekend, and photographer Joe Duty did his best to get to a lot of them. You can check out his images here.

I headed over to Paradise Saturday morning for the Paradise Main Street Festival to see the dedication of the new Paradise Veterans Memorial Park. Other than a bit of a breeze causing a few of the flags to topple over a couple of times, the ceremony went off without a hitch. I was really impressed with the amount of people who attended the dedication and the festival. Events like these really help you gain a sense of “community” that you don’t always see as much as you used to. For some very amateurish video of the festival shot by yours truly, click here.

Joe was in Paradise, at the Wise Regional Health System Harvest Health Fair, the Decatur Chamber of Commerce auction, the 4-H Explosion and Sunday’s benefit concert.

We’ve got another big weekend coming up. Bridgeport is having its annual Coal Miner’s Heritage Festival, and there are plenty of events scheduled throughout the day. The final Cruise Night on the Decatur Square is also Saturday.

We received our agenda for Thursday’s school board meeting, and the issue of artificial turf installation at Eagle Stadium is set for a vote. The administration is recommending spending $1.5 million from the general fund to pay for improvements at the stadium, including the installation of artificial turf.

You’ll hear people argue both ways on this one. Many look at our current economic situation and wonder how the district has the money to spend on such an item (the district actually has about $11 million in its general fund, according to my notes from last month’s school board meeting) or that the money should be spent on other educational priorities. Others will argue that the stadium is lagging behind in the quality of the district’s other facilities, and the football stadium should be a kind of “billboard” for the school district. Artificial turf would allow the stadium to be used by other school groups (such as the soccer team). By voting for the artificial turf, the school board would signal its commitment to staying at Eagle Stadium for the next 20-25 years instead of building a new stadium.

Interesting note: the board packet includes a cost estimate from the Hellas Construction firm. You might not be familiar with the construction company, but you have heard of its latest project: the turf at the new Cowboys Stadium in Arlington. The company is understandably quite proud, by the looks of this Web site.

The perilous on-ramp at U.S. 287 south and Farm Road 51 in Decatur has always been a tough place to navigate. Coming up that ramp, you can’t see a single thing coming down the highway as you try and merge at 40 mph until the 6-foot entrance road ends. I can’t tell you how many times I have come to the top of that hill with a huge 18-wheeler occupying the space I need to merge onto. I drive a Toyota Solara, a semi would bat me away like a fly. At least U.S. 287 is two lanes, so if someone coming down the highway sees a vehicle suddenly shoot up the FM 51 on-ramp, he can move into the left lane to allow room to merge.

Or at least U.S. 287 WAS two lanes.

Today I was coming back to U.S. 287 from the hospital. After stopping at the red light at FM 51 and the access road, I went up the hill to merge onto U.S. 287. When I got to the top, there was a 18-wheeler passing the on ramp at 60 mph. He could not move over because for some reason the left lane is closed. There are ZERO signs on the on ramp alerting mergers of this fact. I had to swerve off the highway onto the shoulder and come to a complete stop to avoid being crushed.

I am not sure how long the left lane is going to be closed, or why is it closed, but it is dangerous and someone is going to get hurt.

TxDOT, how about working a little harder to ensure the safety of your state’s drivers?

EDIT: An e-mail to the TxDOT office in Decatur resulted in the following explanation:

US 81 and FM 51 work began this week.  We expect to have the detour installed by next week to switch traffic. … TxDOT’s contractor will be repairing a beam that was hit at that location.  Traffic will have to be switched from the northbound lanes to soutbound lanes around the FM 51 Bridge Structure and back to the northbound lanes.  That means that during this time the southbound lanes of US 81 (particularly at the bridge) will be reduced to one lane in each direction.  This work is scheduled to take place over the weekend of August 14-16th.

Each month, I get a copy of the Wise County Historical Society’s newsletter. This month’s newsletter features news from the April 28, 1882, Paradise Messenger (which would later move to Alvord and then to Decatur where it has remained the Wise County Messenger ever since). Here’s a run down of some of the top stories:

Fresh cider at Gray’s store, only 5 cents.

Go to Lowry & Ramsdale for Knives and Forks.

Prof. Thomas says “school is doing scandously well.”

Don’t forget Shean and McAfee sell Doeskin Pants at bottom prices.

Mr. J.F. Fore and his family were the guests of one of our citizens Sunday. He talks of moving here to test our mineral water.

Mr. Cunningham, a leading butcher of Fort Worth and a brother-in-law of our neighbor, J.E. Stewart, has secured the contract for furnishing beef to the Jews of that city.

We understand a woman by the name of Mr. Inklebarger, living in the northeast part of Parker County, committed suicide by hanging herself sometime during last week.

Mr. George L. Ramsdale, a Texas Veteran, was in to see us on Tuesday. A little girl that he has in charge was bitten by a maddog on last Sunday morning. A madstone that belongs to Perry Collom was applied but did not stick. Is that thought that the teeth of the dog entered the flesh after passing through her clothes and that therefore the case is not dangerous. The dog was killed. Mr. Ramsdale and his wife had only just returned from the Veteran Reunion at Waco an account of which we have published elsewhere.

Mr. H.H. McNabb, of Ooltewah, Tenn., and Mr. John Monger of Chattanooga, have been the guests of our neighbor, Mr. B.N. Caruthers, for several days past. Mr. Caruthers and they were former acquaintances. We are always pleased to see progressive go-ahead men looking at our country, and we only wonder why it is that the best men always move west, and generally to Texas.

It makes me wonder what the writers would have thought of technology such as Twitter.

I’d like to get some reader feedback on the subject of columns. I’m considering changing up some of our columns we are running, but I want to know what columns people enjoy reading and maybe columns that people would rather not see in the paper (or would like to see less of).

Here is a list of regular columns we currently run, in no particular order, and where they are found in the paper:

Willis Webb (opinion)

Dave McNeely (opinion)

Multiple columnists from the Texas Public Policy Foundation (opinion)

Annette Bridges (lifestyle)

Neil Sperry (gardening column in All Around Wise)

Luke Clayton (outdoor column in All Around Wise)

Birds and Beyond (birding column by local author in All Around Wise)

Savvy Senior (All Around Wise)

Extension office columns (All Around Wise)

Others we have used recently:

Jim Hightower (opinion)

Pet Talk (All Around Wise)

Texas Health Matters (All Around Wise)

One new column that we have agreed to begin running this fall is from a Texan who will bike the perimeter of Texas. He will write a monthly column, and readers can also follow him from his blog. His column will most likely appear in All Around Wise.

In looking at possible syndicated columns, one idea that intrigues me is the idea of a “point-counterpoint” type of column where a conservative and a liberal give their spin on a certain topic. Another idea might be for us to come up with a sort of “question of the week” to give letter writers an opportunity to respond in the next issue - an idea that was sent to us by a reader.

We’re also thinking about changing up our political cartoon or possibly adding another political cartoonist.

Are there any other types of columns you would like to see (automotive, movie reviews, music reviews, book reviews, other)?

Any thoughts? You can comment here or e-mail me at news@wcmessenger.com.

As I mentioned in an earlier post, former Messenger reporter Brandon Evans is now once again current Messenger reporter Brandon Evans. He started Monday after moving back from Connecticut. Brandon was with us previously from the Spring of 2007 to Spring 2008.

So if you see Brandon out an about, be sure to give him a Wise County welcome.

Speaking of Wise County welcome, our annual visitors and newcomers guide Welcome to Wise is scheduled to be mailed out early next week. We’ve tried to make it as comprehensive yet most readable as possible. So be watching your mailboxes for that.

If you own an iPhone, be sure to check out the fine work of Web master Todd Griffith. He recently finished designing a Messenger Web site for iPhone users, iwcmess.com. Let us know what you think about the new Web site. We love feedback. For other phones, you can go to wcmess.com to get your news on the go.

Your Wise County Messenger won sweepstakes again at the Texas Press Association’s Better Newspaper Contest awards ceremony Saturday in Austin. That is the 10th time in the newspaper’s history and eighth in a row dating back to 2002.

The Messenger competes in the large semiweekly division.

It was truly a team effort. Photographer Joe Duty received first place awards for sports and feature photography and a third in news photography, reporter Mandy Bourgeois received first in feature writing, sports editor Robert Morgan received first place in sports coverage, reporter Travis Measley received third place in column writing, I received second place in editorials and headline writing, production manager Todd Griffith and paginator Keri Willerton received third place for page design, Griffith won first place for best web site and the advertising and production department won first in advertising. The Messenger also won second place in general excellence.

The 825 points we received toward the “sweepstakes” count was more than any other paper received, including the daily categories. The total is the third highest we’ve received in the eight years.

Publisher Phil Major’s previous paper, the Clay County Leader, also won sweepstakes in the medium weekly category, and he received a first place for news photo.

The awards are nice, but it doesn’t mean much if we aren’t providing our readers with the content they want. So always feel free to let us know if you like something or not or if you have any suggestions on how we can improve.

From time to time, readers will submit poems as a letter to the editor. We’ve always had a policy about not running poems, and the latest issue of the International Society of Weekly Newspaper Editors has an article from a newspaper editor addressing this. Actually, it was the response to someone who had submitted a poem to his paper. I thought he did a good job of explaining why newspapers don’t publish poems, so I thought I’d share it. It was written by Richard Mostyn, editor of the Yukon News in Whitehorse, Yukon.

“We publish all manner of letters in our paper, for issues, against and ambivalent.

But we don’t publish poems. There are several reasons for this. Poems often rely on strange formatting and poets are usually insistent on that (it’s often integral to the beat), and there’s no way to accurately reproduce it in a newspaper - besides, it’s finicky work for our layout guy, and he’s got enough on his plate.

Second, if the poem was straightforward and we published it, we’d be swarmed by dozens of angry poets angry because we hadn’t published their work.

We can’t win this battle.

Poetry is a legitimate art form. Done well, a poem can be magical.

But it isn’t journalism, which is a different type of art.

Our newspaper doesn’t publish poems. But it does try to work magic with journalism. And letters.

If you want to submit one to us, we’d be happy to run it.”