UPCOMING EVENTS The Bowie County Master Gardeners are pleased to announce an Intern Training Class for those interested in becoming a member beginning September 2022.

Sale Needs Your Stuff

DeKalb ISD Ribbon Cutting

A single vehicle accident Saturday afternoon claimed the lives of two Red River County men Saturday afternoon. According to the official accident report from the Texas DPS, the Dodge Ram pickup was on FM 412 about four miles out of Boxelder when it ran off the road and struck a culvert causing it to land on its top. Both driver and passenger were ejected.

Week two of the Taylor Morton Parker capital murder trial is well underway, with the 6 man, 6 woman jury hearing testimony that is nothing short of fantastical. The State continues to lay out the story of the multi-layered financial fraud leading ultimately to the murder of Reagan Hancock and the abduction of her 35 week fetus with details that would rival the greatest crime novel ever penned. On Tuesday, September 13, Texas Department of Public Safety Special Agent Dustin Estes continued his testimony on evidence recovered from Taylor Parker’s social media and Google accounts. He presented evidence of multiple email addresses and spoof (fake) phone numbers associated with Parker and messages sent from those email addresses and phone numbers. There were also records of Parker falsifying multiple legal documents and searching her victim’s social media accounts just days before the murder. According to Estes, investigators were also able to obtain records of Parker ordering a fake pregnancy belly and a fake sonogram from the website fakeababy.com. She searched for instructions to register a birth certificate for a home birth in the weeks leading up to the murder. She also watched videos on how to perform cesarean sections, live births, and how to deliver the placenta, as well as videos on delivery at 35 weeks, and physical examination of a 35 week preterm baby. In the weeks after her purported due date of mid-September 2020, she was tracked through cell phone and financial records as visiting women’s clinics, maternity stores, and 3-D sonogram studios in Shreveport, Paris, Idabel, Longview and Texarkana.

The U.S. Census Bureau released its latest estimate, which indicates Hispanic residents in Texas make up more of the state’s population than white residents. The new population figures from the American Community Survey indicate Hispanic Texans comprise 40.2% of the state’s population last year, while non-Hispanic white Texans made up 39.4%, as reported in the Texas Tribune. The estimates, from July 2021, are not considered official but reflect trends that demographers have been tracking for years. Hispanics accounted for nearly half of the state’s population increase of 4 million residents since 2010. Census figures indicate almost half of Texas residents under the age of 18 are Hispanic.