December 22, 2021 Issue

Whether you consider 2021 to be a year to remember or one to forget, no one can deny that the destruction of the county’s historic courthouse, the winter storm that left the county in a deep freeze, and COVID-19 combined to create an historic year for Mason County. Jerry Bearden will have served as the county judge for nineteen years at the end of this year. “This has been the most memorable of all those years, between the burning down of the courthouse and the ‘Big Freeze,’ when ...

The 2022 Mason County Livestock Show & Expo (MCLSE) is just a few short weeks away– Jan. 5-7 at the Fort Mason Park. We hope you can join us and help show your support for the youth of Mason County! The stock show will feature cattle, swine, sheep and goats as well as the Food and Nutrition Show, Eldon Kothmann Memorial Ag Mechanics Show, and Fastest Torch Contest. In addition to showing livestock in the outdoor ring, the shows will be livestreamed on Facebook Live.

The Mason High School girls varsity basketball team started off District 29-2A play with a bang as the Cowgirls had two lopsided district victories on the road at Center Point High School and at home vs. Junction High School. Following an absolutely dominating 77-17 win back on Dec. 14 against the Lady Pirates of Center Point, the Cowgirls returned home on Friday night and outplayed the Lady Eagles of Junction the entire game en route to an 85-17 win.

The 2022 Mason County Livestock Show & Expo (MCLSE) is just a few short weeks away– Jan. 5-7 at the Fort Mason Park. We hope you can join us and help show your support for the youth of Mason County! The stock show will feature cattle, swine, sheep and goats as well as the Food and Nutrition Show, Eldon Kothmann Memorial Ag Mechanics Show, and Fastest Torch Contest. In addition to showing livestock in the outdoor ring, the shows will be livestreamed on Facebook Live.

The Patriot Warriors will hold their twenty-fifth annual Veterans hunt on the seventh and eighth of January 2022. We will host around fifty hunters this year; a few more than last year. The hunt was curtailed last year due to Covid restrictions, but we are building back up to pre-Covid numbers. Heart of Art Winery will again host opening-day activities.

Probably most everyone will have answered, “No” to that question and it may well be something you have never heard of either. But I can guarantee that many folks have in fact seen them without knowing what they were looking at or thinking they were noteworthy. Speaking just about the ones most common in our area, and assuming we are talking about times when it hasn’t rained recently and the ground is dry, what we are talking about will appear as very dark brown or black things found o ...

We will close this Thursday, December 23, at noon and stay closed on Friday. We will also close next Friday, December 31. We hope everyone has a Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year! Happy Reading! New to the Library: DVDS The Card Counter Jack Irish Season 3 Pig Trolls: Holiday in Harmony Veggietales: 10 Movie Collection Venom: Let There Be Carnage Fiction: (all quotes from publishers’ summaries) The Ballerinas by Rachel Kapelke-Dale “Thirteen years ago, Delphine L

Create your garden sanctuary, no matter the size. Whether you live in a small apartment, a home with a front and back yard, or have access to acres, you can create a garden sanctuary. One definition of sanctuary that rings true for this gardener is a place of refuge or rest.

Coming from a close family, holidays were always extra special. Christmas Eve, we would attend the candle-light service at our Lutheran Church as a family then go to my Granny and Pop Geistweidt’s house for Christmas. We celebrated it with our New Mexico cousins, which I always looked forward to because they were close to my age.

This simple little recipe will result in your having a dozen of the most moist, delicious blueberry muffins you’ve ever tried. The biggest problem is trying to keep from eating them all in one sitting! Ingredients: 2 cups all-purpose flour 1 tablespoon baking powder ½ teaspoon salt ½ teaspoon cinnamon ¼ teaspoon nutmeg 2 large eggs 1 cup buttermilk ¾ cup granulated sugar, plus extra for topping ½ cup vegetable oil 1 ½ teaspoon vanilla 1 ¾ cup frozen blueberrie ...

Merry Christmas from our house to yours. I am not really ready to have family over for Christmas. The new tree has already lost a string of lights. The other decorations are few and far between. I better get busy. Our family is not really sure what days they will be here.

Sure, Christmas has become over commercialized. Sure, two favorite holiday songs, among merchants are, “I'm Dreaming of a Green Christmas,” and “What a Friend We Have in Jesus.” Sure, Santa Claus and Rudolph, the Red-Nosed Reindeer have become central characters in the cast of contemporary Christmas. Sure, there is a lot of unholy paganism in the celebration of the holy Christmas festival of Christmas. But, “Put Christ Back Into Christmas?” Who says he ever left?

On December 14, the Mason Lions Club met for their weekly club meeting at the Eckert Center for their annual Christmas lunch served by Nacho’s. The Lions Club welcomed as its guests many of the spouses of the Lions. The assembled Lions and their guests celebrated the forthcoming Christmas holiday by enjoying a brief but resonating talk by Pastor Peter Aguilar of the First United Methodist Church about Service and Volunteerism in the Lions Clubs, beginning at their very foundation. Pasto ...

There’s really no time of year quite like the Christmas season. During Yuletide otherwise normal people haul shrubbery into their homes on purpose, festoon their houses with enough Chinese-made lights to severely strain even the most robust power grid, and cruise mall lots in their SUVs looking for parking spaces like sharks circling a dying whale.