Opinions

My child arrived just the other day. He came to the world in the usual way.

October 19, 2006, to be exact. That’s when Benjamin Allen Homer Estlack came into our world and changed my life forever by making me a Dad. Seventeen years ago seems like “just the other day,” but as Harry Chapin’s “Cat’s in the Cradle” warns, time passes all too quickly when you’re raising kids. You have to savor every moment.

I’ve always said that song has got to be one of the saddest ever written. The story of a boy and his dad who very much love and admire each other but never seem to quite find time to spend together.

“When you comin’ home, Dad?”
“I don’t know when, but we’ll get together then. You know we’ll have a good time then.”

The life of a newspaperman is busy – going to evening meetings, covering events, and often working late – but “Cat’s in the Cradle” was always in my mind every time little Ben would follow me to the front door and tell me to “Be careful on that road, Daddy.” And so, I tried to make sure when I was home, that we played Tinker Toys or cars or whatever as often as we could.

Our family life has been busy – busier than most, but we’ve been busy together for the most part. Ashlee and I have tried to temper that busy-ness by making sure there were fun memories for Ben and his sister. Fun activities and great vacations and a philosophy of “we work hard so we can have fun, too.”

My son turned ten just the other day. He said, “Thanks for the ball, Dad, c’mon let’s play. Can you teach me to throw?”

Let’s face it. I’m a band guy. Sports were never my forte. But if Ben wanted to play catch, that lyric would hit me, and I’d say, “yes.” The chances won’t always be there, so I’d take them and try to soak them up. And perhaps, I even learned to throw a little better myself. It worked both ways. Ben was and often still is my sidekick. The guy I love to spend time with whether working or playing.

“I’m gonna be like him, yeah. You know I’m gonna be like him.”

In the song, the kid hopes to be like his Dad. But for me, I’ve always wished I could be a little like more Ben. He’s a great guy with a great personality, great friends, and is so good at so many things – art, cooking, music, math, science, humor, writing, and more. I give his mother most of the credit for that. She’s more talented than I am.

So much like a man, I just had to say, “Son, I’m proud of you, can you sit for a while?”
He shook his head, and he said with a smile, “What I’d really like, Dad, is to borrow the car keys. See you later, can I have them please?”

And boom. Just like that, he became independent. He drives himself and his sister everywhere. He drives his mother and me also (which I enjoy). And he’s off… to band, to history club, to work, to hang out with friends, to workout, to wherever. It’s harder now to find time for just us, but we both are trying. His attention recently turned to the ’69 Ford that my brother and I both learned to drive in. It’s sat idle for about 30 years, but he thinks it’s a good project for us as well as for him and his cousin and a buddy and for my brother and me. None of us know much about engines, but it’s an adventure together.

The calendar is turning more quickly now. This week Ben turns 17, and we know our time with him in our everyday lives is growing shorter by the minute. He ordered his senior ring just recently. In a blink, he’ll be 18. He’ll help pick the next American president. (I wish he had better choices for that.) And then, it’s off to college.

“When you comin’ home, son?”
“I don’t know when, but we’ll get together then, Dad. We’re gonna have a good time then.”

He makes me proud, my son. I can’t wait to see where life takes him, but I think he knows we’ll always be glad to see him back home. I fear that the next 19 months will be over before we know it, but I intend to squeeze every moment together I can with him… without cramping his style or social life too much. After all, he’s one of my favorite people.

Happy birthday, son. I love you.

Next Monday is my Dad’s birthday so I wanted to write about all the things he does for both me and my family.

My Dad is one of the hardest working people I know. He is constantly working to provide for my family and me. On top of that, he also works tirelessly to help improve the community, whether that be volunteering or serving on countless boards and committees for projects. Then, even while he is busy with all of this, he still finds time to spend with us, and he especially finds time to watch our weekly episode of Star Trek.

He does so much for me, and I am very appreciative of all those things every day. He really is the best Dad ever!

He is one of the biggest role models in my life and I do not know what I would do without him, I love you Dad! I hope you have a happy birthday!

This week is National Newspaper Week, and it’s a good time to reaffirm our commitment to our readers and advertisers as well as to our community in general.
For more than 145 years, The Clarendon Enterprise has been bringing you the news – or Spreading the Word, as we like to say – about all the comings and goings and doings around Donley County. As perhaps the oldest business in town and for sure one of the oldest in the county, it’s easy to take for granted that the newspaper has always been here and always will be. That’s certainly our plan; and with your continuing support, that’s how it will be.

Many small towns have not been so fortunate. Over the last several years, we’ve seen several rural newspapers close – some due to lack of advertising revenue and others due to a lack of someone to pass the torch to. But for the most part, we still see that vibrant communities are ones that have active newspapers.

Today more than ever, our communities need reliable information. Rumors can spread fast with social media, but digging out the truth and reporting honest facts is work. It takes time and resources, but in the end it is worth it to know what is really happening. You can find that kind of information on social media – on The Clarendon Enterprise page, of course. You can also get it on our website – ClarendonLive.com – and in our printed and digital editions of the paper.

Some say newspapers are relics of the past, but this is not true. Good newspapers have adapted to serve modern audiences. Our web and social media audiences continue to grow, and our digital subscriptions have grown more than 33 percent in the last year with new subscriptions being added weekly. People want reliable news, and the Enterprise and other community newspapers deliver that.

In addition to providing you news right now online and in print, we also are the county’s historian. Today’s news is tomorrow’s history. We are mindful of that, and so we carefully maintain digital and physical archives that date back to 1878. If you want to know how the Bronchos faired in 1930, you turn to us. If you want to know who they will play this week, you turn to us. Our Facebook page carries live updates from the football games, and then our printed edition records forever how the game came out.

Look at this week’s issue. Readers will learn who their new city administrator is, what events are coming up, what’s happening with the district court, what streets are being paved, what have Hedley school kids been up to, how did the junior high football teams do, what real estate is available, and so much more. News and information like that is available every week in print and more often online.

None of this would be possible without you – our readers and advertisers. You keep us going literally and figuratively. To you we pledge to continue to keep covering the news as fairly as we can and to keep being your eyes and ears for the place you’ve chosen to call home. Thank you for your support.

Meanwhile…

Last week, City Administrator David Dockery hung it up and retired. But then on Monday he was back at City Hall to serve as a consultant for a limited time. So while he’s gone but not totally gone, we still take this time to tip our hat to his service to our community.

Being a city administrator is a tough job, especially in this town. Like being the editor, you’ll never make everyone happy. Some people may even wonder why we need an administrator, but I maintain the city government is too big to not have someone watching over it daily. Dockery has done that job very well.

At the very least Dockery should get the Longevity Award for serving – or surviving – longer than any other city administrator. Seriously though, he deserves credit for many things during his tenure. The city is in better financial condition than when he found it, and there is a long list of accomplishments over eight years. Paving projects, long-term water system improvements, the new City Hall, the aquatics center, and downtown revitalization are just a few things that come to mind. Some of those projects were more popular than others, but all of them moved the city forward. And he did all of them while closely guarding the city’s finances. Contractors learned quickly that Dockery would not let them cut corners or give the city anything less than their very best effort.

Dockery would be the first to not take credit for any good thing that happened. In his philosophy, if it’s good, the mayor and city council get the credit. If it’s bad, then the blame should fall on him. I think though that most people who have served and are serving as elected city officials would agree with me that these accomplishments likely would not have happened without his steadfast support and professional service.

Your editor and the administrator may not have always agreed 100 percent on different issues, but there was never a doubt that Dockery always did what he thought was right for the city.
Thank you, sir, for your service, your friendship, and your dedication. Clarendon is better than when you found it.

This year the Bronco Parents started a new fundraiser called Adopt a Bronco. It pairs elementary students with high school athletes so older kids can mentor elementary students.

I have been adopted alongside my cousin Daniel by the Pearson family. Last week, we were lucky enough to get to spend some time with them at Stocking’s Ice Cream Parlor and get to know each other a little bit.

My elementary student, August, is a fourth grader. Like me, he enjoys playing tennis and from what I understand he is quite the athlete in the sport. Daniel’s student is a third grader named Noah, and he also likes to play tennis like Dan and I do.

It was fun to meet with the two boys and talk with them about some of their hobbies and interests.

We learned that we all like archery also.

It was great to get to meet with them. They seem like really nice kids, and I am excited to be a mentor to August. Hopefully, we will get to play tennis together sometime.

By Kelley Shannon, Freedom of Information Foundation

With trust in government waning, a Texas law can help keep a closer watch on public officials. Even citizens who continue to have faith in government can use this law to stay better informed.

How is taxpayer money spent? What’s happening behind the scenes as government decisions are made?

The Texas Public Information Act produces answers to these crucial questions. The act has been here for us for 50 years and is essential in protecting our right to know.

Like a well-built old house, the landmark law is constantly in need of upkeep, yet it withstands the test of time. It can expose the truth.
At the half-century mark, let’s seize the moment to strengthen the Public Information Act to ensure it works for future generations. The nonprofit Freedom of Information Foundation of Texas will explore this idea at its state conference Sept. 28 in Austin. Discussions will feature transparency advocates, state lawmakers, journalists and everyday Texans from East Texas to Uvalde who have fought for more openness, sometimes in matters of life and death.

The Public Information Act was at issue in a court victory in June to force the release of Texas Department of Public Safety records related to a 2022 mass shooting at Robb Elementary School in Uvalde. The law was also the subject of legislation enacted Sept. 1 to close a loophole some police departments used to hide information when someone dies in law enforcement custody.

Other new legislation to keep the law up to date defines “business day” in the act to prevent government offices from wrongly shutting their doors to information requestors, as many did for months during the COVID-19 pandemic.

Originally known as the Open Records Act when it was enacted in 1973, the Public Information Act is steeped in our state’s history. It came about in a tumultuous time after the Sharpstown scandal in state government. Attorney Bill Aleshire, then a legislative aide for a sponsor of the Open Records Act, recalls helping to write the bill using model legislation from the nonprofit group Common Cause and the best open records ideas from other states.

The Texas law became one of the strongest in the nation. It presumes state and local government records are open – giving citizens a great deal of power in asking for documents, emails, videos and other items – unless a specific exception prevents releasing the information. In most cases, government agencies must ask permission from the Texas Attorney General’s Office to withhold records. The office is supposed to be an unbiased arbiter, with staffers acting as umpires, of sorts, in thousands of rulings every year.

The importance of the agency’s Open Government Division was highlighted in the recent Texas Senate impeachment trial of Attorney General Ken Paxton, who was accused of abusing his power over the public information law. He was acquitted of that charge and all other impeachment counts.

Along with impartial decisions from the attorney general’s office, the Public Information Act needs updated, effective enforcement measures to hold individual government agencies accountable if they are not following the law.

Ideas on how to boost enforcement are plentiful, ranging from imposing financial penalties on misbehaving governments to increasing public officials’ training requirements to ensuring information requestors can recover attorneys’ fees if they must sue to obtain public records.

With the right tools, we can safeguard the intent of the law, which states in its preamble that the people insist on remaining informed.
“The people,” it says, “in delegating authority, do not give their public servants the right to decide what is good for the people to know and what is not good for them to know.”

Kelley Shannon is executive director of the Freedom of Information Foundation of Texas, an Austin-based 501(c)(3) nonprofit dedicated to protecting the public’s right to know and speak out about government.

By Suzanne Bellsnyder, Publisher – Hansford County Reporter-Statesman

Lt. Governor Dan Patrick, as leader of the Texas Senate, conducted a sham trial while claiming to be unbiased in the impeachment hearing of Ken Paxton and had us all fooled.

Immediately following the vote to acquit Paxton on the 16 charges, and from the dais where he presided as the “impartial” Judge in the case, Dan Patrick revealed to Texans his bias immediately with an emboldened speech admonishing the House for their handling of the impeachment.

But in fact, it was in the Senate where corruption was pervasive amongst Paxton, Patrick, and the like. No matter how perfect the case in the House had been, an acquittal was likely in the cards for Paxton. We can look at Patrick’s calculated decisions and clearly see how impeachment was dead on arrival in the Senate.

Patrick could not be an unbiased judge and should have stepped aside. The Rules passed by the Senate allowed Patrick to appoint a jurist to serve as the Court’s presiding officer. Paxton and Patrick have a long history as political allies, and most alarmingly, they are both funded by billionaires Tim Dunn and Wilkes Brothers through the Defend Liberty PAC. The PAC made a $3M combined contribution and forgivable loan to Patrick in June, leading up to the trial. Patrick is not an attorney and has no experience, and this was a critical decision, as Patrick’s bias could not be overcome.

Patrick veiled his intentions by claiming he would do his “duty”, but he made several critical decisions in the trial, which provided an advantage for the defense.

Patrick ruled on the first day that Paxton would not be compelled to testify nor required to attend the trial. This was the first signal of his intention to shield his friend, Paxton, from public scrutiny. A more obvious bias was his tolerance of the ridiculous and ongoing “hearsay” objections made by Paxton’s attorney, Tony Buzbee, which contributed to confusion during the line of questioning around several vital witnesses. It was also revealed following the trial that Patrick had ruled in favor of the defense regarding the admission of critical testimony by Paxton’s mistress. The bribery charges related to the mistress were at the heart of why Paxton was helping his friend Nate Paul, and there was no doubt the mistress’s testimony would be damning to the defense.

And, then, there are the seriously concerning conflicts of interest that were allowed to influence the trial. The impeachment charges were extraordinary in that three Senators and the Lt Governor himself had conflicts of interest related directly to the events involved in this case.
Angela Paxton, of course, as the spouse and a party to some of the bribery charges intertwined through the case, was allowed to participate in the trial as an observer only. The Senate rules removed Senator Paxton from the deliberations. Still, she was allowed to sit on the floor during the entire trial, while Patrick ruled that General Paxton did not need to participate. Senator Paxton’s presence on the floor certainly would have a chilling effect on some of the more sensitive discussions around the mistress and the issues with home renovations, as she had been a direct party to those events.

Two other Senate members, Sen Bryan Hughes and Senator Donna Campbell, also had conflicts of interest. Hughes was the “straw requestor” mentioned in Impeachment Article II, and his name was given during the trial testimony. Paxton’s extramarital affair with Laura Olsen drove the allegation of the bribery charge outlined in Article IX. Olsen had worked in the Senate as a member of Donna Campbell’s staff.

In no other trial would a jury member be allowed to have any involvement in a case and be allowed to sit as part of the jury. Because of these conflicts, these members should have recused themselves from deliberations and voting. But they did not.
The Counting of the Votes

Conflict of interest issues are truly significant because they impacted the fairness of the trial overall, and most importantly, they had a direct impact on the final vote,

The Senators, as the jury, cast their individual votes, and a conviction would have required a 2/3 supermajority vote of the body. It was determined that Mrs./Sen Paxton would not be allowed to vote, but she was included in the total needed to reach the supermajority. With her present “not voting,” the 2/3 threshold was 21; if she had recused herself, the threshold would have been 20. Even more interesting is that if all three Senators with conflicts had “recused”, as they should have, the vote needed would have been only 19.

Republicans Campbell and Hughes both voted to acquit on all 16 charges. Vote counts leaked to the media have said there were 20 votes to convict behind closed doors, but without the 21 being there, some of the fringe voters were afraid to go against Patrick and Paxton.

There are a couple of other events that should cause concern. Since the jury was not sequestered at any time during the trial, they had access to their phone, email, and social media, which meant that they were open to influence. Seven of the Senators, who ultimately voted to acquit, were seen having dinner together in Austin on the evening prior to closing arguments. Patrick confirmed in a post on social media that he “consulted” with two of the jurors on the night before the verdict was voted on after sending the jury home with strict instructions not to talk with anyone.

The biggest miscalculation the House made was to believe that this trail ever had a shot in the Texas Senate. The House pursued impeachment because they were alarmed by the evidence they discovered during the investigation of Paxton’s treatment of the whistleblowers.

Patrick clearly manipulated this solemn, important constitutional process provided by our state constitution and manipulated the proceedings to save Paxton, his political ally, and his donors. He has also used this trial to launch a political war against the House, when, in fact, the House and the Senate are independent bodies by design, to ensure that the interests of Texans are protected.

During the trial, the House attorney Rusty Hardin mistakenly interchanged Patrick and Paxton’s names during the questioning of witnesses. They portrayed Rusty as senile for this, but maybe Rusty was on to something. Patrick and Paxton are one and the same. They are Politicians who will do anything to stay in power. And they did.

Suzanne Sanders Bellsnyder served as a Chief of Staff in the Texas Senate for over a decade. She now lives in the Texas Panhandle and is the editor of the Hansford County Reporter-Statesman, her hometown newspaper, and the Texas Rural Reporter, a statewide news service covering Rural Texas and its interests. Twitter/X: @sbellsnyder | Substack: Texas Rural Reporter

The more things change, the more they stay the same. I’m always reminded of that phrase when we delve into the archives to prepare our annual Pioneer Edition of The Donley County Leader and discover that our problems today are nothing new.

With the downtown revitalization effort under full steam, it was natural to look back at the last time Clarendon undertook a major renovation of the central business district, which was way back in 1920.

Today, a state grant is helping the city replace sidewalks and install new ornamental light posts in the 100 block of South Kearney Street. The project will be great when it’s finished, but it will involve some inconvenience. And of course, there have been and will be some nay-sayers, griping, and project delays. Our current project was slow out of the gate from the bid process and is weeks behind schedule, but, as it turns out, that’s nothing new. In fact, one might say we’re following tradition.

In 1920, the world was still reeling from the end of World War I and the pandemic of Spanish Flu. There were supply chain issues, labor shortages, and other problems that caused the installation to go less than smoothly. The city had already cut down the historic trees lining Kearney Street to make way for the brick paving. The edge of the paving had to be pulled up to lay the electric cable for the new streetlights, which was popularly called a White Way system in those days.

As materials slowly came in, there was even one news article that reported a local body shop had to shorten the cast iron lamp posts and reweld them. No other explanation was given, but I’m sure some city official and the project supervisor were pulling their hair out.

True to form, some citizens started laying it on the city officials pretty hard, and in November, The Clarendon News reported that, having had enough of the complaints, the mayor, most of the city commission, and the city secretary all resigned, leaving one lone city commissioner to run the city and see the project through to its completion in February of 1921.

When it was done, the City Beautiful – as we called Clarendon in those days – had one of the best White Way systems in the territory with 22 brilliant 250-Watt lamps lighting downtown. The system served our city for a long time, lighting the way for pedestrians and motorists alike before eventually being replaced by modern streetlights.

Clarendon’s new system will take longer than it did in 1920, but it’s more extensive and more complicated thanks to government regulations. People cared little about how high steps or curbs were 100 years ago. Today’s sidewalks, installed with state funds, must meet the requirements of the Americans with Disabilities Act, which is a challenge when every threshold is at a different elevation and slopes can’t exceed more than a quarter inch per foot. Our new sidewalks, will have shorter steps to make it easier for people of all ages to ascend and descend, ramping in the center of each block for better access for those with disabilities, and better lighting to provide more security while enhancing the overall appearance of downtown.

The work in the 100 block will be followed, hopefully, with successive grants to perform matching projects in the 200 and 300 blocks of Kearney, and ultimately make our main street the best it’s ever been.

Also 100 years ago, the city got a new telephone switchboard to greatly expand the communications available in Clarendon. It apparently took some cajoling by city leaders to get the phone company off high center to get that project done. Interestingly, the phone company today is installing fiber internet infrastructure all over town to improve our communications for the modern era… but only after they got some prodding months ago from city officials. History repeating itself.

We hope you enjoy our Pioneer Edition, and we wish you all a safe and happy Fourth of July!

Meanwhile…

This weekend our nation takes time to celebrate the signing of our Declaration of Independence and the God-given freedoms we took ownership of in 1776. It was our Founders’ view that we are all Created Equal and that we are all entitled to certain inalienable rights, chief among them Life, Liberty, and the Pursuit of Happiness.

Once the United States was founded, however, the enjoyment of those rights was not immediately extended to everyone. It would be years before blacks and women would enjoy the full rights of citizenship.

Today, we like to think we are more enlightened. But are we? Take a look at the bevy of laws passed in the last year aimed at one segment of society or the current popularity of marginalizing or demonizing people just for the sin of being different.

Freedom is a great thing to celebrate. But it means nothing if it does not apply to everyone. Life, Liberty, and the Pursuit of happiness is for everyone. As Emma Lazarus said: “Until we are all free, we are none of us free.”