For those of you dealing with high wedding costs, I may have a solution. Instead of paying hundreds or thousands of dollars on a wedding dress that will be used once, buy some toilet paper and turn your imagination loose. A toilet paper wedding dress has many advantages. The total cost is under $20.00 and it doesn’t have to be dry-cleaned or put in storage. No hemming or altering is necessary. Just tear unneeded sections off. If you’re not satisfied with the design, just start over and make another one. And best of all, it can be recycled.

Mimosa (Albizia julibrissin) is an imported ornamental that is very common in our area and is most noticed when it produces its fluffy pink flowers in the summer. Its commonness is worrisome from a forest health standpoint.

A new study confirms that rocker bottom shoes help strengthen back muscles, improving the spine’s curvature and thus reducing low back pain.

Sports physiotherapy researchers have confirmed, in a new study of their research work into back pain, that unstable shoes improve the strength of back muscles in order to maintain balance and stability when walking. This muscular strengthening contributes to reducing low-intensity chronic low back pain, which can be disabling for those who suffer it.

Most of us have a pound package of bulk pork sausage hiding in the freezer somewhere. If you do, that is the beginnings of a good casserole. I don't consider this recipe a breakfast dish. It is more like a weeknight supper.

Talking about sausage, I remember twenty years or so ago buying bulk pork sausage from someone over on Texas Valley Road. No boughten sausage tasted as good as that one. When I think of pork sausage, theirs comes to mind. Of course, stores sell their own bulk pork sausage in the meat case. That is good, too.

It might be a school record. Scholarships won by the Union County High School class of 2018 topped $1 million, and school counselor Jennifer Pointer said if it's not a record, only the class of 2008 would have come close.

In June, Ross Richnafsky left his own ducks, birds, chickens, snakes, and other animals to care for animals at Anderson County Hospital. For five weeks, Ross traveled to Clinton and that is where he met Smokey. The vet diagnosed Smokey with Canine Parvovirus. So Ross helped with the treatment of fluids and antibiotics as well as performing a variety of other tasks related to the various animals at the clinic. But Smokey taught Ross that animal owners do not always share his concern for animal care. Unfortunately, the owner removed Smokey before treatment was completed.

Voters filled the Union County Senior Center on July 10th to hear how candidates planned to improve economic development, education, and infrastructure in Union County. All seemed to agree that a positive working relationship between County Commission and the mayor was essential. All also believed that TCAT or some form of post high school trade school needed to be established within Union County. Most mentioned broadband and internet as essential to modern day business development and recruitment.

Historians will record 2018 as the second year in a row of a balanced budget for Union County; likely the most significant legislative accomplishment of the County Commission in a generation. Union County’s budget is one of the most important pieces of public policy the Commission enacts every year.

“God’s most beautiful gifts bloom into children.”

Jordan and Allison Campbell recently received a new blessing to their family. Their son, Leyton Taylor Campbell, was welcomed into the world on Saturday, July 7, 2018 at 12:42 pm at UT Medical Center.

In order to appreciate how it is or how it might be, our youth need a lesson in the “Old Ways.” Understanding what our ancestors endured will instill a greater respect for their survival and how they prospered.