Canadian ISD Superintendent Lynn Pulliam advised on Friday, Aug. 28, that the school district had received its first lab confirmation that a student at Canadian Elementary School had tested positive for COVID-19.

In their meeting Wednesday, Sept. 1, the Hemphill County Hospital Board unanimously approved the tax rate proposal of 0.613007, the effective tax rate for fiscal year 2021. The ETR represents an I&S rate of 0.086088 and an M&O rate of 0.526919. HCH Administrator Christy Francis explained to the board that the ETR will raise $6,025,060 for the M&O, $216,000 less that in 2019. “This year, not only did the tax base go down, some things came off, and we had some refunds—which jacked up the ETR.”

Our newest Rotarian, Ike Julian, took us on a trip around the world with his classification speech. Ike has experienced more in his (almost) 33 years than many people do in a lifetime. Thirty minutes wasn’t enough time to scrape the surface of his adventures, so we know this article won’t do him justice either, but we’ll try.

Following two consecutive weeks of testing, the Edward Abraham Nursing Home is now reporting 10 positive cases of COVID-19—which includes six residents and four staff members.

Fifty-five tests conducted at the nursing home on staff and residents were negative. Between last week’s report and this week’s, the overall positive case count in Hemphill County rose from 48 to 54, and in other counties, from 29 to 31. The Hemphill County residents are on home isolation.