News

AUSTIN—Texas Comptroller Glenn Hegar today said state sales tax revenue totaled $2.61 billion in May, 13.2 percent less than in May 2019 and the steepest yearover-year decline since January 2010. The majority of May sales tax revenue is based on sales made in April and remitted to the agency in May. Widespread social-distancing requirements were in place across much of the state throughout April.

In mid-March, homes across the country began receiving invitations to complete the 2020 census. The census counts every person living in the United States. Once the invitation arrives, households should respond in one of three ways: online, by phone, or by mail. The census is presently in the self-response stage, where citizens can complete census forms online, by mail, or by phone.

Texans receiving unemployment could be eligible for a total of 52 weeks of benefits—double the typical amount of time aid is available—as the state triggered an extended benefits period, according to the Texas Workforce Commission.

Two representatives of CFS Inspections, of Searcy, Arkansas, were in Canadian this week to conduct an inspection of the Canadian Volunteer Fire Department’s 75-foot Quint aerial ladder firetruck. The 2004-model pumper was purchased in 2009 after lengthy and, at times, heated debate by the Hemphill County Commissioners, some of whom questioned its usefulness in town with few multi-story buildings, as well as its cost (around $550,000), and the ability of volunteer firefighters to operate and maintain the high-powered equipment.

Yes, Virginia, there is a swimming pool. And although we missed the traditional Memorial Day opening—under what turned out to be overcast skies in temperatures that barely rose above 60-degrees—the city pool will officially open on Tuesday, June 9.

This photo, taken at sunrise on Memorial Day, shows the Lindley family plot, with Lula Dawson Lindley at the center. Lindley served with the Army Nurse Corps during World War I and the Spanish flu pandemic. She left Canadian in 1915 for her nurses training, and served in the Army until 1919. Her grandaughter, Christina Findley, is trying to find information about a Fourth of July high-diving exhibition Lula and her brother gave, probably sometime around 1910. Lula was among the servicewomen from Hemphill County who were honored during by Post Adjutant Wendie Wright’s Memorial Day presentation. Lulu Terrill Gaylord Dawson was born in 1893 in Caldwell, KS, and enlisted in the Army Nurses Corps on July 23, 1918. She was assigned to the Army Base Hospital at Camp McArthur in Waco, where she tended to soldiers who had been struck ill with the 1918 influenza. Wright pointed out that this is year is the 100th anniversary of the August 8, 1920, ratification of 19th Amendment, which gave women the right to vote.

The Hemphill County Hospital District’s gross revenue was down 28.37 percent for April, a trend the HCH board knew would show up in the financials at their May 19 meeting. The decrease was due to the reduced revenue in the district’s clinics as a result of the COVID-19 pandemic.