KILGOROUND

AND YOU thought it was just the Texas Shakespeare Festival celebrating its twentieth anniversary this summer.

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OVERLOOKED in the hubbub surrounding the season and the ensuing trip to China... Raymond Caldwell has been director of the Festival since its inception.

CALDWELL’s anniversary wasn’t overlooked by everyone. James Padgett, owner of Kilgore Monument donated to Kilgore Improvement and Beautification Association (KIBA) a foot-square granite monument in Caldwell’s honor. The monument has been “planted” in the KIBA’s Shakespeare Garden beside the fine arts building.

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IF HOME really is where the heart is, Kilgore is home to a lot of people whose hearts are in the right place.

The CRISIS Center and a collection of local agencies gave away new and lightly-used shoes -- all either donated or bought with money donated for the purpose -- to children who might otherwise have started school with worn-out or too-small shoes. How many? You donated 140 pair of shoes.

FURTHER, the Center and those agencies filled 1200 (!) backpacks with school supplies. About 800 were given away to families who showed up. The rest were sent to area schools for distribution.

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KIBA and Laird Memorial Hospital are clearing out the old nurses quarters behind the hospital.

THE hospital donated, and KIBA is selling, beds, mattresses, chairs, dressers, mirrors, lamps and assorted other stuff... including some which has never been out of the box.

ALL the stuff will be sold at a garage sale (or dorm sale) next Friday and Saturday, August 19 and 20, at the 50s-era building, 1612 S. Henderson Blvd. The sale begins at 9 a.m. both days.

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ANN Rosson says the women of Habitat for Humanity are going to build a habitat house next year and they hope to start construction around Mother’s Day. To help raise money she suggests putting chairs beside the construction site and charging men to come sit in the chairs and watch the women build the house.

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BLOWING out the candles on birthday cakes today, Sunday, are Janis Slayter, Sue Light, Rena Mosier, Tanya Campbell, Jennifer Ater-Utzman, Joe Ellis, W.M. Virgil Gill, Shaketha Shanette Colbert, Ellen Womack, David Cline, George Sharp, Amanda Welch, Jane Walton, Blair Currin, Paul Pearson, Roy Ellis, Steven Truitt, Brian Dudley, Tealzie Randall, Monnica and Jessica Brown, Misty Pate, Oma Jackson, Julie Pool.

CELEBRATING anniversaries Sunday, are Fred and Dolores Hughes, Mr. and Mrs. Shawn Stangl, John and Jonni Slagle, Andy and Christine Szakely, Clayton and Christine Villyard.

BLOWING out the candles on birthday cakes today, Monday, are James M. Richardson, Mary Rucker, Wanda Pullin, Virgil Moore, Jeremy Sanders, Cissy Covnet, Je Wilson, Michael Moore, Jerry Taylor, LeAnne Lee, Veleta Mendenhall, Lisa Watson Hobbs, Kay Ketchum, Bobbie Mobley, Virginia Bagley, Courtney Jo Christie, Robert Glenn Lupfer, Cecilia Scott-Sanders, Candy Cole, Frank VanMeter, Laura Bynum, Carlos Johnson, Jimmy Thrower, Glenda Redd, Kim Michel Rodgers, Danny Harris II, Liana Loyd, Rommie Lee.

CELEBRATING anniversaries Monday, are Philip and Ola Lacy, Mr. and Mrs. Jim Reynolds, Mike and Karen Conner, Laurie and Luther Bender.