KILGOROUND

FORGIVE ME FOR STARTING Kilgoround with a sports item...

The Kilgore Bulldogs, as you may have heard, continue the playoffs on Saturday against La Marque.

That matches up the Class 4A Division II state champions of the last two seasons — KHS in 2004, La Marque in ’03.

The game will be at Conroe’s Moorhead Stadium at 1 p.m. Saturday. If you don’t know how to get there, listen up:

 Take 259 south, then 59 to Cleveland.

 Turn right onto Highway 105 in Cleveland, toward Conroe.

 Stay on 105 in Conroe to Wilson Road. The stadium will be on the right.

And if nothing else, follow Pat McCrory. Pat, I was informed over the weekend, attended Conroe High School and played football in that very stadium.

+++ JOHN KENNA, manager of the WalMart Super

center here said the controversy over whether the store will or will not say Merry Christmas is not a problem at the Kilgore store. “We’ll say Merry Christmas here.”

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LAST YEAR’S matchup between Kilgore and La Marque was memorable for me for a lot of reasons.

— I had no sleep – our daughter, Ashtyn, was born the day before the game, and I basically had time to shave and shower before leaving for College Station.

— We got near the stadium, running late, I might add, and couldn’t get in – there was a traffic accident at an intersection, apparently, that had things backed up. — My father-in-law and I had to park about a mile away from Kyle Field, and when we finally got in, it was with about a minute left in the first quarter, the only KHS football game to which I’ve arrived late.

— We had car trouble on the way home, a flat tire – with no spare, at about 2 a.m. Spent the night in the car in a Wal-Mart parking lot out in the sticks, with Kilgore College’s bowl game against Pima College the next day.

You can be certain we’ll be traveling with a good spare to Conroe this weekend.

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A COUPLE OF FOOTBALLRELATED items.

1.) There will be no Kilgore News Herald this Thursday (Thanksgiving). And since the game isn’t played until Saturday, anyway, Game Time Weekly — the News Herald’s weekend football preview that normally is a part of Thursday’s paper — will be a part of Friday’s paper instead.

2.) If you’d like to save money and not spend gasoline, the KHS football booster club will take charter buses to Conroe for Saturday’s contest. The tickets are first come, first-served, and are $20 each. That doesn’t include your ticket to the game, but it will assure you of getting to the game and drop you off right at the entrance gate. As soon as the game’s over, back you come to KHS.

The buses leave from the Mitchell Field House parking lot, and will begin loading at 8 a.m. Saturday. They depart at 8:30, no exceptions.

For more, give Travis Martin a call at (903) 720-4812 or Gary Blanks at (903) 4458849.

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HAPPY BIRTHDAY TODAY

to locals

Celebrating with them is “The Man from U.N.C.L.E.!” — Robert Vaughn (73), actress Jamie Lee Curtis (47), former tennis stars Billie Jean King (62) and Boris Becker (38), rocker Steve Van Zandt (who also stars on “The Sopranos,” I believe; he’s 55), and actresses Mariel Hemmingway (44) and Scarlett Johansson (21).