KILGOROUND

WORKERS at Clayton's Mini-Mart have scrubbed the shelves and replaced the inventory. This weekend they re-opened the convenience store.

CLAYTON'S North, between what used to be the Rocky Ridge Apartments and Hwy. 259, suffered only smoke damage when fire destroyed the apartment complex and McNabb Chiropractic Center more than week ago.

NEW-FANGLED technology - gas pumps that accept your credit card - allowed owners Jackie and Vickie Clayton to continue to sell gasoline even though motorists had to go elsewhere for twinkies and lottery tickets.

EXCEPT for the charred rubble next door, it's back to business as usual at the store.

THOSE in the know, incidentally, maintain that Clayton's offers the most reliable air compressor and tire-filling station in town. And the price - free - is most attractive.

+++ CITY manager Jeff Howell

has grown grizzly.

JEFF'S spent the past several weeks growing a beard which, we're told, will eventually be shaped into Elvis-style muttonchop sideburns.

HE, postmaster Chuck Maxwell, businessman Bob Davis and financial whiz Reese Nichols - and several others - will impersonate the late Elvis Presley at the Treatment Center's Sock-Hop on April 1.

DURING the recent Christmas holidays, Howell was among the local singers who entertained seasonal strollers at the World's Richest Acre.

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WHO knew? Despite the hoopla over terrorism and such, international travel is still popular.

SO popular, in fact, that the Dallas post office hosted - of all things - a "passport fair" Saturday to deal with the swarms of wanna-be tourists who need a passport.

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ATTENTION skiiers... Winter officially ends at 1:26 p.m. tomorrow, March 20.

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HAPPY birthday today to Lauren Halbert, Camile Clark, Ruby Lee Robertson, Molly Smith, Carl Till, Karen Wade, Byron Pace, Gary Blanks, Bebe Jo Stone, Mike Joseph, Johnny Jackson, Neda Owens, Tatiana Alexis Loredo, Betty Ready.

AND, blowing out candles on their birthday cakes on Monday, will be Megan Jackson, Sarah Camp, Ginger Bullock, Richard Earl Portley, Angela Thornbrugh, Sandy Roberson, R.R. (Strawberry) Hancock, Helen Thompson, N.B. Malone, Randy Yates, Sammy Henley, W.D. Anderson, Ida Smith, Angela Wheat, Iris Williams, Dorothy Rose, Johnathan Pace, Louise Washington, Joseph Heard, Sandra Odom.

MARRIED ANOTHER YEAR Monday is Mr. and Mrs. David Cline.