KILGOROUND

WE'VE NEVER BEEN 100 percent certain that it really is the world's largest lighted Christmas parade, but…

JOIN thousands of your neighbors for the annual Christmas parade Tuesday evening. The parade - with a whole bunch of lighted floats - departs the vicinity of the Presbyterian Church at 6:30 p.m., snakes up East Main Street and turns north on Kilgore Street before disbanding at approximately the Subway sandwich shop.

PLUS, the parade always marks Santa's first official visit to Kilgore.

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IT'S A FACT we live in a changing world, but we didn't know it had changed this radically: Gussie Nell Davis, the late founding director of the Kilgore College Rangerettes, maintains a Facebook account. If she accepts me as her "friend," she'll have 509

friends on her site.

IT may not actually be Miss Davis, given that she died these many years ago, but someone is certainly posing as her, posting messages on the social networking site.

AND her picture pops up when you log onto her page.

WE'VE not checked yet to see if the late Miss Davis also maintains a My- Space account.

APPARENTLY Miss Davis did not accompany the Rangerettes on their Thanksgiving trip to California; "she" was posting messages while the girls were on the road.

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HAS anyone else noticed that since the election of Barack Obama, about half the emails floating around are written in ALL CAPS?

IT SEEMS WE'RE ALL SHOUTING AT EACH OTHER THESE DAYS.

+++ THAT old line about meeting the nicest people on a Honda? Sometimes it's a Suzuki or a Piaggio.

AMONG our house guests this week were Susan and Chuck Gibke. She rides a Piaggio and her husband, Chuck, rides a Suzuki.

WE discovered that Susan attended about four years of grade school here as the daughter of Railroad Commission employee Arthur Johnson Logan and his wife, Elsie. The Logans are buried at Pleasant Hill Cemetery, the Henderson-area cemetery that is also the final resting place of so many of the children killed in the London school explosion.

AND, notably, Susan is the granddaughter of Reuben James Bell, the building contractor who handled the construction of Kilgore's beautiful public library.

TO satisfy the curiosity of those of you who recall her from her youth, Susan teaches school in the metromess and is married to a rocket scientist.

+++ HAPPY birthday today, Sunday, to Kelsey Jackson, Faye Carroll, Andy Adamez, Debbie Grant, Rob Ekstadt, Jimmy Leach, Sonya Bynum, Tonia Bynum, Berniece Balusek, Kriscinda Moore, Bud Chitwood, Tracy Fry, Cheyenne Smith, Meagan J. Clark, Christopher Oglesby, Alan Garner, Dexter Guin, Alan Ruth, Cheryl Riley, Steve Philpott, Dustin Odom, Doug Olson.

HAPPY anniversary today to Mr. and Mrs. Claude Wallace Irene Harvey, Sammy Morris, Danny Goode, John Paul Kulak, Craig Steelman, Alfred Crim, Rhonda Wenger, Richard Caldwell Jr., Kim Boykin, Sami Jowers, Sherry Lockman, Bob Ostrom, Casi Botter, Joe Hale, Jewel T. Proctor, Michelle Haynes, Jill Nieuhiser, Frederick E. Richardson, Brittany Conner, Lottie Batts, Margie Hall

BLOWING out birthday candles Monday are

CELEBRATING wedding anniversaries Monday are Floyd and Mirtle Gilcoat, Mr. and Mrs. Jack Hawkins, Mr. and Mrs. Danny Webber, Calvin and Regina Williams