KILGOROUND

AN EARLY ERRAND took us to Longview one morning this week. We hit the intersection of Hwy 31 and FM 349 shortly after 7:30.

OUR conclusion? If you navigate that intersection cleanly every morning for 10 or 15 years, you're just living right.

CARS, sport utes, pickups and big rigs dart left to right and right to left, in and out of gas stations, in and out of turn lanes.

THE signal at Houston, Main and Hwy 259 may be excruciatingly, maddeningly slow, but at least one feels relatively secure.

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AS your friend Jerry Jones might say: "How 'bout them Celtic Muses?"

YET another successful concert at the World's Richest Acre is behind us.

THURSDAYS in the Patch, courtesy Kilgore Historical Preservation Foundation, offer further proof (the newspaper has for years insisted that it is so) that Kilgore might really be America's No. 1 Small City.

+++ A NEW son-in-law, freshly

unpacked in Tyler after his move from San Diego, was in Kilgore last weekend.

SHOPS were closed but we led him on an afterhours window-shopping stroll along Kilgore and Main Streets.

"I would never have believed there were shops like this in a town this size," he said. "When Mom and Dad come back to Texas, we're coming here!"

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OH, sure, you, your sister and uncle have been laid off and having a hard time finding work. But be of good cheer; that whole lack-of-job thing may be mostly a media story.

"IT'S easy to be discouraged by the gloomy economic forecasts broadcast by national leaders and the media, but the truth is there is hope and there are jobs out there," Rep. Louie Gohmert said this week.

CONGRESSMAN Gohmert is hosting a job fair at LeTourneau University in Longview Monday, June 29, from 9 a.m. to noon.

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ONE of the best things about working in print media - as opposed to broadcast - is that I don't have to embarrass myself by mispronouncing alma mater. It's one of those simple phrases that people just struggle over.

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WE notice that IESI, hoping to win the trash contract for the city of Kilgore, has joined the Chamber of Commerce.

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Blowing out the birthday candles this week, Saturday to Tuesday are Brad Faulkner, Terri Walker, Virginia Mankins, Jason Agee, Larry Hawkins, Billy Bob Brady, J.D. Wood, Nanette Sudweeks, Mark Burgess, Lee Herrin, Sandy Manos, Laverne Goodacre, Amye and Alan McCracken, Henry Taylor, Bessie Sibley, Tracy Orange, Jacob Dailey, Brandon Finley, Aubrianna Gulvan, Jake Taylor, Charles Nobles Jr.

Roger Johnson, Gayle Bryan, Jan Norris, Billie Maxwell, Larry Gaudet, Joe Owens, Danny E. Craig, Tom Brown, Eugene Nelson, Edwin Slayter, Lynda Sorrell, Michael Scott, Lettle B. Conway, Tillie Waldron, Margaret Brown, Cheryl Aubuchon, Joshua McNiel, Christin Reeves, Austin Pool, Stephanie Heard, Austin Lynn Pool.

Scott Smith, Angie Wood, Cindy Duncan, Yolanda Howard, Clemmie Lewis, Kevin Roach, Jessica Evonne Hooks, Heather Ross, Charles "Buster" Sanders.

Joe Lee Powell Jr., Janet Wilbourne, Luke Lollie, Jo Ann Sullivan Harvey, Jesse Hamilton, Tammy Leanne Renshaw, Jackson Walker.

Celebrating anniversariers during that same time are Mr. and Mrs. Thomas Craig, Mr. and Mrs. Steve Leach, Tim and Glynette Ford, Toni and Rance Taylor.

Mr. and Mrs. Larry Darnell Hamilton, Eddie and Terry Quintanilla.

Kenneth and Kathryn Hudgins.

Lee and Virginia Adams, Derek and Beverly Price, Brenda and Clifton Edney, Mike and Amelia Free.