If last week’s cover story (“Upsetting the Apple Cart,” April 21, 2010) fired your interest in this spring’s hotter-than-usual races for the Fort Worth school board, you may want to go to church. Not necessarily to pray for local schoolchildren or for wise usage of their parents’ tax dollars (though that couldn’t hurt), but to take part in a forum featuring several of those candidates.
As Static colleague Betty Brink noted in her Tuesday Blotch posting, the forum is set for Thursday, April 29, at the Wedgwood Baptist Church, beginning at 6 p.m. The church is at 5222 Whitman Ave. just south of I-20 near McCart Avenue and across the street from Bruce Shulkey Elementary School, whose PTA is hosting the event. Among the candidates who’ve agreed to participate are District 6 incumbent Chris Hatch and his challenger, Ann Sutherland, and Linda LaBeau, who is running for the District 5 seat currently held by Judy Needham. If you’ve been looking for a chance to quiz trustees and their would-be replacements on test scores, taxes, discipline issues, or anything else, here’s your chance. This may be the only opportunity to hear these folks in person before the election on May 8. Early voting started April 26.
Then, as long as you’re already in church, you might pray for a little help for Texas in its fight over what (and who) will go into its textbooks and, by extension, the books used by the rest of the country. When Static was in school, kids used to cut and tape brown paper grocery bags for book covers. These days, they might do better to put the bags over their heads when explaining our state’s textbook policies to anyone from outside our borders.
Let the Little Folks Pitch
Tarrant County Judge Glen Whitley usually gets to throw out the first pitch at Texas Rangers games during the annual county employees’ discount day at The Ballpark in Arlington. Although Whitley will never be mistaken for Nolan Ryan, he’s done a decent job of lobbing a baseball across home plate in previous years. But in a magnanimous gesture at this week’s county commissioners court meeting, he indicated he is considering letting another county employee make the throw this year. He playfully suggested letting long-in-tooth commissioner J.D. Johnson give it a whirl, but Johnson didn’t appear interested.
Whitley said he’s considering holding a contest or a drawing to let county employees vie for the June 23 honor. Static appreciates that thought, with one amendment: Elected officials and department heads should be disqualified — let worker ants shine in the spotlight for a change.
