By JIM NICHOLS My brain is odd because it remembers single phrases that seem to be just the right statement at the right time. Professor Harold Hill was a shyster. He was the “Music Man” from the same-named musical and he traveled from small town to small town (“You Really Ought to Give Iowa a Try”) and duped the townsfolk
Read moreBy DANNY MINTON It was the week before Christmas 1965 that a Dallas Morning News article came out with me receiving the game ball for our team’s AA state football championship. I was lying in my hospital bed with a broken vertebra in my neck the week before and didn’t get to play in the final game. The game was
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The Carl Spain Center on Race Studies & Spiritual Action, housed at Abilene Christian University, has issued a series of letters, collectively titled “The Letters of Conscience to the Churches in America: A Courageous Christian Response to White Supremacy.” The letters were written by men and women from a variety of walks of life, including many familiar to Abilenians, with
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By LORETTA FULTON In a perfect world, kids would be gearing up for Vacation Bible School right now. As COVID-19 has reminded us, this isn’t a perfect world. Instead of making sure there’s enough cookies and juice for snack time, children’s ministers are making sure they know how to log in to the Zoom app. Thanks to the coronavirus pandemic,
Read moreBy DANNY MINTON If you had to choose one college football bowl game as the greatest one ever, which one would you choose? Maybe it would be the 1963 Rose Bowl when Wisconsin almost made a great comeback to beat USC, scoring 23 points in the last 12 minutes to close in on a 30 point deficit. Then there was
Read moreEditor’s Note: Laura Lacey Johnson is a former employee of KTXS-TV, the Community Foundation of Abilene, and Howard Payne University in Brownwood. She now lives in Missouri and is an author and creator of Christian videos. She will be an occasional contributor to Spirit of Abilene. Following is a brief bio and links to devotionals and prayer guidelines designed for
Read moreBy JIM NICHOLS The previous article ended with a suggestion that competition between humans has significant negative consequences; collaboration and cooperation are preferable. As usual, however, suggesting alternatives (collaboration and cooperation) requires identification of their inherent problems also. Working with one another rather than against one another is difficult to accomplish because of our competitive nature. Whether that nature is
Read moreIDLE AMERICAN Commentary by Dr. Don Newbury Push Americans into a corner, and they’ll either start painting or enliven the crunched space with creative juices soon to spill over. Superintendents and other school “brass” have greatly expanded committees planning commencement ceremonies, realizing that “same old” plans employed historically since the earth started cooling are “no more.” For many reasons–some understandable,
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By LORETTA FULTON Resumes poured in from California to South Africa, but in the end the best man for the job was right here in Abilene. In fact, he was in the building. “We bring to you the name of John Whitten to be the sixth senior pastor of Pioneer Drive Baptist Church.” John Whitten 10 months20 meetings46 resumes4 finalists1
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