HOWARD PAYNE UNIVERSITYNews release Howard Payne University invites the public to the groundbreaking for the Newbury Family Welcome Center at 1:30 p.m. June 25. The event will take place at Old Main Park, located near the intersection of Austin Avenue and Center Avenue on the HPU campus in Brownwood. The welcome center is named for the family of Dr. Don
Read moreBy NANCY PATRICK As I recently sifted out some old and unneeded files, I found a document that really pleased me. Evidently, one of my Abilene High School seniors from the 2002-2003 school year had asked me to participate in a graduation project required by one of her other teachers. Although I didn’t remember this project, my introductory comments for
Read moreIDLE AMERICANCommentary by Dr. Don Newbury It’s a parental directive virtually all of us have lodged in our minds dating back to childhood days when our memories started to take root. “Look both directions,” they implored, emphasizing dangers posed by passing cars. Often, they’d throw additional dangers at intersections, thus providing more dreadful statistics that made us even more fearful of
Read moreBy 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
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