News

The Graham City Council made progress on the budget and tax rate during their budget hearing last Thursday, setting a proposed tax rate of $0.676981 per $100 valuation or a raise of approximately 4% over the effective rate of $0.650943 per $100 valuation.

The effective tax rate for this year is lower than last year’s rate of $0.6527 per $100 valuation. The effective rate is the total tax rate needed to raise the same amount of property tax revenue from the same properties in both the 2018 and 2019 tax year.

Palo Pinto County filed their proposed budget for fiscal year 2020 with a proposed tax rate on Wednesday, July 31.

The proposed budget will raise $995,173, or 8.54%, more of property taxes than last year’s budget. Over $164,000 of that amount is taxes which will be raised from new property added to the tax roll.

The corner of Oak and Second St. will be getting a little bit brighter as resident Bailee Green is nearing completion of her ’Always brighten the corner where you are’ mural.

The project is being funded by a private benefactor to the Graham Chamber of Commerce and Convention and Visitors Bureau who has offered to pay for a series of murals and is sponsored by Ken’s Equipment and Star Six Construction.

For the second straight year, petitioners approached the Palo Pinto Commissioner’s Court with hopes of getting the creation of Emergency Service District 4 on the November election ballot and for the second straight year, the petitioners were denied with the Commissioners voting against the measure in a 4-1 vote.

Water safety will be taught, new lifejackets will be given out and games will be played at the Remembering Wyatt Dale Water Safety Family Fun in the Sun event from 10 a.m. to 2 p.m. Saturday, Aug. 24, at Lake Eddlemen.

This will be the sixth annual Family Fun in the Sun event held by the organization, according to co-founder Tracey Terasas. The event was originally scheduled for May 18 on the historic downtown square, but weather forced the event to be rescheduled.

The Texas Education Agency released the 2019 A-F state accountability ratings last Thursday, with Graham Independent School District improving from a C to B rating overall for the district, but falling from a C to D rating for every campus besides Graham High School.

Severe weather brought chaos to Graham and Young County as four fires hit the area and street light outages hit Graham Tuesday, Aug. 13.

A thunderstorm rolled into Graham around 4 p.m. and dropped 0.22 inches of rain and had multiple close lightning strikes.

The Graham Area United Way approved their 2019-2020 campaign goal of $100,000 last week, benefiting ten local area agencies with the objective of “Building a Bridge to a Stronger Community.”

GAUW began March 3,1956 during a meeting of the civic committee of the Graham Chamber of Commerce and since then has grown to encompass 250-plus volunteers on the executive board, board of directors, allocation board, campaign organization cabinet, packet workers, public speakers and individuals from businesses which assist through employee pledges and programs.

The Desk and Derrick Club of Graham presented a $1,000 scholarship to recent Graham High School graduate Hayden Husen during their monthly meeting Tuesday, Aug. 13.

Husen graduated from GHS in May where he served as class president, competed on the speech and debate team, competed in the National Technological Student Association and on the Steers basketball team. Husen will be headed to the University of North Texas.

The Graham Fire Department has been wearing breast cancer awareness T-shirts since 2010, this year the GFD auxiliary is seeking help from the public in designing the shirt.

Auxiliary vice president Cole Epperson said the designs must include back print, only two colors plus shirt color, be family friendly and in some way endorse the fire department and bring awareness to breast cancer.