News

Early voting in the November election begins in a little over two weeks as the deadline for registering to vote in the election is Tuesday. The ballot will contain 14 constitutional amendments as well as a bond measure for the Olney Hamilton Hospital District.

Early voting will be held Monday, Oct. 23 through Friday, Nov. 3. Early voting polling locations are North Central Texas College at 928 Cherry St. in Graham and Olney Community Library at 807 W. Hamilton St. in Olney.

In coordination with the Fellowship of Christian Athletes (FCA), Graham ISD students and others from surrounding districts will meet next week at Newton Field for the 15th annual Fields of Faith event.

The event will be held Wednesday, Oct. 11, with gates opening at 6:30 p.m. and the main event beginning at 7 p.m. The interdenominational event will be held at more than 500 locations throughout the nation as students gather to spend an evening sharing their faith and beliefs.

The Federal Emergency Management Agency, in coordination with the Federal Communication Commission, will conduct a nationwide test of the Emergency Alert System (EAS) and Wireless Emergency Alerts (WEA) tomorrow. The tests are part of the Integrated Public Alert and Warning System (IPAWS).

The test will be conducted at 1:20 p.m. Wednesday, Oct. 4 and will be distributed through radio, television and cell phone communication.

After hosting a public hearing last week, the Graham Regional Medical Center Board of Trustees adopted a tax rate and budget for the upcoming fiscal year. The adopted tax rate will be a four-and-a-half cent decrease from the current rate.

The adopted tax rate of $0.272984 per $100 valuation is a 14.47% decrease from the current rate of $0.319184 per $100 valuation and matches the voter approval rate. The voter approval rate is the highest tax rate GRMC may adopt without holding an election to seek voter approval of the rate.

The annual Fall Clean Up event hosted by the city of Graham will kick off next weekend at the city convenience station. The annual event encourages various clean up methods through use of the convenience station and opportunities available during the kickoff event.

Each year the city has two clean up events in Spring and Fall, with the Spring event being hosted by the Keep Graham Beautiful organization on the downtown square in collaboration with the city of Graham.

Two opportunities are upcoming to view an eclipse in the state of Texas. Across portions of the state an annular eclipse will occur next weekend and a total eclipse will occur in April 2024.

Texas will have two eclipses within a year, one on Saturday, Oct. 14 and the other April 8, 2024. Both eclipses will not touch Young County, but the 2024 total eclipse will extend over Fort Worth.

Annular eclipse – Oct. 14, 2023

The Graham City Council accepted a bid from Vapor Industries, Inc. last week to rebuild, reclaim water and dispose of over 5,700 tons of sludge in the lagoons at the city water treatment plant.

Three bids were submitted to the city of $759,493.84 from Vapor Industries, LLC, $2,169,450 from Renda Environmental, Inc. and $2,786,460 from Merrell Bros., Inc. The contract provides for the rehabilitation of lagoons at the water treatment plant.

The Graham Transportation Improvements Committee approved a recommendation this week to the Graham City Council to redesign Elm, Cherry and Austin Streets for added safety. Included with the recommendation is new signage as well as changes to the Cherry Street entries onto Elm Street.

The Young County Historical Commission announced this week that after a three-and-a-half year effort, the 1921 Young County Jail historical marker has been delivered and a public dedication is scheduled next Saturday.

YCHC Chair John Bullock made the announcement Monday, Sept. 25 to the Young County Commissioners Court. In a press release from the Texas Historical Commission, Bullock said the designation is important for preserving local history.

The city of Graham is bidding for a comprehensive water and wastewater rate study to establish a report on how the rates should be set for the city’s maintenance and infrastructure goals.

Graham provides water and wastewater to approximately 4,200 customers through the use of self-supporting water and sewer enterprise funds. The city also provides water to two wholesale water customers: Fort Belknap Water Supply Corporation and Graham East Water Supply Corporation.