Photos from Danna’s Flea Market Style and Swap
By Savannah Owens
Danna’s Flea Market Style and Swap was held this weekend from April 12th-15th at the Civic Center. Vendors filled the banquet hall and spilled out onto the front lawn. Vendors and shoppers came from near and far. There was literally something for everyone. The Flea market featured fashion items and clothes, unique furniture and antiques, comic books, quilts, and rare coins! Customers enjoyed looking for rare finds and treasures. There were several food trucks and booths as well as fantastic live music and door prizes. Everyone had a good time and also enjoyed taking complimentary photos at the “Bonnie and Clyde” car photo booth.
Upcoming 4-H Events
Paper Clover Campaign
Hopkins County 4-H members invite you to visit the 4-H exhibit at the Sulphur Springs Tractor Supply. From April 11 thru April 22, the annual spring Paper Clover Campaign will be held. When checking out, donate $1, with a portion of the proceeds going to the Hopkins County 4-H program. Funds will be used to help send 4-H members to camps and leadership conferences.
What’s Missing in Your Pantry?
A fun, informational program is planned for the 60+ crowd on Wednesday, April 25, and Thursday, April 26, starting at 9:30 a.m., at First United Methodist Church, 301 Church Street (enter through the Family Life Center). The two topics are “What’s Missing in Your Pantry?”, which covers nutrients that are often missing in the 60+ crowd. On Thursday, the topic will be “Eat Smart, Live Strong” focusing on colorful and classic flavors, plus simple exercises that can benefit overall health. Contact Johanna Hicks, at the Texas A&M AgriLife Extension Office, 903-885-3443, so adequate preparations can be made.
Twogether in Texas Marriage Education Workshop
Are you or someone you know getting married? The spring “Twogether in Texas” marriage education workshop is scheduled for Saturday, May 12, 8:30 a.m. to 3:30 p.m., at the Texas A&M AgriLife Extension Office, 1200 W. Houston, Sulphur Springs. (Another workshop is planned for August 25, so pick the date that works best for you!) This workshop is the perfect solution to inform engaged couples and save money! Topics include: Marriage Expectations; Communication; Conflict Resolution; Money Management; and Goals & Dreams. There is no charge for the workshop, and engaged couples will receive a certificate to save $60 upon applying for a marriage license. The certificate is good for one year from the date it is issued. Lunch and refreshments will be provided. Please call Johanna Hicks at 903-885-3443 for more information and to sign up.
Meal A Day Menu for April 16th-20th
Meal A Day Menu
April 16th – April 20th
Monday
Chili Cheese Dogs
Cole Slaw
Potato Chips
Tuesday
Oven Omelet
Sliced Ham
Oranges
Blueberry Muffins
Wednesday
Beef Stroganoff
English Peas
Garlic Toast
Tossed Salad
Thursday
Chicken and Cheese Sliders
Lettuce, Tomatoes and Onions
Pork and Beans
Friday
Cheesy Chicken and Rice Casserole
Pickled Beets
Broccoli
Dinner Bell Menu For April 18, 2018
DINNER BELL MENU
April 18, 2018
Water Oak Elementary
Community Partner of the Week
Beef Tortilla Casserole
Pinto Beans
Mexican Rice
Salsa
Garden Salad
Tortillas and Butter
Sopapilla Cheesecake
Vanilla Pudding with Pineapple Cream–Sugur Free Dessert
Same time (11:45 a.m.). Same place (Fellowship Hall of the First United Methodist Church).
4th Annual Tennis Tournament Benefits Community, Hosted By CANHelp
By Savannah Owens
CANHelp’s 4th Annual Tennis Tournament was held on Saturday April 14th, 2018. There were a total of 16 teams including locals to groups from Tyler and Dallas. The categories included students and advanced players.
Four years ago, CANHelp members wanted to host a fundraiser, and they partnered with Coach Martinez and the SSHS tennis team to put on this event. Shanna Martin said the event has “continued to grow every year”, and her favorite part is “having the community come together to benefit CANHelp” as well as seeing the old and new faces of the tennis players each year. “We wanted to do something different, something no one else was doing [for a fundraiser]. Coach Martinez has years of experience and that’s how we settled on tennis.”
The wind was chilly but smiles were all around as teams faced off in doubles tennis matches. Players and spectators alike were having a great time! 
CANHelp is selling raffle tickets for a Trip to Magnolia at the Silos in Waco, Texas. This includes a $500 Magnolia gift card, hotel stay, gas money, and much more! The tickets are $10 for one, or $50 for six, and will be available on their website here, or in the store. The winners will be announced May 15th. CANHelp is also sold concessions and T-shirts at the Tennis Tournament. Their “Changing Life Shirts” will be available all year and proceeds will benefit the community.
CANHelp will also be selling “Walking Tacos” on Monday at CanHelp in Sulphur Springs, stop in for some tasty tacos and help your community along the way! They are raising funds for members in the community that need assistance with rent, utilities, hygiene products, blankets, and more.
CANHelp is a valuable asset to the community offering many programs and services such as Emergency Assistance, Educational Tools, Financial Empowerment, Food, Job Readiness and Interviewing Strategies, as well as much more.
CANHelp is also known as Hopkins County Community Action Network, a faith based non-profit organization whose purpose is to provide assistance to Sulphur Springs and rural communities of Hopkins County and surrounding areas. They strive to provide compassionate, comprehensive solutions that empower the under served in our communities to make positive, lasting changes in their lives.
If you would like to learn more about CANHelp, purchase a raffle ticket or “Changing Life Shirts”, would like to donate, or get involved volunteering visit their website here, or stop in at 613 Gilmer Street in Sulphur Springs.
Food, Fun, and Dutch Ovens: John Chester Dutch Oven Cooking Class
By Savannah Owens
The Annual John Chester Dutch Oven cooking class was held Saturday April 14th, 2018 from 8:00 am-12:00 pm. The class was comprised of 20-30 people interested in learning how to cook using a dutch oven.
The approximate number of coals used in cooking the food is 37. Place 12 coals under the pot and 25 on top. The class was instructed by Rick Wilson and Henry Penson. Wilson started the class with John Chester 16 years ago.
Marie Chester, has been cooking with dutch ovens for her “entire life”. She has “always loved cooking.” The competition and class was named after her son John Chester, who “did the stew cook-off, and loved cooking in a dutch oven.”
Wilson has been cooking in dutch ovens for over 50 years and started when he was a kid. It’s “fun, it’s really fast, and it makes outside food taste better!” Wilson said as he discussed the benefits of using a dutch oven. “Anything you want to cook in the house you can cook in a dutch oven.
The food cooked at the class consisted of garlic chicken with green beans and potatoes, vegetables, pork with sausage, pork with feta cheese, spinach and bell pepper, cheesy potatoes, meat loaf, bread rolls and more. Dessert contained cherry cobbler, peach cobbler, bread pudding. The bread pudding sauce had a “cinnamon, vanilla and caramel taste.”The food smelled and tasted absolutely delicious, and the bread pudding was one of the best this reporter has ever eaten.
Before eating the group gathered for a prayer. Wilson reminded everyone that “Today was a learning experience.” He was “thankful to have such a nice group come out to participate” and hinted at the opportunity of Heritage Park offering smaller and more individual training dutch oven classes to allow “everyone to participate in learning this unique art.”
Rick Wilson explained that the time for cooking in a dutch oven isn’t much different from cooking in a regular oven. “It depends on what you’re cooking.” Your meats are going to cook longer than your sides. Typically, it would range from “1 hour to an hour and a half for a full meal if you plan it properly.” Cooking with coal is also easier to regulate the temperature instead of to wood. “Wood is more of a guessing game than Charcoal.” It would be similar to “cooking on gas or electric stoves compared to a wood burning stove.”
D’Nette Kelley
There were door-prizes and giveaways throughout the day. D’Nette Kelly won a coal shovel, and Linda Almon won the Grand Prize which included a metal grill, entry fee for the Dutch Oven competition in October and more. The three coal shovels and rustic antique grill were donated by Como-Pickton FFA.
The attendees volunteered for cooking the different items, and got to help chop, slice, stir and cook the different portions of the meals. Reba’s favorite part was cooking the yeast rolls, and meeting new people. Michael liked seeing all the neat equipment used for cooking.
Heritage Park was also selling cooking items like cast iron skillets and cookware, dutch ovens, cook books, and courthouse cutting boards. Proceeds stay in Heritage Park and their new building fund. The new building will be available for rent for receptions or parties and will replace the location of the old bathrooms.
Heritage Park staff member Barbara Hudson talked about upcoming events in the park such as the Arts and Crafts Garage sale in May, and the Indian Summer days, and Dutch Oven Cook-off in October. For more information about these upcoming events, rentals, or Heritage Park visit their website here.
Meal A Day In Need of Drivers
Young Eagles Flight Day Postponed Due to Wind
The Young Eagles Flight Rally scheduled for Saturday, April 14, 2018, at Sulphur Springs Municipal Airport has been postponed due to windy conditions. The event has been rescheduled for Saturday, April 21st, according to Ben Scarborough, coordinator for the event.
Young Eagles Flight is organized through the Experimental Aircraft Association and sanctioned by the Civil Air Patrol. Local EAA chapter #1094 is also called the Sulphur Springs Sport Aviation Organization.
Stock photo
Hopkins County Genealogical Society Monthly Meeting Notes: March 15, 2018
The Hopkins County Genealogical Society met on March 15, 2018 in the library at 611 N. Davis Street. President John Sellers called the meeting to order at 7:00 PM and welcomed everyone.
President Sellers asked if everyone had read over the minutes. There were no questions. The minutes were approved as prepared. Copies of the financial report were temporarily unavailable for distribution, so they will be made available at the next meeting.
With the business portion of the meeting concluded, 1 st Vice President Rhonda Bechhold introduced the speaker, Paul Ridenour, of Dallas, Texas. He is an active researcher of several organizations and is the current president of the Texas Society of the War of 1812.
Mr. Ridenour began by mentioning two sisters, Essie and Adelle Smith, who had a Sulphur Springs connection. Charles Augustus Smith and Emma Leola Glausier Smith came to Texas from Georgia and Alabama. She was a mean lady. She once shot a man and killed a man who was foaming at the mouth while wandering in her back yard. Their first daughter was Mamie Pearl Smith Whaley, who was Mr. Ridenour’s great grandmother. Their 6th and 8th children were Ora Bernice Smith and Adelle Smith. The Smiths were a very poor family. Essie was adopted out of the family in 1916 when she was 6 years old. She was later returned to her family. Adelle was adopted out at 4 years old in 1916 by John R. Hughes and Addie Smoke Hughes. Essie and Adelle never saw each other again. When Essie was about 21 years old, she was walking to church one evening with her sister, Ora, when her boyfriend came along in his new pickup truck. He was showing off for the girls when he accidentally struck Essie. She died in the hospital two days later.
Adelle did not know about her sister’s death. In the 1980s, she was still trying to locate Essie. Essie had been dead since 1931. Adelle died in 1988. Her daughter and the grandchildren all know about it now. Mr. Ridenour is in contact now with all of the living family members. They are all cousins. They get together with each other from time to time.
Next Mr. Ridenour began the second part of his presentation about three Creek sisters who owned plantations in the Jefferson area. He rediscovered the old Mt. Tabor Indian Cemetery in 2005 after searching for it for two years. It is located between Laird Hill and Leverett’s Chapel in Rusk County on the old homeplace of John Bell, Jr. Mr. Ridenour thinks there are 30 to 50 graves there. All the markers are gone. The cemetery was destroyed by oilmen in the 1950s – ‘60s. Mt. Tabor was an old Cherokee Indian community. Buried in the cemetery are mostly Cherokees, some Choctaws, some Chickasaws, and some Creeks.
Rebecca McIntosh Hawkins Hagerty was born in 1815 in the Lower Creek Indian nation in Georgia. She was the daughter of William M. McIntosh, half-Scottish Chief of the Lower Division of Creeks, and his second wife, Susannah Ree, who was a full-blooded Creek. When Rebecca was 10 years old, her father agreed to sell a large part of the Creek lands in Georgia in exchange for a “permanent” home west of the Mississippi. He was murdered by a band from the Upper Creek Nation who resented the loss of the tribal lands and their own forced removal. The following year, Rebecca’s older half-brother, Chillicothe McIntosh, led the Creeks out of Georgia to the Indian Nation to the west. Her father's half-brother, Roley McIntosh, later assumed the role of Chief of the Lower Creeks until his retirement in 1859.
In 1831 Rebecca married Benjamin Hawkins of the Western Creek Nation. Hawkins was the half-Indian son of a Creek woman and Colonel Benjamin Hawkins, Sr., a former United States Congressman. Their first child, Louisa was born December 27, 1831, at Fort Gibson, Indian territory. There Ben became acquainted with Sam Houston, and in 1833 the family migrated to East Texas where Hawkins acquired a headright on 3700 acres in Marion County, and slaves to work it. A second child, Anna, was born in Nacogdoches in 1834. Here Hawkins and his friend Houston
engaged in some land transactions and other dealings together, and Hawkins was reportedly involved in an attempt to purchase land for the settlement of "a large body of Indians from the United States", the rumor of which raised the fear and anger of the Anglo-American citizenry. Sometime in 1836, he was murdered, probably at Nacogdoches and perhaps as a result of ongoing conflict between the Indians and other settlers. Rebecca and their two daughters inherited his property.
In 1838, Rebecca married Spire M. Hagerty, who held land and slaves in Harrison County. They had two children who survived to maturity, Frances and Spire, Jr., born at the Phoenix Plantation near Marshall in 1848 and 1849. The marriage was very troubled due to Hagerty’s drunkenness. They divorced in either 1848 or 1849. In the 1840s, Rebecca’s two sisters, Delilah and Catherine Hettie McIntosh, had married William Drew and James Willison, and settled on part of the Hawkins land near Rebecca's home north of Jefferson in Marion County. In 1849, Spire M. Hagerty, Sr., died in Montgomery, Alabama. There were several legal disputes in the Hagerty family over his
estate. Finally, in 1853, the Texas Supreme Court partitioned the estate, giving Spire M. Hagerty, Jr. 3/8 of the property, and Frances retained 5/8. From the date of her final separation from Spire Hagerty, probably in 1848, Rebecca managed the plantations; the Refuge in Marion County and the Phoenix, in Harrison County, as well as the
household. The principal cash crop was cotton, worked by a slave force that numbered 102 in 1860. The Phoenix plantation was later bought by Thomas Jefferson Taylor, father of Lady Bird Johnson. There are no structures still standing on the Refuge plantation, although there are numerous artifacts from the house. The house was built in 1849 and was completely collapsed by the 1920s. Rebecca died circa 1886 in the Indian Territory and is buried there. Spire Hagerty, Jr. died in Jefferson in 1886 of tuberculosis. None of the McIntosh-Hawkins- Hagerty clan remained living at Refuge or Phoenix plantations by the mid-1890s.
The presentation sparked much discussion and was interesting and educational. Those in attendance included John Sellers, Maggie Mae Sherrow, Jan Stovall, Sue Tittle, Jean Bell, Jerry Gregg, Don Fausett, W. B. White, Jr., Paul Ridenour, Ella Brown, Charles A. Steger, Carrol Gregg, Billy Lucas, Rhonda Buchhold, Marcille Tucker, Donna Moore, CarolAnn Dixon, Ronny Glossup, Phyllis Brown, Anita Glossup, Pat Chase, Doris White, and Marilyn Smith.
The meeting was adjourned at 7:58 PM.
Significant Weather Advisory for Eastern Hopkins County Until 10:30 p.m.
A strong thunderstorm over Como at 9:54 p.m. has prompted a significant weather advisory until 10:30 p.m. for Eastern Hopkins County. The storm is moving northeast at 40 mph. Dime size hail and winds up to 40 mph possible with this storm. This storm may intensify, so closely monitor if you are in Eastern Hopkins County.
