Do you want a smile today?
Who doesn't, right? I salute Advocate staffers Aprill Brandon, Frank Tilley and Bill Clough who all made the lives of our readers a little brighter the past couple of days. If you missed their recent contributions, I encourage you to ...

Did you see serious car crash in Cuero?
A reader tells us a car speeding through Cuero smashed into a tree, apparently killing the driver at 1 p.m. today. Our reporter is checking with Cuero officials for the details for Friday's edition, but our photographer was covering a ...

What community service do you value?
One of the reasons many prefer working at community newspapers is the closer connection you have with your readers. This happens naturally because we regularly bump into the people we write about. At the Los Angeles Times, you might be ...

Why dig deeper into a national story in our backyard?
A few readers have accused us of unnecessarily rehashing a sad chapter in Victoria's history: the death of 19 illegal immigrants trapped inside a tractor-trailer. They said the story was old news. However, we contend the stories we've presented so ...

How important is education?
You may not realize the value of family ownership of a community newspaper. This special relationship came into full view Thursday night when the University of Houston-Victoria announced the plans of the Roberts-McHaney family to endow a professorship of humanities. ...

Why would you want to move from Boston to Victoria?
I interviewed Friday a job candidate  from the Boston area. We spent quite a bit of time talking about why he'd want to move from a place he'd lived all of his life to South Texas. The answers might surprise ...

A special reunion
I gave a dear friend a hug when we met tonight in the Harvard Bookstore, and then we had dinner together in Harvard Square. The reunion made a day of traveling well worth it. I'm in Cambridge this weekend for ...

What are the headlines across the country today?
Thank you again to all who participated Tuesday in our contest to write Wednesday's historic front-page headline. If you read online only, I encourage you to pick up the print version to get the full effect of "Barack solid." A ...

What should be the big headline on tomorrow's edition?
We're having a newsroom contest to see who can come up with the one or two words that will be across the top of Wednesday's front page. What's your suggestion? We need ideas for both possible winners, of course. If ...