Lance Corporal Billy Roy Bowen’s bucket list was full to the brim . . . with a single item---to serve his country. His bucket tipped over and spilled on March 18, 1968, in Quang Nam Province, South Vietnam.

Stone has been cut and removed from the Floyd Quarry, south of Honey Grove, for the renovation of the Fannin County Courthouse.

A few years back, I took a mental time-out and strolled through the beautiful and historically seductive Willow Wild Cemetery, located in Bonham, approximately 75 northeast of Dallas on Highway 121. Every delicate and respectful step I took made me realize the infinite number of mothers who occupy the cemetery's nearly 10,000 graves. One timeworn, patina-kissed tombstone tugged me closer. It was that of Emma James.

John J. McGraw, owner of the New York Giants, had Jim Thorpe in right field. This was a year after Thorpe had won Olympic gold medals in the pentathlon and decathlon. On the mound for Chicago was Reb Russell, although he was known as "Lefty" growing up in Fannin County. Russell won 22 games for the White Sox that year and Shoeless Joe Jackson said Russell was one of the two toughest pitchers he ever batted against. The year was 1913 and the White Sox were squaring off against the New York Giants in a section of Bonham, Texas known as Russell Heights.

A Fort Worth Gazette clipping noted that once in Bonham, Jay Gould and his retinue, which reportedly included George (son) and his wife, Howard (son), Dr. John P. Munn and others, "were met at the depot by a delegation of prominent citizens." The Gould party was then "escorted by Capt. S. B. Allen, ex-president of the Fannin county bank and other prominent citizens . . . through the principal streets of the city." It further noted that Gould said that "we had a fine town and the finest courthouse in the state, and that we only needed a few more public buildings of the same kind."

His name was just too much for the Texans under his command, so they called him "Prince Polecat," a nickname that delighted the general. In a Confederate army officered by men of all manner of backgrounds, Camille Armand Jules Marie, Prince de Polignac was still one of a kind.

The evolutionary clash of competing cultures was not new to the Great Plains in the 1870s. It was but another cycle in the struggles for domination of the plains that had been going on for more than two hundred years, but it was the last chapter in that long and violent story.

Today is Texas Independence Day. Perhaps because of the drama of the events that so quickly followed the adoption of the Texas Declaration of Independence, other memories strike more vivid chords and have overshadowed the anniversary of March 2.

The day has never garnered the interest and attention of Texas equal to March 6 and April 21, 1836, the fall of the Alamo and the Battle of San Jacinto. That is unfortunate, for the declaration adopted 173 years ago gave rise to all that followed. It more than deserves its due.

Our Object of the Week for this week of Black History Month is our original sign from Sadie's Place, which has been described as a "legendary juke joint in Bonham famous for fried chicken." It was located in the East End of Bonham at 6th & Pine.

In the fall of 1874, three soldiers and two civilian scouts made a legendary defense against 125 mounted warriors in what became known as the Fight at Buffalo Wallow.

One could argue that the small town newspaper was the soul of the community. Certainly it provided the framework for a town's history and memories. It was communication on a far more personal level than a big city paper, no matter how many people read it each day, could provide. So it was with The Bonham Daily Favorite during the time it was my hometown paper.

Few establishments are more evocative of small town American than the barber shop on the corner. Every town had them, and each was much like the others. The names might change, the minor details might vary, but for the most part, if you plug the name of the shop in your town into the story that follows, the recognition will be instant.

With the rise of instant, and often irrelevant, information available at the click of a mouse or the swipe of a cell phone, we forget how important newspapers were to small towns up until a few years ago. They still are, but no paper from the New York Times to the smallest weekly has really figured out how to deal with the changes that have come along. But there was a time...

Bob Dylan occasionally backed her up on harmonica and, according to Wikipedia, Karen Dalton was born July 19, 1937 in Bonham, Texas. In years past, we have featured articles detailing the careers of Bonham natives black lyric soprano Roberta Dodd Crawford and influential jazz guitarist Charlie Christian; here is the third part of the trilogy. No discussion of Fannin County music trivia could be complete without the story of Karen Dalton.

Although few people in his beloved 4th District fully comprehend the growing impact of the sweeping changes ushered in during his 49 years of public service, January 6 is still Sam Rayburn Day in Texas.

Ardie McManigle was mean. Giving him the benefit of every available doubt, one was still forced to that conclusion. He was mean—not cruel, but mean; mean spirited might be a better way to put it. He was close and tight and sour and cheap and stingy and misanthropic and, well—mean.

For most of the Civil War, the Red River was a backwater to bigger events happening east of the Mississippi, but in the spring of 1864 that changed when Federal gunboats appeared on the river.

"There were only two things I wanted do to in my life," Lanny Joe Burnett will confess. "One was to play Little League baseball and the other was to be a cowboy." The first came true enough, Lanny Joe Burnett played for the Harry Dial Hardware Yankees in the Honey Grove Little League. As for the second, well, he would be the first to say he is still working on that one.

Leonard, Texas resident Matthew Harvey had driven a Jeep Wrangler during his college years, and over time he came up with an idea for a Jeep accessory that he was convinced would be a winner. "When you take the doors off a jeep, which a lot of people like to do, you lose the side view mirrors that are attached to the doors," explains Harvey. "This product uses both hinges and attaches to the latch on the inside of the door jam to relocate the mirrors. On the bottom of it is a foot pad so you put your foot on it and relax."

Not so long ago, it was common practice, particularly in small towns all over the country, for there to be tocsin of some sort—a factory whistle, the sonorous bong of the clock on the courthouse or city hall, or a siren—that alerted one and all that that it was 12 o'clock, the day was half finished, it was time for the noon meal. In Leonard, Texas the siren still sounds each and every day at noon. It connects the past to the present and serves as a comforting reminder that the world goes on.

In 1875, Issac C. Parker became the judge of the U.S. District Court for the Western District of Arkansas, which included the wild environs of the Indian Territory. He brought hard justice to this previous lawless part of the country and earned a place in the annals of the West.

If you live in North Texas, you may have noticed that many of the local gas stations have recently changed their colors, giving up the red of Exxon-Mobil for the blue of Valero. Behind this change is complicated economic transition led by the area's leading Exxon-Mobil and Valero distributor, Douglass Distributing and Lone Star Food Stores. The man behind this change is William Douglass, Bill to just about everyone who knows him. He is one of the great innovators in the convenience store business. But wait, we are getting ahead of the story. Let’s start at the beginning...

Where did you and your friends hang out when during the summer? If you lived in Bonham, the likely location was the state park. Built by the CCC and opened in 1936, it was the summertime destination for at least five generations of teens and kids.

Life in was a challenge for many Texas homemakers at the turn of the century, but there was no shortage of authors ready and willing to offer home remedy solutions for almost any problem. Of course, if home remedies weren’t your strong point, there were plenty of patent medicine purveyors out there to lend a hand, as the collection of ads used to illustrate this story makes clear.

Fort Washita saw the service of many soldiers in the small family that was the regular army who names would rebound in the Civil War such as Dixon Miles, Randolph Marcy, George McClellan, Braxton Bragg, and Theophilus Holmes.

If you hauled freight or passengers by rail from Texarkana to Sherman along the Texas side of the Red River Valley, you rode the high iron of the Texas & Pacific. The rails connected Bowie, Red River, Lamar, Fannin, and Grayson counties before dipping down through Denton to Fort Worth. By the time I signed on the boomer trail as an extra board brakeman in the summer of 1963, the passenger service along the Trans Contenential Division, as the northern leg of the T&P was called, had long since disappeared, but the freight traffic was still substantial, enough to support half a dozen or more trains daily all dispatched out of Bonham.

The evolutionary clash of competing cultures was not new to the Great Plains in the 1870s. It was but another cycle in the struggles for domination of the plains that had been going on for more than two hundred years, but it was the last chapter in that long and violent story.

For most of the Civil War, the Red River was a backwater to bigger events happening east of the Mississippi, but in the spring of 1864 that changed when Federal gunboats appeared on the river.

Following the early Spanish and French forays to the Red River, it would be more than six decades before the arrival of a new group of explorers and pioneers, the Americans.

Here is the text of Robert Lee's letter to The Bonham News. It has been edited and punctuated somewhat for clarity.

In the fall of 1874, three soldiers and two civilian scouts made a legendary defense against 125 mounted warriors in what became known as the Fight at Buffalo Wallow.

One of Sherman's most distinctive landmarks for 80 plus years has been the collection of red brick buildings high on a hill off FM 1417—The Woodman Circle Home. Recently, a music video got permission to shoot at the site using the abandoned buildings as backdrop. There have also been several pieces on local and area television about the home. Here is the story of an extraordinary page in Sherman's history, that may gone, but is not forgotten.

In the story of the struggle for dominance on the Southern Plains and its place in the history of the Southwest, there remains one principal chapter. It is the saga of the Red River War of 1874-75, and the final wresting of the area by the U.S. Army from the Comanche, Southern Cheyenne, Kiowa, and Arapaho who had dominated the region two centuries.

In 1875, the Indian Territory, in what is now Oklahoma, was a no man's land ruled by murders, outlaws, thieves, and all manner of miscreants who thought they had found safe haven from the law and civilization. This changed when a new judge sent two hundred U.S. deputy marshals into the territory. One of the most acclaimed of these lawmen was a former slave from Grayson County named Bass Reeves.

It seems appropriate for a project called the Red River Scrapbook, that we explore, at least briefly, some of the history of the river and the events that have taken place on its waters and along its banks. So that we intend to do.

Lake Fannin Saved is a book in 150 pages compiled by Gregory Hall now available from Amazon in "full color" for $29. A "black & white" version is available for $8.

His name was just too much for the Texans under his command, so they called him "Prince Polecat," a nickname that delighted the general. In a Confederate army officered by men of all manner of backgrounds, Camille Armand Jules Marie, Prince de Polignac was still one of a kind.

North Texas can lay claim to many famous men and women, but one of the most famous was also the most infamous. In a three-part series, the Red River Scrapbook looks at the life and mean times of Texas' World Champion Desperado, John Wesley Hardin.

John Wesley Hardin's violent career finds new opportunities for mayhem as he takes part in the Taylor-Sutton Feud in DeWitt County and then is tracked down and captured by the Texas Rangers. It's "Texas, by God!"

After sixteen years in prison, John Wesley Hardin gets a second chance, but is soon back to the dangerous ways that will end his life in an El Paso saloon while shooting dice with "...Four Sixes to Beat."

For most of the country, the Civil War ended with the surrender of Confederate forces across the South in the spring of 1865, but in Northeast Texas, these events only presaged the beginning of an informal struggle between rival factions that paid out in blood and death for another half dozen years. Starting today, the Red River Scrapbook takes two-part look at the infamous Lee-Peacock Feud. photo by David Womack

The wounding of Bob Lee and the assassination of Dr. W.H. Pierce in late winter of 1867 ending nothing as Lee and Lewis Peacock and their supporters played revenge for revenge and the Lee-Peacock Feud continued. photo by David Womack

Here is the text of Robert Lee's letter to The Bonham News. It has been edited and punctuated somewhat for clarity.

North Texas can lay claim to many famous men and women, but one of the most famous was also the most infamous. In a three-part series, the Red River Scrapbook looks at the life and mean times of Texas' World Champion Desperado, John Wesley Hardin.

John Wesley Hardin's violent career finds new opportunities for mayhem as he takes part in the Taylor-Sutton Feud in DeWitt County and then is tracked down and captured by the Texas Rangers. It's "Texas, by God!"

After sixteen years in prison, John Wesley Hardin gets a second chance, but is soon back to the dangerous ways that will end his life in an El Paso saloon while shooting dice with "...Four Sixes to Beat."

The long and often bitter debate that charged the atmosphere in the Pennsylvania State House in Philadelphia in the early summer of 1776 as the members of the Continental Congress thrashed out the question of independency from Great Britain, was matched outside the hall, as the vote grew near, by nature's display of crashing lightning and rolling thunder that served to reinforce the import of the moment.

For most of the country, the Civil War ended with the surrender of Confederate forces across the South in the spring of 1865, but in Northeast Texas, these events only presaged the beginning of an informal struggle between rival factions that paid out in blood and death for another half dozen years. Starting today, the Red River Scrapbook takes two-part look at the infamous Lee-Peacock Feud. photo by David Womack

The wounding of Bob Lee and the assassination of Dr. W.H. Pierce in late winter of 1867 ending nothing as Lee and Lewis Peacock and their supporters played revenge for revenge and the Lee-Peacock Feud continued.

We invite you to join North Texas e-News in a new project - a scrapbook of the Red River Valley and of the people, places, and events that have made a mark on this part of Texas and Oklahoma for two hundred years and more. At e-News we often have thought that an import function of a small town newspaper is to act as a repository of the everyday things that tie one day to the next, one year to the next, one generation to those who have come before and will come after.

It was one thing for the Congress to declare independence from Great Britain; it was another thing to achieve it. As the word of the decisions reached in Philadelphia spread throughout the colonies, those in favor of the move, if they were not under the baleful eye of King George's soldiers, generally celebrated with gusto, but it would take six years of war and before the idea became a reality for many.

For more than one hundred years, the heart and soul of Trenton, Texas, current population about 700, have been embodied by the town's two oldest businesses, The First National Bank of Trenton and The Trenton Tribune, and the three generations of the two families behind those enterprises, the Donagheys and the Holmeses. (L-R) Tom Mc Holmes and Lewis Donaghey

In times past, no American politician worth his salt would let Independence Day past with out rising to extol the virtues of the founding fathers, the grand old flags, and the sacrifice of the men and women who made the American Dream an American Reality for millions. These days, the speeches are more likely to be bitter, angry, and mean spirited, so here are some words from earlier times when pride and love of country were not such a negative things as it sometimes is now.

The long and often bitter debate that charged the atmosphere in the Pennsylvania State House in Philadelphia in the early summer of 1776 as the members of the Continental Congress thrashed out the question of independency from Great Britain, was matched outside the hall, as the vote grew near, by nature's display of crashing lightning and rolling thunder that served to reinforce the import of the moment.

During the war for independence, the new American government and the armed forces of the army and navy utilized numerous flags of different designs. Although several of these flags incorporated designs of stripes and stars, none put all the elements together in the form we recognize today, until the Continental Congress passed the first laws concerning the national banner on June 14, 1777.