If you’re going into areas that might harbor chiggers, wear the appropriate clothing, tuck your pants into your socks and apply insect repellent. (Adobe Stock, Laura McKenzie/Texas A&M AgriLife)

The Windom School Memorial Foundation and the Windom Art School cordially invite you to visit during our Open House on Saturday, July 4th. Come to the Small Town with a Big Heart to connect with old friends during Homecoming, celebrate 250 years with an awesome fireworks display, take in the July 4th Parade, and chill out at our beloved school in between.

John F. Day was born in 1909 in Eden, Texas. He moved to Bonham around 1930 to work at the Bonham Cotton Mill, having just graduated from Texas A&M as a textile engineer. In 1934 he married Cile (Cornelia Lucille) Hackley, daughter of Dwight and Lucille Hackley, in Bonham. In 1940 he went on active military duty in the US Army, and he would remain on active duty for the next 30 years.
He sailed into Pearl Harbor on December 1, 1941, just six days before the Japanese attack. He went to Java and then to Australia. He became Gen. Douglas MacArthur’s Headquarters Commandant and later served in New Guinea and the Philippines.

Flight instructor Leonard Gerner (third from the left) and five of his trainees at Jones Field in the mid-1940s. Military pilot training ceased at Jones Field more than 70 years ago, but all the checks haven't cleared the bank. Gerner, one of the instructor pilots hired to train cadets to fly the Fairchild PT-19, discovered he still has one small check issued by Bonham Aviation School.

Enjoy a spectacular evening at the 49th Annual Lights Over Lake Bonham Fireworks Show on Friday, July 3, 2026. This is a free event open to the public. Bring your lawn chairs!

2013 – Nineteen firefighters die controlling a wildfire near Yarnell, Arizona. The Yarnell Hill Fire was a wildfire near Yarnell, Arizona, ignited by dry lightning on June 28, 2013. On June 30, it overran and killed 19 members of the Granite Mountain Hotshots, a group of firefighters within the Prescott Fire Department. Just one of the hotshots on the crew survived (Brendan McDonough) — he was posted as a lookout on the fire and was not with the others when the fire overtook them. The Yarnell Hill Fire was one of the deadliest U.S. wildfires since the 1991 Oakland Hills fire, which killed 25 people, and the deadliest wildland fire for U.S. firefighters since the 1933 Griffith Park fire, which killed 29 "impromptu" civilian firefighters drafted on short notice to help battle the Los Angeles area fire. Yarnell also killed more firefighters than any incident since the September 11 attacks. The Yarnell Hill Fire is the sixth-deadliest American firefighter disaster in history, the deadliest wildfire ever in the state of Arizona, and (at least until 2014) was "the most-publicized event in wildland firefighting history." The tragedy is primarily attributed to an extreme and sudden shift in weather patterns, causing the fire to intensify and cut off the firefighters' route as they were escaping. The victims were killed by the intense heat and flames of the fire. Other factors that contributed to the tragedy include the terrain surrounding the escape route, which may have blocked the victims' view of the fire front and limited situational awareness, and problems with radio communications.