Dogs Going Overboard: Barkus Sails the Seven Seas brings a nautical flair to Downtown McKinney. This year’s theme invites four-legged revelers and their humans to don their best nautical, pirate, and ocean inspired costumes for an afternoon of family friendly fun. photos by Allen Rich

The 2026 spring severe weather season is not too far away, and the National Weather Service and local public safety officials want you to be ready. The National Weather Service (NWS) Office located in Fort Worth will be conducting a free Severe Weather Education class in Denton County on Thursday, February 26, 2026, from 6:00 p.m. to 8:00 p.m. at the Texas Women’s University Student Union at Hubbard Hall (Southeast Ballroom) in Denton. There is no cost to attend this class, no pre-registration is required, and you do not have to be a resident of Denton County to attend.

Auditions for this Newberry Award-winning story, Sarah, Plain and Tall, will be held Monday and Tuesday, February 23 and 24 from 6:00 to 9:00 p.m. The cast includes: 3 Men, 4 Women, 1 Boy, and 3 Girls, plus a few minor characters for example--a paperboy, a farmer, a salesman, etc. We are also thinking about the possibility of a double cast. Set in the early 1900s, this play brings to life the charming, heartwarming story of a Kansas farmer, Jacob Witting, a widower with two children—Anna and Caleb, who places an ad in the newspapers seeking a wife.

A nationally replicable model for faith-based housing and family stability. Jericho Village’s innovative HousingPLUS Model demonstrates pathway from housing instability to long-term self-sufficiency.

The 2026 Primaries are right around the corner. Early voting begins on Tuesday, February 17, 2026. It’s time to begin considering who you will vote for in the contested races. This is a very important election, because results from the Primary election determine who will be on the ballot for the November 2026 election.

2001 – NEAR Shoemaker spacecraft touches down in the "saddle" region of 433 Eros, becoming the first spacecraft to land on an asteroid. Near Earth Asteroid Rendezvous – Shoemaker (NEAR Shoemaker), renamed after its 1996 launch in honor of planetary scientist Eugene Shoemaker, was a robotic space probe designed by the Johns Hopkins University Applied Physics Laboratory for NASA to study the near-Earth asteroid Eros from close orbit over a period of a year. It was the first spacecraft to orbit an asteroid and land on it successfully. 433 Eros is a stony asteroid of the Amor group, and the first discovered, and second-largest near-Earth object. It has an elongated shape and a volume-equivalent diameter of approximately 10.4 miles. The primary scientific objective of NEAR was to return data on the bulk properties, composition, mineralogy, morphology, internal mass distribution, and magnetic field of Eros. Secondary objectives include studies of regolith properties, interactions with the solar wind, possible current activity as indicated by dust or gas, and the asteroid spin state. This data was used to help understand the characteristics of asteroids in general, their relationship to meteoroids and comets, and the conditions in the early Solar System.