Countless men and women have dedicated their lives to helping children. Most successful people in the world will point to those special influences from their childhoods for their inspiration. Texan Edna Gladney devoted her life to improving the lives of children, providing love and finding homes for children.

When a natural disaster sweeps across a community, the immediate focus is always on safety and survival. But once the sky clears, independent business owners often face a secondary, daunting crisis: simply keeping their doors open. For our local "mom-and-pop" shops, employees are like family. However, operating on thin margins means a single severe weather event can paralyze payroll and operations. The reality is sobering: 25% of small businesses never reopen after a major disaster.

In his new book, Fixing Immigration in America: A Common Sense Plan for Immigration Reform, immigration attorney Robert Coughlon, Jr. draws on more than 30 years of immigration law experience to propose a different approach: change the law to create an earned legal pathway for longtime residents while strengthening border security, reforming enforcement and immigration courts, and protecting the workforce essential to the nation’s economy.

Ashbel Smith graduated from Yale University at age 19. He came to Texas in 1836, and in 1837, Sam Houston named him the first surgeon general of the Texas Army.

Lloyd Bentsen was a gentle giant in Texas politics, a gentleman in a time in which politics was becoming increasingly bitter.

For folks saying, “If you don’t like it, don’t go to Commissioners Court,” that misses the point entirely.

The Galveston Hurricane of 1900 was the worst natural disaster in American History. The storm devastated the island, flooding it to a depth of nine feet. The entire city was wrecked, with more than 8,000 dead.

As we approach Labor Day, a holiday dedicated to the contributions of American workers, we urge North Texans to pause and recognize the skilled tradespeople in residential construction who quite literally build the world around us.

In the hot summer of 1787, James Madison convinced delegates at the Constitutional Convention in Philadelphia to approve an entirely new kind of government for the new nation.

For sixteen years, Greg Middents sat behind the bench as a Justice of the Peace in Grayson County, Texas, serving citizens who often arrived in court during some of the most difficult moments of their lives. But the courtroom was only part of the story. Middents' life and career have taken him from North Texas to Washington, D.C.; from congressional campaigns to presidential campaigns; and eventually from a Texas courthouse to the Florida Keys.

James Madison never fought in the American Revolution, but he helped make sure that the ideals behind the war became a reality.

"In matters of style, swim with the current; in matters of principle, stand like a rock." - Thomas Jefferson