Does your company offer materials for gardening, home, and lawn? Looking for an enjoyable way to reach customers? Fannin County Master Gardeners are on the lookout for vendors, sponsors, and food trucks for this year’s event. Last year’s attendance was around 400. Vendor benefits to your company include sales on the day of the event, new customer leads for future sales, local and statewide publicity for your company in flyers, news articles, Facebook, and radio prior to the event.

Through January 18! With a history spanning more than 1,000 years, Chinese lantern-making is far more than decoration—it is a rich storytelling art form rooted in symbolism, philosophy, and communal celebration. Tianyu Lights Festival represents the highest expression of this tradition, blending sculpture, painting, engineering, and narrative design into an immersive cultural experience. Unlike modern light installations, every lantern featured at Tianyu Lights Festival is entirely handmade. Artisans construct steel frameworks by hand, wrap each form in silk, and meticulously paint every detail.

Cleo Morrison was born in Telephone and educated in Telephone, Bonham and Greenville schools. She graduated at East Texas State and did postgraduate work at UT in Austin.

A world premiere by a Grammy Award-winning composer along with piano soloist Aaron Kurz anchor the Lone Star Wind Orchestra’s 20th Anniversary Season Celebration concert on Sunday, Jan. 25, at 3 p.m. at the Morton H. Meyerson Symphony Center in the Dallas Arts District (2301 Flora St., Dallas). The milestone performance marks two decades of music-making and community impact while honoring the orchestra’s past and looking boldly toward the future in the spirit of its mission of “music changing lives.”

Families and history enthusiasts are invited to warm up this winter on Hot Chocolate Day at the Sam Bell Maxey House State Historic Site on Saturday, January 31, at 2:00 p.m. Guests will enjoy a cup of cocoa from a hot chocolate bar while learning about the history of this beloved beverage. The program offers a cozy and engaging way to spend a winter afternoon. The program fee is $3 per participant. After the program, visitors are encouraged to stay for a tour of the historic Maxey House to discover the story of one of Paris’s most distinguished families and gain insight into daily life in 19th-century Texas. Regular admission fees apply for tours.

1689 – birth of Montesquieu, French lawyer and philosopher. Charles Louis de Secondat, baron de La Brède et de Montesquieu (18 January 1689 – 10 February 1755), generally referred to as simply Montesquieu, was a French judge, intellectual, historian, and political philosopher. He is the principal source of the theory of separation of powers, which is implemented in many constitutions throughout the world. He is also known for doing more than any other author to secure the place of the word despotism in the political lexicon. His anonymously published The Spirit of Law (De l'esprit des lois, 1748) first translated into English (Nugent) in a 1750 edition was received well in both Great Britain and the American colonies, and influenced the Founding Fathers of the United States in drafting the U.S. Constitution.