Sunday, April 6, 2014, actor/singer-songwriter Ronny Cox will be the "star" performer at Harmony House Concerts from 4:00 p.m. - 6:00 p.m. Accompanying Ronny will be the remarkable accordion player & pianist, Radoslav Lorkoviæ ("Rad") and Bruce Bower, acoustic guitarist and back-up singer.

In the spirit of St. Patrick's Day on March 17 and the Ides of March on March 15, the Creative Arts Center has announced a fundraising dinner event planned for Friday, March 14 at the center. Celebrating the Wearing of the Green always means good food and fun and this evening will be no exception. Corned beef and cabbage top the menu for traditional Irish fare. There will be music, games and prizes Tickets are on sale at the Creative Arts Center at $15 each or $25 per couple.

Hagerman National Wildlife Refuge will offer free spring break activities for the family, Monday, March 10 – Friday, March 14. Texas Master Naturalist Gerry Shehan will lead guided nature walks on Harris Creek Trail, 10:00 a.m., Monday, Tuesday & Wednesday, weather permitting. To participate, meet Shehan at the Visitor Center. Nature videos will be shown at 11:00 a.m. daily, in the Visitor Center Meeting Room. Then, drop in for nature craft activities any time between 2:00 p.m. and 3:30 p.m., also in the Meeting Room, Visitor Center. Open air tram tours along Wildlife Drive will go at 1:00 p.m. and 2:30 p.m., weather permitting. To make a your reservation, call 903-786-2826.

The food issue most in the news these days is America’s battle with the bulge. While people may be healthy at different weights, poor diet is resulting in epidemic levels of health problems. With the spotlight on obesity, we tend to think of hunger as a problem that exists in other countries but not here at home. Food insecurity is an invisible problem in many ways, but is very real for the people who deal with it on a daily basis.

Prep work at the playground site has started this week!

1945 – The U.S. Army Air Force firebombs Tokyo, and the resulting conflagration kills more than 100,000 people, mostly civilians. The bombing of Tokyo, often referred to as a firebombing, was conducted as part of the air raids on Japan by the United States Army Air Forces during the Pacific campaigns of World War II. The high altitude bombing attacks using general purpose bombs were observed to be ineffective by USAAF leaders. Changing tactics to expand the coverage and increase the damage, Curtis LeMay ordered the bombers to fly lower (4,500–8,000 ft.) and drop incendiary bombs to burn Japan's vulnerable wood-and-paper buildings. The first such raid on Tokyo was in February 1945 when 174 B-29s destroyed around one square mile of Tokyo. The next month, 334 B-29s took off to raid on the night of 9–10 March ("Operation Meetinghouse"), with 279 of them dropping around 1,700 tons of bombs. Fourteen B-29s were lost. Approximately 16 square miles of the city were destroyed and some 100,000 people are estimated to have died in the resulting conflagration, more immediate deaths than either of the atomic bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki. The Operation Meetinghouse firebombing of Tokyo on the night of 9/10 March 1945 was the single deadliest air raid of World War II.