Join us in celebrating the Hays CISD graduating classes of Jack C. Hays High School, Lehman High School, Live Oak Academy and the first-ever graduates from Moe Johnson High School by congratulating your graduate in the 2020 Graduation Edition. In these uncertain times, the Hays Free Press is doing i...

On April 22, 1935, West Texans were still feeling the effects of the “black blizzard” that struck without warning the previous week blotting out the sun and causing every living creature to gasp for breath. Drought, overgrazing and outdated farming methods stripped much of the Great Plains of the gr...

An innovative program launched by the Kyle Chamber of Commerce has enlisted a variety of local restaurants in an initiative to help families in need during the COVID-19 pandemic. Restaurants participating in “Meals 4 One and All” will, for every four entrees sold, donate one meal to Ilario’s restaur...

Everyone has adapted to staying at home because of the COVID-19 pandemic differently, but those who live in the Meadows neighborhood of Buda have let their creative lights shine. Since Texans were ordered to stay home in order to prevent the spread of the virus, the neighborhood has been the site of...

When it comes to funding streets, hospitals, roads and a host of other things Hays County is going to need in the next 10 years, residents have some explaining to do. And they’re not alone. Three weeks have passed since the U.S. Census preferred to receive completed forms for the 2020 Constitutional...

More salvos were fired last week in the ongoing fight between Hill Country landowners, environmentalists and energy giant Kinder Morgan. The Wimberley Valley Watershed Association (WVWA) and the Trinity Edwards Springs Protection Association (TESPA) have jointly threatened to sue Kinder Morgan after...

Above, flowers and other memorials adorn the patrol car of slain SMPD Officer Justin Putnam. For the second time in 16 months, a San Marcos Police Officer has been killed in the line of duty while on a call related to domestic violence. On April 18, 31-year-old Officer Justin Putnam was fatally shot...

Kyle city leaders are anticipating a continuing drop in sales tax revenues and rising delinquency rates in water and wastewater bills as the COVID-19 crisis continues, with deficits possibly extending into the next fiscal year. The city anticipates a FY 2021 budget to be much like FY 2020 but minus ...

    A Dripping Springs High School engineering teacher and some students are poised to begin producing face shields. Through the use of 3-D printers, teacher Had Jadeja has been working in the school’s Fab Lab to develop a prototype, and some students with 3-D printers at home have offered to produc...

Most years, the city of Kyle would be around this time hiring key summer personnel like the main lifeguard for the city’s swimming pool and head counselor for the Parks and Recreation Department’s summer camps for youth and teens. We all know, however, that this is not most years. Summer activities ...