Recently, by request of a friend, I visited the FaceBook page of Jason Welch, candidate for Kyle City Council District 1. Upon reading his most recent status update, I knew immediately I had found a candidate I was going to be enthusiastically voting for as opposed to the “lesser of two evils” which...

My name is Mike Blackwell, and myself and fellow Kyle resident John Wipff coach a 10U girls’ softball team, the Hays Thunder, that has been invited to the Platinum Nationals tournament later this summer in Round Rock. We are in the process of fund-raising, and I wanted to make Kyle and Buda resident...

by JEN BIUNDO Jeff Stuffings used to be a lawyer. Co-owner Michael Steffing fled a job as a banking analyst. And Stuffings’ college roommate, Joe Madia, started a career in medicine but decided he’d rather brew beer. Together, the trio have opted out of the corporate world to develop Jester King, a ...

STAFF REPORTS Hays County’s ten incorporated cities finally crept into the black this month, showing a slight sales tax increase despite the fact that Texas cities as a whole continue to register $100 million in revenues below last year’s April totals. Kyle and San Marcos registered increases of 5.9...

by JEN BIUNDO With one path in to the center and one path out, labyrinths have been used for millennia as a tool for meditation or prayer. Cara Matisko built a labyrinth last month in the backyard of her old town Buda home. (Photos by Jen Biundo) The path through the labyrinth is simple – one way in...

To Your Health by SCOTT QUINN We practice meditation some of the time so that we can be mindful and at peace more of the time. Meditation is not an escape but a return to the essence of who we are. Some also think of meditation as a time in which we rest in God. There is nothing mysterious about med...

Buda Bits by SANDRA GRIZZLE Yes, Buda is going to the dogs! Wiener dogs and Bulldogs, that is. Wieners will take over for two days at Buda City Park on April 24 and 25 as part of the annual Lions Club Country Fair and Weiner Dog Races. Old Bulldogs will be in town on Saturday, May 8 for the annual B...

This Week in Texas History by BARTEE HAILE A Texas outlaw finally stepped out of his dead brother’s shadow with a daring daylight escape from Alcatraz on April 14, 1943. Floyd Hamilton was relegated to a supporting role in the crime drama starring Clyde Barrow, Bonnie Parker and his younger brother ...

Odds & Ends by MYRTLE HEIDEMAN Have you mailed in your census forms? According to an article in a local paper only 60 percent plus have completed and sent in their form in Hays County. Several have received a second form in the mail and some have had a person deliver a second one to their home, and ...

On Center Street by BRENDA STEWART Just by the flowers exploding around us, it’s easy to tell that Earth Day is just over the horizon. And those bee-keeping, honey-harvesting, art-loving locals at the Arrowhead Trading Company, housed in that vintage rock building a block south of downtown on Hwy. 8...