Author Archives: Mary Jane Farmer

About Mary Jane Farmer

In the music production business, including event production, booking, photography, reporting, volunteering, and other such essentials, since 1974.

City Council Special Meeting Agenda

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By Mary Jane Farmer for the Van Alstyne News, Scene In Town.

The Van Alstyne City Council meets in a Special Called meeting at 6:30 p.m., Tuesday, Jan. 30, at City Hall, which is located at 152 N. Main Drive. The Council regularly meets on the 2nd Tuesday of each month, also at City Hall. Agendas for this and future meetings can be seen Online at cityofvanalstyne.us, posted before 5 p.m. on the Friday preceding each meeting.

Tuesday night’s meeting begins with a presentation regarding Cooley Bay Winery and its possible revitalization and future use of the former Van Alstyne Museum, 277 E Jefferson. This now-empty building faces Jefferson Street and the Dorothy Fielder (gazebo) Park and is within easy walking distance from the Central Social District Park.

Following that, the Council will consider a consent agenda’s four items:

(1) A fee amendment to the Capital Recover Fee for Water Improvements from $2,000 to $3,500. This agreement is between the City and Risland Mantua LLC and involves about 2,011 acres of land.

(2) A resolution authorizing submission of a grant application for the Portable Radio Communications Equipment Grant Program Grant Number 502831 to the Office of the Governor.

(3) Calling a public hearing for March 5 to hear public opinions on amendment of Land Use Assumptions, Capital Improvement Plans, and associated impact fees for Water and Wastewater Capital Improvements.

(4) The purchase a utility inspection system and equipment for the Public Works Department in the amount of $268,223.48.

The agenda defines a Consent Agenda as: “Items… that allow the Council to approve them all together without discussion or individual motions. Items may be removed from the consent agenda on the request of any one member of the Council. Removed items will be discussed and action taken immediately after the consent agenda.”

Time Capsule Located Water-Soaked

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By Mary Jane Farmer, for the Van Alstyne News, SceneInTown.com

Recently, the unexpected uncovering of a time capsule has city volunteers searching for answers.

Teddie Ann Salmon, former Van Alstyne mayor and current Van Alstyne Historical Museum director, said that she was at the museum when someone from the Van Alstyne Parks Department called her saying that they had found a time capsule on the land which is to be used in to house the city’s future Police and Fire Departments.  This land is at and near North Park off of North Waco (SH 5), near Blassingame.

Salmon said that was the area the workers found the time capsule. They were, she said, attempting to move the plaque and flag pole when they struck the time capsule. As the vault was being lifted, water gushed out and the vault cracked open.

The hard-working workers delivered the time capsule to the museum, leaving it in a safe place where it could discharge all the water that had seeped in — something time capsules are not supposed to do. “There is no way to know how long the vault has been full of water,” she said. Everything inside it was, of course, soaked to the core.  She added that the time capsule was buried there about 1975 or ’76.

It is now dried out, and she and Grayson County Historical Commission President Dusty Williams (also a V.A. City Council member), will begin the tedious task of identifying, sorting, and deciding what can be salvaged for future museum use.

City Manager Lane Jones confirmed that the new “Public Safety Facility will be located at Waco and Blassingame. The project still in the design stages, with no start or finish date determined.” Mayor Jim Atchison added, regarding the location, that the area includes the old high school football field, and that there might be a community meeting room.

The museum is normally open from 1-3 p.m. on Tuesdays, Thursdays, and Saturdays. “At this time,” Salmon said, “the museum is not open for the public,” due to the inclement weather. This could be re-opened in mid-February, she said.

The city’s Historical Commission will meet again at 3 p.m. on Sunday, February 25 at the new museum, 130 Waco St, which is at the NW corner of Waco and Jefferson streets. Williams said that curious and/or potential new members as welcome to meet with the group’s membership.

 

 

 

 

119 years ago in Van Alstyne.

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The Cannon Building, with a date showing of 1890, was built by Oscar M. and John Russell Cannon. John Russell lived to be 99 years old and it was their father who established the town of Cannon east of Van Alstyne, reported Dusty Williams.

Story by Dusty Williams, Photos by Mary Jane Farmer

 On January 14, 1905.
* The rain stopped work on the Cannon brick block.
* Itch cured in 30 minutes by Woolford’s Sanitary Lotion. Never fails. Sold by Brown, Cartwright, and Durning, Druggist, Van Alstyne, Texas.
* Remember that Heinz’s tomato catsup is the very best your money can buy.
* Have your furniture repaired at McCorkle’s.
Bert Welker’s wood pile caught fire Friday of last week from burning grass. The alarm was sounded, but the blaze was out when the company arrived.
* John Thompson was summoned to Sherman Monday as a petit juror, but was excused. J. W. Wiggs and I. H. Mount, who were summoned for the same purpose, did not fare so well. Both had to serve.

The Cannon Building houses City Drug and has been housing that business for decades.

* J. T. Echols, the oldest carpenter and about the oldest man in Van Alstyne, has returned home (from near Anna, where he has been doing carpenter work). Very few men of his age are able to do such hard work on the ground to say nothing of climbing over a building. Mr. Echols carries his age well.

First Week of January 2024 Arrests

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By Mary Jane Farmer, for the Van Alstyne News, Scene In Town

Van Alstyne Police Lt. Steven Hayslip reported on the following arrests, made since the first of 2024.

Automobile burglaries — On January. 4, multiple calls made to dispatchers had officers going to several locations between U.S. Hwy 75 and SH 5, and police located four vehicles which had been burglarized. They also identified two suspects and recovered stolen property, Hayslip said.

Both suspects are from Van Alstyne. One is a juvenile and was taken to the Grayson County Juvenile Detention Center. Police obtained arrest warrants on the adult and jailed him in the Grayson County Jail on four charges of Burglary of a Motor Vehicle. The adult suspect posted a total of $8,000 bail in surety bonds, which have conditions set on them. He was released on that bail the following day.

Assault arrest — On January 4, police were dispatched to a home in the 500 block of Hickory Ridge Drive, regarding a disturbance in progress. They made contact with both of the involved people. Their on-site investigation determined that the suspect, a Denison woman, had assaulted her boyfriend. He suffered minor injuries, but did not require medical attention.

Police jailed the suspect on a charge of Assault Causing Bodily Injury/Family Violence for allegedly assaulting her boyfriend. The victim suffered minor injuries. However, he did not require medical attention.

The suspect had several previous Driving While Intoxicated offenses and was out on bail at the time of this assault. The last one, her third DWI charge, had her jailed in October, and the bail bondsman on that arrest came off that bail. The County charged her again with DWI 3rd or more. A magistrate at the jail set bail on both charges at a total of $100,00 and, as of Jan. 8, she remains incarcerated.

Forgery charge — A Van Alstyne woman was jailed on January 5 a Forgery charge plus a charge of Speeding, both on warrants seeking her arrest. She sat out a cash fine of $225 on the speeding charge, and paid bail of $1,500 in surety bonds on the Forgery Charge. The suspect was released from Grayson County Jail on January 6.

Assault and more  — On Jan. 7, police jailed a Van Alstyne man on two Tarrant County warrants. One charged him with Assault on a Family Member with a Previous Conviction and the other with DWI 3rd or more. Total bail has been set at $70,000 and this suspect remains in jail as of Jan. 8.

 

 

Some Common But Unusual Music Terms

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Larry Martin

Story and Photos By Mary Jane Farmer — This article first appeared in a 2014 issue of Buddy Magazine

I’ve often been intrigued by words, and curious about their origins. I often read the script as I watch a Shakespeare play, marking and noting all the many words and phrases we hear often, that The Bard coined himself, such as “hobnob” and “all that glitters is not gold.” Then, one day on good ol’ Facebook, I saw one of the words in the list below for the first time, and it was defined, and that made me more curious about others. So, here’s a little bit I found out.

Gig —Slang for a musical engagement. Originally coined in the 1920s by jazz musicians, the term, short for the word “engagement,” now refers to any aspect of performing such as assisting with performance and attending musical performance.

Randy Crouch

Gurm — A term created in Nashville, used to describe an irritating, over-zealous fan, one who won’t stop at simply being a fan of the music. A gurm (begins with a hard g, as in ‘gig’ above) tries to find a way to be involved in the musician’s life somehow. A fan who talks his way backstage, who bothers the artist or band in a restaurant while they eat, or in a store while they shop. A gurm oversteps normal boundaries.

The first time I met Randy Travis, unexpectedly, I just sat in my chair, tucked my head down, and chanted silently, “Don’t go gurmy, don’t go gurmy, don’t go gurmy,” and the chant worked. But then, when I got to meet Reba face to face, I’ll admit to being a tad-bit gurmy with her. Sorry, Reba.

Busk — “He got his musical start by busking the streets of Berkeley.” To busk means to play music on the streets for donations, aka tips. This term started in the mid-17th century, a spin-off of the French word busquer, or the Italian buscare, or the Spanish buscar.  The term later meant to ‘go around selling,’ then by the mid-19th century, ‘go around performing.’

Askhole – Someone who asks the musician a question in the middle of his song.

Dustin Perkins

Cover — A song performed or recorded later on by another artist. The origin clearly seems to be in terms of “covering” the market in a business sense. The music industry before radio was much more regional and the term, if it were around then, could simply have had a geographical sense. Several sites say it dates back to the turn-of-the-century Tin Pan Alley days and likely that the business practice was entrenched and only slightly modified during the period of R&B covers by white rock and roll artists.  It is now morphed to describe the performance of old songs and previously-recorded material. Don McLean, of “American Pie” fame, disagreed on the Website Metafilter.com, but said that “Madonna did not cover ‘American Pie,’ she just sang an old song, and made an old songwriter mighty happy.”

Karaoke — The word itself comes from combining two Japanese words. “Kara” comes from karappo, meaning ‘empty,’ and “oke” is a shortened version of the word okestura, meaning ‘orchestra.’ So, the word Karaoke literally means empty orchestra. One source said it began several decades ago in Kobe, Japan, and others attribute its origin to the 1950s cartoons and television shows where people sang along to words on the screen, with the tempo kept by a ball bouncing in time over the words.

John Anderson

OK, Shakespeare didn’t invent these words, but a Google search will show hundreds of words and phrases he did make up, from Alligator to Zany.

Thanks to Merriam-Webster, Wikipedia, Ask MetaFilter, and KaraokeKanta Websites for much of this information.