National Honor Society

New members and officers for National Honor Society

New National Honor Society Officers are (L-R) Korie Bouse—treasurer, Audie Martin—secretary, Teagan Stubblefield—president, Ryan Hough— vice president, and Jentrie Doty—historian. Staff photo.

On Monday, a new crop of National Honor Society members were inducted in the to Charles R. Thompson Chapter in Howe.

The new members are Catelyn Armstrong, Yair Ayala, Samantha Becker, Kaylyn Bryant, Jacob Campbell, Carson Daniels, Caden Garner, Kendall Griffin, Kayley Laubhan, Lucas Mitchell, Autumn Owens, Payton Stapleton, Matalee Stewart, Riley Troxtell, Mahlon Walker, and Kara Wimbish.

National Junior Honor Society members inducted were Eric Dailey, Addison Donoho, Kennedy Garner, Andronica Morris, Dillon Patterson, Caris Riley, Brooklyn Upton, and Felix Vazquez.

Jack and Texanna Norman celebrated for 56 years as Bible Fellowship Teachers

New National Honor Society members. Staff photo.

New National Honor Society Officers are (L-R) Ryan Hough, Lily Yglesias, Eli Wilson, Trinity Williams, and Teagan Stubblefield. Jack and Texanna Norman with their family as they were recently recognized by First Baptist Church of Howe for their 56 years of faithful service as Bible Fellowship Teachers. They served from 1965 through 2021. Courtesy photo.

Nick Upton Crystal Lawson

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with 87.

Tamela Shadden retained her seat on the school board with 173 total votes which came from 15 absentee, 79 early voting, and 79 election day votes. Crystal Lawson was the lone challenger to Doty and Shadden received 83 total votes with the most (38) coming on election her.

The unexpired term of Josh Vincent that has been held by Greg Akins on a temporary basis was won by Jeff Dailey. He received a total of 139 votes which came from 10 absentee, 62 early voting, and 67 on election day. Nick Upton received a total of 84 votes with his most (41) coming in early voting.

Of the 544 total ballots cast, 234 came on election day. Early voting totals tallied 246 and there were 64 absentee ballots. A year ago, only six ballots came in by mail.

Overall, in the county, there were only 90 ballots cast early by mail a year ago in this election, whereas there were 909 absentee ballots cast this year.

Doty and Shadden were originally first voted to serve their first term in 2018. Shadden, a retired teacher in the district received the most votes back in 2018. After 32 years of teaching in Howe, she retired in 2016. While teaching, she was a mentor to other teachers and served on the Howe ISD Campus and District Improvement Committees. She and her husband Scott have three children who attended Howe Schools from kindergarten through graduation.

Doty’s vote total is the most in recent years. In his career, he’s been in various finance managerial roles at many companies since graduating college. These range from small companies with 300 employees with $20 million in annual revenues to ones with over 100,000 employees with over $10 billion in revenues.

Doty has served as treasurer for the Howe Athletic Booster Club, Howe Band Boosters, and Howe PTA. He’s also volunteered with Howe Youth Softball, Howe Youth Basketball, and is the Leadership Chair at the First United Methodist Church. the Texas public school system and has lived in the Howe ISD School District for four years.

The practice of following with whatever “mandate” is handed down from the Centers for Disease Control (CDC, school board races all over the country have been heated with debates. With the school children being forced to wear masks for the majority of the 2020-2021 school year, Dailey’s answer on the questionnaire by the Howe Enterprise stated, “I believe the CDC recommendations for public schools may be useful as a general guideline for the school district to consider, but I do not support following CDC recommendations as an absolute standard for health decision of Howe ISD students and district employees. The reason I believe this is because the CDC recommendations are wrongly based on one size fits all approach and ignore the rights of parents and individuals to make personal health decisions. This was the case during the COVID-19 pandemic when the CDC recommended what I believe were extreme and unnecessary measures for public schools, particularly, the continuous closure of schools and virtual learning only, shutting down athletic events and other extracurricular activities, no student-to-student and student-to-teacher/ coach social interaction, and around the clock face masking and social distancing. For those school districts that chose to follow this guidance to an absolute standard, there was significant decline in both academic progress and the overall well-being of children. The Howe ISD school board took the correct approach during the early stages of the pandemic when they took the CDC recommendations into consideration,andthendecidedthatwhatwas best for the community and best for the students was to promptly return to the traditional face-to-face classroom setting.

Doty had a similar response, saying, “Health and safety of our local staff, teachers and students is one of the top priorities within the district. While discussing guidelines for our students and employees, many aspects come into play such as local area outbreaks. The CDC guidelines should be considered, but not as an absolute standard.” On this topic, Shadden stated that she agreed with the Howe ISD’s decision during that time to follow the CDC guidelines. Upton said he felt by following the CDC guidelines, it kept the ISD from full shutdowns or drastic (Continued on page 8)