“Hey, hey you, did you know that you have some dirt on your forehead?” Next week, more than any other day of the year, many Christians around the world will be outwardly marked for Christ with ashes, not dirt or Valentine’s chocolate, upon their forehead. But where does this devotion of Ash Wednesday come from? Throughout the Old Testament, particularly with Jonah, Job, and Daniel, and then into Christianity with Jesus Himself, ashes have long been a sign of penance and mortality; the sobering truth that you are going to die, that I am going to die... Happy Valentine’s Day. But what may seem like something morbid, is actually a gift, a gift to remind us of this inevitable reality, that yes, this world is passing and that “we are dust, and to dust we shall return.”

A masked mob dragged five suspected cattle thieves kicking and screaming from the Mason County jail on Feb. 18, 1875, lynched three of the terrified outlaws and touched off a nasty feud known as the Hoodoo War.

To the Editor: A thirteen-column-inch pile of steaming bullfertilizer – that’s Annette Citzler’s “ICE and Memories From Liberia” in the 1/30 Record. This is what passes for editorial excellence at the FCR? Y’all should be ashamed of yourselves.

To the Editor: After turning my stomach when reading that ICE agents are as bad as rogue Liberian military, it showed how two people raised in La Grange can have very different outcomes. I will only speak of myself.

To the Editor: A recent writer (Different Set of Circumstances) argued that my 1/16/2026 letter “reflects a fundamental misunderstanding of both history and the rule of law.” My purpose, given this 250th Anniversary of the Declaration of Independence, is to interpret that celebration through today’s lens. Efforts will be made to sanitize and glorify our history.

To the Editor: In light of the TCEQ’s decision to decline public hearings regarding permit changes for the Fayette Power Project (FPP), I propose that the TCEQ or the FPP fund a comprehensive environmental monitoring program. This initiative should be administered by Texas A&M University and the Texas Parks & Wildlife Department (TPWD), utilizing TPWD’s expertise in monitoring toxins in wildlife and waterways.

To the Editor: “There are literally millions of aliens within the jurisdiction of the United States. The Fifth Amendment, as well as the Fourteenth Amendment, protects every one of these persons from deprivation of life, liberty, or property without due process of law.” – Justice John Paul Stevens (writing for the Supreme Court in Mathews v.

We are stepping into the season of love . . . or at least Hallmark tells us so. My wife is pretty convinced that they are right, too. So, I surrendered to this commercial holiday for my own good. (Insert big, cheesy grin here).

Mary Austin Holley landed at Galveston on Feb. 5, 1843 on her fifth and final visit to her dead cousin’s former colony.

C By GARY BORDERS Texas Press Association At least 11 people have died in Texas, nearly half of them children, after Winter Storm Fern swept the state last week, the Texas Standard reported. Among those killed were three young brothers who fell through ice on a private pond near Bonham, about 60 miles northeast of Texas.