My Two Cents
Maybe it was because so many out-of-town businesses in Lubbock and Abilene were closed and folks stayed at home to shop. Perhaps as a community we made a conscious effort to go even further above and beyond to support local businesses by ordering out and paying it forward. It could be the result of some kind of state-level accounting entry this year or last year.
Heck, toilet paper hoarding may even be the slightly ridiculous, but very real, reason.
Regardless, Snyder and Scurry County got some good news from the Texas Comptroller’s office this week when we learned that sales tax allocations were higher in June 2020 than they had been in June 2019. Generally speaking, that means taxable, retail sales were higher here in April — as we were getting adjusted to the state’s COVID-19 response and the county’s Stay Home, Stay Safe order, all of which resulting in non-essential businesses temporarily closing their doors.
It was a dose of asterisk-free good news that arrived at a moment when we all need a little more of that.
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A few weeks ago I wrote about the marquee at the Ritz Theatre and its hopeful message that “The Show Will Go On.” If you read the story on Page 1B in today’s edition, you know that message was prophetic. The show is indeed going on, with not one, not two, but three productions on this summer’s calendar. Two community productions will bookend the annual summer camp and its production.
I’ve enjoyed several of the summer camp productions over the years, watching the youngest in a variety of shows. This summer I’ll get to enjoy her performing in her first community production, Godspell.
The productions are able to move forward because by-and-large citizens followed social distance guidelines and heeded the calls to wash our hands more often and wear a facemask in public, leading to a lifting on some COVID-19-related restrictions.
It’s important for the public to continue to follow those recommendations as we get deeper into the summer in order to avoid a repeat of what we went through in March, April and May. I’m sure the cast and crew would be disappointed if they didn’t get the chance to perform because we all got careless.
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A subscriber recently visited the office to encourage us to expand our coverage into another area. Their future readership and subscription depended on it, they suggested in less than subtle terms.
As most of you know, I grew up in Arlington, which is in Tarrant County. As a senior in college I worked at the Fort Worth Star-Telegram and for most of the time since, I have paid for a subscription. I don’t read the Star-Telegram hoping to find a story about Snyder or Scurry County. We’ve got a newspaper for that.
Like many out-of-town subscribers, I read that newspaper to keep up with my beloved Horned Frogs. I subscribe to support the newsroom that covers events I’m familiar with and have attended over the years, like this weekend’s Charles Schwab Challenge at the venerable Colonial Country Club.
Like a lot of people, I enjoy keeping up with the news from the town where I grew up, keeping an eye out for familiar names and places.
We appreciate all our readers and believe they pick up a paper because we cover this community better than anyone else and they have an interest in what happens in their hometown. With that in mind, we’ll continue to focus and invest our resources in ways to do just that even better.
Bill Crist is the publisher of The Snyder News. Comments may be emailed to publisher@thesnydernews.com.