News

Accustomed to leading cheers for others, the Ennis High School varsity cheer team earned a No. 19 finish in the recent University Interscholastic League’s State Spirit competition.

Ennis News writer Randy Bryan Bigham returned recently from a week’s visit to California to meet his co-author Gregg Jasper, with whom he was photographed by Dallas journalist Jennifer Mills. He made the trip with Mills to Palm Springs, Los Angeles and Santa Monica to meet Jasper as well as producer-director Lara Slife, who is planning to base a feature film on the book Bigham co-authored with Jasper.

A Texas A & M student who recently returned from a visit to the Wuhan City (pop. 11 million), Hubei Province in China may be the first case of the Novel (new) Coronavirus in Texas. The 2019-nCoV is the sometimes-deadly virus that began in an animal market in Wuhan, China. So far 830 people in China have been diagnosed with the new disease. Of those, 177 have been diagnosed as having a severe case of the virus and 25 have died from it in China.

One of the most critical offices in Ellis County, the dual role served in one person, the County Attorney and District Attorney, is seeking a new leader. Ann Montgomery has served in that office for 17 years and appears primed to follow the retiring Patrick Wilson.

Three young men are being sought in relation to a pursesnatching incident at the Whataburger in Red Oak this past November. Three African American males estimated to be between late teens to early twenties were seen entering the Whataburger located at 101 Harris Road in Red Oak at about 9:40 a.m. on Tuesday, Nov. 24, 2019. All three walked around the store then exited and entered a green van, later to be identified as a stolen vehicle from Dallas.

Travel and tourism is big business. According to research from the World Travel & Tourism Council in conjunction with Oxford Economics, the travel and tourism industry outpaced the global economy for the sixth consecutive year in 2016.

Next month is Black History Month, and after the recent news that a new aircraft carrier will be christened after Dorie Miller, for whom an Ennis school is named, some readers have contacted me, claiming local black citizens’ history hasn’t been recorded on this page very often. That struck me as not only unfair but untrue, as I have shared the history of blacks as well as whites on this page since it was started in 2017l in fact, I have enjoyed doing so since I began writing for this publication almost 18 years ago. Not only has the life of local icon Lovia Boyd been documented by me but one of the most famous African American citizens from Ellis County has been remembered by me in this paper since 2002. Bessie Coleman was more than a Waxahachie native. She was a major African American figure in the history of aviation and I am as proud of her as anyone.

Unity in the Community capped its annual tribute to Martin Luther King, Jr. by hosting the first event ever held in the new Ennis Welcome Center on Sunday.

The World War II Pearl Harbor hero Doris “Dorie” Miller (1919-1943), the first African American to be awarded the Navy Cross for valor, has been honored by the U.S. Navy with an aircraft carrier named for him.