“It’s an oversize, triple-thick lounge towel,” explained Cliff Prescott of Dallas and Lake Texoma. He is the man behind the big—no, make that fat—towel. “It’s big enough to stretch over a chaise lounge. The towels are one meter by two meters.” That’s three feet, three inches by six feet six inches, for those who don’t do metric. Most beach towels are about thirty-six inches by twenty-four inches, only slightly larger than a bath towel.

The economy may be slowing, but peoples’ hair keeps growing, and stylist Garrett Patton is glad of that. “I used to say we were recession proof—now I say we’re recession resistant.”

Call it sawdust in his veins. Chip Piazza had known he wanted to build things since he was a kid. There was no doubt construction would be his future. “My father, Pete, was a residential contractor, so I was around building all the time. I liked drawing house plans in the drafting program in high school. Building picked me, I didn’t pick it,” he said. “I pretty much knew what I wanted to be, being around construction so much as a kid.”

Cabbage and kale—sounds good, but these plants are not for eating. They are ornamentals, and along with a wide variety of other bedding plants just getting started, they are the Wilson’s crop. These and the pansies. Yup, pansies. Right now they have greenhouses full of pansies just waiting to find a new winter home. “Pansies are tough,” Wilson said. “They like the cold.” Perhaps it’s time to reconsider the little flower’s image.

For over 100 years, folks still find out what’s going on in Trenton, Texas with a weekly copy of the Trenton Tribune. It has been owned and operated by the Holmes family since the beginning.

Just off the square in Bonham, a little miracle is unfolding. ACT Communications, a local success story in the 1980s and 90s, is on the rise again.

Building the smaller homes was not an afterthought for Barton and Lund. When they started Cupid Homes, they made the decision to build houses for what they called a “forgotten segment” of people—those looking for a nice new home, but in a price range that is closer to $70,000 than to $90,000. “We wanted to come up with a product that was a great alternative for people who lived in urban areas,” Barton said.