Perspectives

The Heart of Texas Behavioral Health Network was awarded a half-million dollars to continue filling gaps for services for homeless and runaway youth in the agency’s region, which includes McLennan, Bosque, Falls, Freestone, Hill and Limestone counties. The Heart of Texas Behavioral Health Network’s Klaras Center for Families received the award through The Administration for Children and Families (ACF), Family and Youth Services Bureau’s (FYSB), Runaway Homeless Youth “Basic Center Program.” “This is our 2nd win for this program,” said Tom Christian, Director of Grants and Special Projects for the Klaras Center for Families. “It is a three-year Federal grant that amounts to $151,350 per year, for three years ($454,050 in total), to support our “Safety Net” Basic Center Program housed at the Chase House. In the first iteration of this grant (beginning in 2019) we helped over twenty runaway youth to gain access to immediate shelter and support services in the effort to get them integrated into safe housing and back into community.”

Texas has deployed state resources to Florida to assist in response and recovery efforts in the aftermath of the devastation caused last week by Hurricane Ian, one of the most powerful storms to hit the United States in the past decade.

On Sep. 30, 1918, every seat was full in Dallas’ Crystal Theater for every showing of “The Girl of Today” because Corinne Griffith was there in person to promote her latest silent picture. Just three years earlier in November 1915, The Morning News informed readers: “Texarkana has given to the world who it is claimed will be a real star of the movies in the person of Miss Corinne Griffin (stage name Griffith).” Born in 1895, the daughter of a Methodist minister lived in the town that straddles the Texas-Arkansas border until she was ten. Her mother then took her to a finishing school in New Orleans, where in her teens she dazzled everybody, including the judges of a Mardis Gras beauty contest, with her grace and stunning good looks. There are two versions of how Corinne got her big break. In the first, a Vitagraph director spied her at a high-society function in the Crescent City and offered her a movie contract on the spot. In the second, Texas-born director King Vidor opened the door to her silent- screen debut at age 20.