Port O’Connor Chamber of Commerce

Memorial Day weekend seems like it came and went in the blink of an eye. The Kids Fishing Tournament was a hoot with 50 youngsters looking to catch the “big one”. When the last fish was weighed in everyone watched kites flying over the beach during the Kite Flying Contest.

The Chamber was honored to provide our annual scholarship in the amount of $500 to Brooklyn Redmond. Brooklyn is a 2021 graduate of Calhoun County High School and a resident of Port O’ Connor. Brooklyn has been very involved in FFA, 4-H and the National Honor Society while maintaining a 4.0 GPA. She plans on attending Colorado State University, in the fall, where she will major in Aerospace engineering. Brooklyn is also very creative, and you can see her hand painted windows each month at the Farmers Market. We are all proud of you, Brooklyn, and look forward to witnessing your future accomplishments.

July 4th is an exciting time for everyone in our country and the Chamber is planning a sensational Fourth of July celebration with our annual fireworks display on Saturday, July 3, 2021, at 9:00 p.m. It is not too late to help with this expense by donating on-line at the chamber webpage at www.portoconnorchamber.com or by dropping off your donation at the First National Bank in Port O’ Connor. Also, do not forget to come out during the day and enjoy the food and craft vendors at Kingfisher Beach selling funnel cakes, snow cones, hot dogs and much more.

Mark your calendars for the annual Golf Cart Scavenger Hunt which will be Saturday July 24th. This is a fun event for the entire family as you search for items with provided clues for a chance to win great prizes.

Please make sure and let the Chamber know if you are planning a fishing tournament, cook-off or other large event and we will add it to the events calendar on our webpage.

June Cantrell
June Cantrell is a senior with a mission. She is driven by the desire to continue in her ministerial role as well as being connected in the Seadrift community.

Undaunted by a loss in the recent Seadrift City Council election, she says she will continue to stay connected by coming to the city council meetings.

Her love for community as well as ministry is an outgrowth of being planted in a God-fearing family and an experience she calls “born-again.”

Her parents, Reginald and Jewell Hardy, were involved in ministry over a span of fifty-two years. After Jewell passed, Reginald continued in ministry another thirteen years.

Reginald, the youngest of eight children, was able to attend McMurray’s Methodist College to pursue the career of a pastor. Even though his family was poor, the family was able to scrape the money together to help Reginald attend college. When he was just a child, he would round up the local children from the neighboring farms to preach to them.

Jewell Hardy gave up a career of being a concert pianist to become a pastor’s wife. Together they had three children, June being the youngest.

June remembers a memorable trip she made with her parents to Washington, D.C. It was there that they saw Lyndon B. Johnson, then Senator, and Sam Rayburn, then House Speaker. Each one of these men were from Texas. This was sometime around 1955. The family also watched then Senator John F. Kennedy introduce a bill in the Senate. Reginald pointed out to his family each one of the senators. He recognized them because of reading the paper and watching them on T.V. Needless to say, June’s interest in politics was birthed by her parents, particularly by her father.

June felt the call to ministry when she was sixteen. It was much later in life when she knew that the call to ministry was knocking at her heart’s door. June responded.

In 2004 June took her first pastorate. In 2008 she had to take leave of ministry to care for her ailing husband, Lon. In 2010 her husband went into a nursing home and June resumed her ministry. She served Seadrift Methodist for seven years and the Austwell Methodist for nine years. In 2018 June began filling in at the Bloomington Methodist and continues until today.

June stated that “the reason I want to be in the pastorate is because I was “born-again.” I realized God was not “somewhere out there,” but was “right here” all the time. I want to help people find what I had found.. to know God in their midst.”

Well put, June!

Proposed Voting Acts

From our founding, the United States of America has been a flawed but ambitious and aspirational nation that has made continuous gains towards our promise of liberty and justice for all.
One such gain is our unending fight for voting rights. Unending, because while our nation bends towards equality there are those with political and financial power who continually fight to make it harder to vote especially for the poor, the young, the elderly, women, and people of color.

We need HR1/S1 For the People Act and HR4 John Lewis Voting Rights Advancement Act to pass the Senate ASAP to preserve, protect, and expand our voting rights from those who seek to make it ever harder to vote including purging voters from the voting rolls to prevent them from voting.
Please call, email, tweet, etc our Senators to get them to pass these bills.

Brandelyn Wiser
Port Lavaca, Texas

Election Integrity

The 87th Texas Legislative session did not end well for the top eight priorities for the Republican-led House. Two of the most serious issue failed. First, the election integrity bill failed when Democrats walked out to kill the vote and the second bill that failed was the bill banning gender modification.

I want to be clear, in my opinion, the 2020 Election was stolen in the middle of the night. Many vote counts stopped without any reason and then later resumed. The Dominion voting machines did not have strong security measures to prevent hacking, and illegitimate methods used under the guise of Covid to expand voting outside the normal bounds were well documented.

The House of Representatives passed “For The Peoples Act” HR1, yet it is stalled in the Senate, and it should never be allowed to pass to be a new law. Far-left Democrats have become like radicalized bees that know no bounds and seek to undermine the basic tenets that make our Republic great.

Democrats have condoned the burning and looting of cities and towns in the name of social justice. In addition, Democrats favored the removal of statues because the history of the statues offends them. Democrats agree with kneeling to protest the country as racist. Covid has been used as a cover to control the population using lockdowns and forcing mask mandates and shaming those who don’t or will not. The same goes now for the “new vaccines,” which is a subject of great debate. Dr. Fauci is proven to be more of a liar every day, and the origins of Covid are now seemingly not important.

The Biden/ Harris regime ringed the Capital with barbed wire and military for their coronation, treated the soldiers with contempt, and then sent them to the border to pick up trash. The recent edicts to decimate this country with open border policies, only to flood the country with new potential voters for the Democrats, are an ill-conceived notion that will negatively affect the country. If this is not enough, Democrats are championing the cause of defunding the police.

My illustrations of the facts should alert your senses to danger when a Democrat-controlled House and Senate want to get involved with election integrity to steal and plunder votes while demoralizing the country. These people will do and say anything to gain power and to keep it. Therefore, elections must stay decentralized and controlled by state legislatures and maintain strict standards for voting and counting the votes. This includes showing a valid driver’s license or legal Id.

Respectfully,
Chris Mapp
Port O’Connor

The Dolphin welcomes letters from our readers on any subject that is of general interest to our audience. Letters should be 300 words or less (exception at the Dolphin’s discretion). Letters reflect the opinion of the writer, and not that of Dolphin Talk staff, and we retain the right to determine suitability for publication. It is the policy of this newspaper to promote area interests; therefore, complaints against local businesses should be directed elsewhere. Letters must be signed and include day and evening phone numbers, which will not be published. Your name will be withheld upon request, but anonymous material will not be considered for publication.

Dolphin Talk; PO Box 777; Port O’Connor, TX 77982 dolphin1@tisd.net

The Calhoun County Republican Club (CCRP) met on Monday, June 7th, at 6:00 p.m. at The Pantry in Port Lavaca. Russell Cain, the Party Chair, hosted the event along with Vice Chair Connie Hunt. Two primary speakers shared information with the crowd of approximately fifty members, and some of our elected officials were present. The meeting opened with a prayer, pledge of allegiance to the U.S. flag, and the Texas flag.

Calhoun County School Superintendent Larry Nichols discussed many topics relating to the CCISD, including how Covid affected the district in 2020, including teachers, students, and staff members. In addition, three scholarships were awarded to recent graduates by the CCRP at the meeting.

One topic Mr. Nichols covered indicated an actual election between multiple candidates for School Board Trustee District five position for the first time in many years. And that boundaries clarifications were made to update who is eligible to vote in this precinct. Three political offices in different parts of the county went to Republican Candidates where the CCRP was involved.

Mr. Nichols discussed items such as the new FEMA dome construction project and other topics related to Hurricane Harvey and the teacher’s supplemental housing program and how it works. But, the best news of all was the district’s strong position standing for UIL placement and the new Navy ROTC program and reducing school taxes for property owners in the district

Our County Judge Richard Meyer asked the single most powerful question of the evening to the Superintendent. If Calhoun County will be participating in Critical Race Theory as part of the curriculum? And to this, Mr. Nichols answered unequivocally no. Mr. Nichols went on to say how a large business here in the county offered textbooks to the district that projected a particular bias or narrative, and Mr. Nichols unabashedly gave them back and said: “no, thank you.”

The second speaker Maria Salinas-Miller Vice-Chair of the Dewitt County GOP, and The National Coordinator for Latinos for America First, gave an eloquent account of the organization’s conservative values and some of the group’s current projects. Maria states, paraphrased, As American Hispanics, we are free thinkers. We want others to know what we stand for as a conservative group whose values align with the Republican platform.

The National Latinos for America First received many donations from the Dewitt County GOP and The Yoakum Area Women’s Republican Club, a TFRW organization. The two groups have used their resources to sponsor hot meals for The Customs & Border Patrol Agents.

Additionally, ten-dollar donation gift cards are welcome, and Grab n go baskets are also collected to give the agents to show appreciation for their hard work and dedication to the American people under very adverse conditions. Please contact MariAmericaFirst@protonmail.com if you would like to volunteer or donate to this worthy cause.

Calhoun County Republican Club wants to hear from you, and we are seeking new members to join our conservative club. Club dues are $25.00 per year. We meet on the first Monday of every month. Our next meeting is on July 5th, 6:00 p.m., at the VFW Hall in Port Lavaca. Please contact Connie Hunt at chunt36@yahoo.com to get your name on the meeting list and join us to Make America Great Again.

Reported by Chris Mapp

I sadly see a movement in our nation, even here in our beloved Port O’Connor, to compromise and become like everyone else. Individualism seems to have no credence – just get us to herd mentality! The message is one of “tolerance,” which means to most that we must agree with whatever another believes and never take a stand against other viewpoints. I believe it is time for us to stand strong and be the people we have been created to be – to live our lives in real freedom from the stresses of the “theys” who are always setting the standards! Get strong and stay strong!

Our strengths will stop others from trying to make us conform! I believe our Creator made us distinctively different from all others. There are those who would like for us to all be cut from the same “cookie cutter”! But, God has uniquely gifted each of us. He has unleashed a profound Divine gift in and through us. When we allow anyone to stop us and make us like someone else, we stop God’s plan for our life and our lives will be unfulfilled!

Our strengths will help us keep moving toward our mark! None other in all God’s creation has the same future as I have. The enemies of individualism will try to discourage us, disillusion us, distract us, and disappoint us. If possible, they will keep us from hitting our mark (as in bowling), so our lives will end up in the “gutters” of life. But, our inner strengths will keep us moving forward when opposition comes our way and it truly will come!

Our strengths will stop us from crumbling when persecutions come. God has appointed us, anointed us, chosen us, and declared to His angels His personal plan for our lives. Remember, we will not please everyone with the personal choices we make. Some will try with all their might to keep us from God’s mighty power operating in our lives. But, our inner strength will keep us moving toward our goals in spite of all those who say we “can not accomplish it”!

Our strengths will demoralize our opposition. It is much like running a race – the farther ahead we get ahead of our opposition, the less likely they will gather the inner strength to surge ahead to beat us! Keeping our confidence will destroy that enemies’ confidence and soon he will stop chasing us.

Our strengths will keep us from being seduced by the Delilah’s of life. Just as the Philistine lords paid Delilah money to set a trap for Samson, there are present day “Delilahs” who are trying to set up a bait to lure us, to seduce us, to lull us into a stupor, a slumber, a false sense of “rest”! They try to break us, crush us, and stop us from our mission. Our strength will not allow us to lie down, and take a nap on her lap because we now know that she is trying to kill us to stop our mission from being successful.

Our strengths will enable us to give birth to our visions. All mothers, expecting a child, require the strength to carry that child full-term. It will take additional strength for the baby to be perfectly formed, complete and whole. If the mother is not healthy, the birth can be premature, aborted, or the baby can be “still born”. A dead baby brings years of sorrow, a spirit of death into the marriage, disappointments, and often destroys the hope that every union requires. It strips the countenance of expectations, ecstasy, and enthusiasm. When the birthing pains get the hardest, extra strength will be required to go forward and birth that vision. But, our God has provided the extra strength required to see the baby come forward and new life to be created!

Our strengths are our personal decision to accomplish worthy goals for our lives. No one can keep our attention and focus at this time and at this season in our lives – no one except us! We must unclutter our lives, our days, our hours, our minutes, and even our seconds. We must unclutter the relationships entangling our emotions and our thoughts that will distract us from our goals. We must ruthlessly swipe away the webs that the small spiders have weaved around our minds. God is ready to do something different in our lives, but we must use our personal strengths to see it accomplished!

There is a spirit of complacency in our world and in our community. Complacency is not about being uncaring or disinterested – it is simply a spirit of contentedness that has gone awry. It is a satisfaction that lacks a clear sense of ongoing purpose, urgent priority, and a motivating passion for more of the good that we are all be be seeking. Anything less than our wholehearted desire to see our community be and remain the kind of place we are proud to call home will help deteriorate us from the inside. We have work to do and it is far from done!

The analogy is of a natural body that has an infection. When we have a fever, we feel achy, listless, and tired, with a lack of energy – we just do not feel well! At first, we are not sick enough to be in bed or go to the doctor, and yet not well enough to be busy as normal. I see this same snapshot in our community. A ferer is the bod’s warning signal, a sign that all is not well and the body is being affected by something that should not be there – an infection that would lessen its effectiveness and steal its energy, slowly robbing the body of health and vitality – its strength.

I know that there are people in our town who are truly sick, whether by disease or addiction, but if we as a community do not join forces and try to see things better, we will all continue to feel the impact of people who can not or are not willing to be productive citizens
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Fight complacency be being always Port O’Connor Strong!