The beginning of a new year, the Port O’Connor Chamber of Commerce is also unveiling a new website. This has been in the making for some time. Please go to portoconnorchamber.com and check this out. Mr. John Reneau has dedicated many hours to getting this site up and running. We are hoping you will be able to find any information you are seeking. The new site has been developed for promoting our community and businesses.

Events for 2019 are as follows:

April 27th – 7th Annual Crawfish Festival and Cookoff. If you would like a vendor space, please email darla611@aol.com. 10×10 space is $50.00.
May 25th – Annual Kids Fishing Tournament & Kite Contest
July 6th – Annual Fireworks Display
December 7th- Lighted Boat Parade
It’s never to early to start making plans.

Check POC out also on Facebook Page & Instagram.

Next meeting February 11th- 6:30 p.m.- Port O’Connor Community Center.
Come and join in helping keep our community the place you want to be.

Sheriff Vickery To Speak February 4

Calhoun County Republican Club has set 2019 as a “Know your County Government” series. Each month we will feature a different department of our county government. The department head will outline the services provided and how the citizen may access these services.

The first in the series is Calhoun County Sheriff’s Department, Monday, February 4, at the Grace Episcopal Parish Hall. Sheriff Bobbie Vickery is featured speaker. Dinner ($11.00 by RESERVATION ONLY) is served from 5-6pm. Meeting starts promptly at 6pm. Meeting is free to the public. PLEASE MAKE DINNER RESERVATIONS no later than Monday, January 28. Call Connie – 552-0917, or Lisa – 552-6313.

Happy New Year from the women of the POC Service Club. A new start is always exciting. This new year brings plenty of opportunities to serve and volunteer in and around our community. The new library, the school, Chamber, community organizations and outreach efforts are all looking for helpful hearts and hands to work with them as they touch lives around them. The POC Service Club is constantly collaborating with others and sharing the load. The upcoming Gumbo cookoff, Chamber events such as the Crawfish Festival, benefits and such are only successful because POC folks work together. Maybe you would like to find a place to volunteer but you are not sure what you want to do. POC Community Service Club is a great place to start. We meet twice a month during the school year on the 1st and 3rd Thursdays at 10:30 a.m. at the POC Community Center. Ladies of all ages are welcome to visit a meeting and see if we might be a great fit for you.

The annual Sweetheart Banquet is coming soon. This special event is another collaborative project and a gift of love to couples young and old in POC. Find details in this edition of The Dolphin Talk. Other events are on the calendar and you will find all the details if you read the paper or web sites. The Service Club is continuing to accept donations of quality used household items for our annual garage sale. This and other fund raisers make it possible to award scholarships to local students and fund projects and outreach in Port O’Connor. The POC Service Club is committed to making a difference in our home town and you help.

Sadness and joy mixed thoroughly blended is one of the best things in life to teach us gratitude. Today with sadness I write an update of the Port O’Connor Service Club for the last time. For several years it has been my wonderful duty to report on their activities. But as I have shared before I am spending more and more of my time at Little Oak Tree Acres, our little farm in Live Oak County where huge live oak trees on a few acres with a big garden and chickens pecking make me feel at home. I get to POC regularly, but not regularly enough. I will miss sharing my love and respect for the women in the club with you, but I am leaving the task in good hands. With great joy I am sharing that Sam Burnett will be taking over chronicling the club in the future. She is smart, fun, creative and committed to the Service Club purpose in POC. You will enjoy her contributions. I will continue to spend time in POC often. This little community has a piece of my heart. David and I found great joy and dear friends here. So, I will see you down the road, but until I do, be safe, live simply, love openly, forgive generously and remember this quote by Luke who was a physician, social activist and disciple of Jesus who said in Luke 6:38:

“Give and it will be given to you, in good measure, pressed down, shaken together, running over, it will be poured into your lap. For in the same measure you give to others will it be given to you in return.” If it feels like life is empty, find somewhere to give to someone and you will find your life is full to the brim. Thanks for letting me share life’s journey with you in the Dolphin Talk and elsewhere. blessings and love- Kelly Gee.

Here we are again, a fresh new year ahead with, hopefully for all of you reading, a brand new start. In years past (just how many we will touch on next month), I have written about that fresh start, including how the fresh start occurring only at this time of year is really just a label; you can start over any time of the year.

However, it may all feel like some kind of lie to us no matter when we think of change, or trying again to get up a hill we have fallen down so many times before. So, I figured I’d use this year’s new years column to point out some people who really put the ‘resolve’ into resolution.

 Steven Spielberg: We all know the name as one of the largest names in film history. Spielberg has produced and/or directed some of history’s greatest films, including E.T., the Indiana Jones series, Schindler’s List and many, many others.

So it may surprise you to learn that Spielberg was denied admittance to the University of Southern California’s School of Cinematic Arts…twice.

 Jim Abbott: You might know this one if you are a baseball fan but Jim Abbott was a professional baseball pitcher that besides winning many amateur sporting awards also spent ten years in Major League Baseball from 1989 until 1999.
Abbott also had no right hand and in able to pitch would hold the baseball glove with his right forearm until he released the ball to the batter and then would quickly put his fielding glove on his left hand.

It makes you really think about the disadvantages many of us complain about when a man gets to be a pro-athlete with such a major obstacle.
    Albert Einstein and Thomas Edison: Both of these names are almost synonymous in our minds with the idea of intelligence, invention, and creativity.

It might surprise you then that Edison’s teachers expressed concern that Edison ‘could be taught nothing’ and that Einstein did not speak his first words until he was four years old and could not read until he was seven.

    Jimmy Butler: Going back to sports, I thought we might touch on a person who is also a Texas native, being raised in a small town just outside of Houston. Jimmy Butler is now a millionaire shooting guard in the NBA and a individual who pushed on despite a huge obstacle life threw at him when he was just thirteen years old.

Growing up without a father, Butler was kicked out of his home by his mother, with her telling Butler she: “Just did not like the looks of him.”
Even more impressive was Butler’s take on the matter when this part of his history was found out just before the 2011 NBA Draft:

“Please, I know you’re going to write something. I’m just asking you, don’t write it in a way that makes people feel sorry for me… There’s nothing to feel sorry about. I love what happened to me. It made me who I am. I’m grateful for the challenges I’ve faced.
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I hope this article has inspired you to tackle your own challenges this year, no matter how large and daunting they may seem.