Brownwood News – There was a large crowd in attendance Thursday night for a gathering of the Pecan Valley Republican Women’s Club and Republican Party of Brown County.


IN THE PHOTO – Senator, Dr. Dawn Buckingham, visits with constituents during a meet, greet and mingle Thursday night at the Adams Street Community Center, sponsored by the Pecan Valley Republican Women’s Club.

Keynote speaker was Texas Senator, Dr. Dawn Buckingham who pointed to accomplishments of the last session of the Texas Legislature.  “We did a lot of great things for public education.  I think it is the most important thing we do, is educate our children.  It is our future work force.  It is our future to compete and so fixing a lot of that, recapture which is super important for some of our districts, increasing the funding (to school districts) by about 20% on average through basic allotment and focusing that money on our classroom teachers, the educators with the boots on the ground,” Buckingham said.

She also touched on property taxes saying they should go down just a little and save Texas taxpayers $6.2 billion over the next five or six years.  She also mentioned the extra 13th check retired teachers are getting in their bank accounts this week.

Brown County Republican Party Chairman, Robert Porter, spoke about Proposition 4 which is on the Texas ballot this coming November.  It is a proposition to prohibit a state income tax but it comes with some tricky wording.  “It’s kind of funny, the way it’s worded.  You have to vote yes to say no income tax.  So you have to vote yes, to vote no.  It’s actually yes to ban the income tax,” Porter said.

Also present were candidates for U.S. Congress District 11 including Robert Tucker from Comanche, Wes Virdell from Brady and J. Ross Lacy of Midland.  Running for U.S. Senate is Dwayne Stovall from Liberty County.  They were given a minute to introduce themselves

Texas Representative Mike Lang also spoke on the recent legislative session and his meetings this week in El Paso and Austin as he serves on the House Mass Violence Committee.


Senator Dawn Buckingham honors the family
of Mary Lynn Taylor 

The evening ended with the family of Mary Lynn Taylor receiving an official proclamation from the Texas Senate, read by and given to the Taylor family by Senator Buckingham.

Mary Lynn Taylor was a founding member of the Pecan Valley Republican Women’s Club.  Her husband, daughter, son and granddaughter were in attendance to receive the proclamation from Senator Buckingham.