Troubadour: Can’t say I remember needing the word before

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By Hudson Old — June 28, 2018

Expert

Tuning in to Professor Steve Howell’s lyrical-musical lectures ever time I crank the pickup stereo’s expanded my brain. I’m prob’ly smarter than y’all now.

I’m smug knowing “When It’s Sleepy Time Down South” was once Louie Armstrong’s tribute to Dixieland Jazz pouring down the Mississippi into the port of New Orleans. Hearing Professor Howell and the Mighty Men turn its melody into a riverboat paddle wheeler on a moonlit night taking me where I’ve never been makes me a philosopher.

Is it wrong for a troubadour (sic – I looked it up) to love his guitar? A Texas board room oil baron, Professor Howell would as soon be playing a honky tonk. I know, I was there. As an emerging music critic, I drove 50 miles to Marshall where he was booked for a Wednesday-night show.

A classical guitarist, Dan Summer took the distance trophy for driving up from Louisiana to accompany Professor Howell at OS2. OS2 is either a place with linen table clothes attached to an old railroad town tavern, or a tavern attached to a restaurant with a selection of Vegan, Organic and Non-GMO entres on the menu alongside marinated crab claws and filet mignon.

Either way, carry your wallet.

I got there in time to see Professor Howell and wife Leigh picking up the check for Mr. Summer’s meal.

“I take good care of good musicians,” Mr. Howell said. Also, I checked the spelling on “troubadour” before I started tossing out French, probably a residual effect of going in a bar with no pool tables. A beatnik could play bongos in there.

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OPINION: MARSHALL CITY GOVERNMENT LOSES AT LEAST $191,998 ON WONDERLAND OF LIGHTS 2017

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By Ron Munden – June 26, 2018

The wait is finally over. Based on the numbers the City provided for my February 6, 2018 open records request and the three previous three requests, the numbers provided by the City show that the City lost at least $191,998 on WOL 2017. I say at least because the City said because of their accounting system they could not provide me the contract labor costs or the material cost for January 2018. So, no January costs are included for those items.

The $191,998 is based entirely on the numbers provided by the City. I did make one adjustment. The City uses $50,000 of hotel occupancy tax money to pay for WOL. They count this $50,000 as revenue. This is not revenue it is simply a transfer of money between two city accounts. No one gave the City an extra $50,000 for WOL. This is a zero-sum-game for the City. Therefore, deducted the $50,000 from the revenue the City reported.

As I mentioned there are several missing expense numbers from the numbers provided by the City.

When the Convention and Visitors Bureau operated as a 501c3 and produced WOL the City charged the CVB for electricity usage. As I recall the charge was around $35,000/year. Now that the City runs the festival it does not report electricity as an expense even though the City pays the bill.

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HOW MUCH DOES WONDERLAND OF LIGHT COST THE CITY?

By Ron Munden – June 26, 2018

At a Convention and Visitors Bureau meeting during the summer of 2017 there was a discussion about how much it really cost for the City to produce Wonderland of Lights. Commissioner Doug Lewis, who represents the City at the CVB meeting said that he had asked city staff that question, and he was told, “You do not want to know.” Commissioner Lewis said that he replied, “yes I do.”

For the past two years I had submitted open record requests for the data required to calculate the total cost of WOL. Each year the City’s reply was that the city must be non-responsive to my request because the city didn’t collect the data.

I was optimistic that if a City Commissioner wanted the data the City would collect the data for Wonderland 2017.

In November 2017 I submitted my first request for the expenditures for October 2017. I was pleased when the City responded to my request. I repeated the process in December and January and the City responded to both requests. So, by mid-January I had data on all the expenditures for WOL 2017 through the month of December.

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Leann Rimes in Concert – Marshall Texas – June 2011

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Photography by Ron Munden

In 2010 and 2011 Marshall Texas as trying to brand itself as “Marahall Texas – Center Stage” (the center for entertainment in North East Texas). The effort failed but during that two years the city have more good entertainment than in all the years that have followed. It was an expensive failure but it was a fun time while it lasted.

Recently I ran across 83 images from the Leann Rimes concert in June 2011.

Click here to see the slideshow/gallery.