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FORT BEND FRIENDS AND NEIGHBORS
Fort Bend Friends and Neighbors Award Scholarships to Graduating High School Seniors
Fort Bend Friends and Neighbors (FBFN) is a social organization bringing ladies of Fort Bend County together for fellowship and fun. The charitable arm of the FBFN social club is the FBFN Foundation. The Foundation was established in the fall of 2012 as a 501(c)3 non- profit, tax-exempt Texas organization.
The Foundation’s primary focus is to provide scholarships to graduating seniors or current college students who attend or will be attending Fort Bend County colleges. Since 2005 the Foundation has awarded $310,000 in scholarships. Applications will open again in January 2023.
The FBFN Social club is in the process of creating a cookbook with recipes from some of the finest cooks in the county who are members of the organization. All FBFN 2022-2023 Sharon Svendson, Scholarship Chairperson, Kevin DeJong, Cassandra Fuentes, Bria Shepherd, Janet Meza, Emily Salgado, Sameer Goswami, Imara Karim, Jiana Ugaddan, Hiba Rizvi and Shelby Santana.
net proceeds will benefit the scholarship program. Books go on sale September 29th just in time for Christmas gift giving. Contact Joy Dowell at 281.844.4982 or dowell44@gmail.com for more information or to order your cookbook. Go to the website to donate to the scholarship program at www.fbfn.org. For information on joining the social club, complete an application online at www.fbfn.org.
At the close of the 2021-22 school year, Stafford MSD hosted an awards ceremony to honor employees of the year on Tuesday, June 7th. District Teacher of the Year was awarded to Meghann Adkins, a U.S. History and AP Human Geography teacher. District Rookie Teacher of the Year went to Meredith Mohr, an English Language Arts and AP Language and Composition teacher.
Both teachers were selected from Stafford High School, under the leadership of Principal Raymond Root, where nearly 1,000 students attend including over 250 seniors who graduated last weekend.
Adkins won the Teacher of the Year category at her campus, all secondary grade level campuses and district overall. Adkins originally started at Stafford Middle School and, this year, got an opportunity to teach former students once again at Stafford High School. In the classroom, she utilizes Socratic seminars to encourage students to interact and seek a deeper understanding while discussing a variety of topics dealing with humanities.
Mohr won the Rookie Teacher of the Year category on her campus, all secondary grade level campuses and district overall. From her own years in high school, Mohr has always had a passion for writing and journalism. She loves applying her real-life experience with students more than anything and firmly believes that building relationships is a major key to success in the classroom.
Superintendent Dr. Robert Bostic said, “We have stellar teachers and we’re honored to have them represent SMSD in Region 4 and Texas. They’re outstanding educators and we are lucky to have them.”
All five campuses at Stafford MSD each selected a Teacher and Rookie Teacher of the Year, respectively. The Stafford Early Childhood Center selected Johanna Chesser and Endia Hedgepeth. The Stafford Elementary School selected Angel Porter and James Mas. The Stafford Middle School selected Byron Thompson and Melton Finley. The STEM Magnet Academy selected Carolina Sievers and Vandana Kalanee.
The district would like to express extreme gratitude to every employee including operations, support, clerical, teachers and administration. Every individual plays a significant role on campus and makes the district an exponentially better place for Spartan students and success. A collection of videos for employees of the year has been added to a playlist on the district’s YouTube channel.
PLAY
Living the Sweet Life: Time to be Mine
By Alisa Murray www.AlisaMurray.com Nationally recognized portrait artist and award-winning columnist.
Hey Sweet Lifers! There’s a running joke between me and my oldest and best friend about when to buy things. Not the items that everybody needs eventually like furniture, appliances and houses, but the personal stuff that makes life a little sweeter. You know the pocket books, jewelry, clothes. And as of late, our conversations are daily leaning towards what trees and plants to buy! That, we tell each other, is because we are now able to be stewards of mother earth. Although that may be true, I seem to find myself rapidly getting older with every conversation. Amazing how these things happen!
Amy Jo has always had a problem with the sweeter stuff mainly because she is more frugal than me and also she has a faith that if she’s supposed to have it, well it will just still be waiting for her when she comes back for it. Over the years I have more than once given her my, “I told you to go ahead and buy it” moment as she called lamenting the lavender at Lowe’s last year that she had “fallen in love with” and went back to find it all gone or that dress at Target that she actually tried on in the store, and it fit perfectly. She left and went back two days later to find it gone. These things, much to my sweet Brian’s lament, do not happen to me . . . well not as much.
I tend to see it, and buy it, and if I get home with it and it “doesn’t work,” I take it back, but I do not let something that catches my eye get left behind very often. This requires less stress for me than wondering if that “something” might be an eye catcher for someone else too while I have abandoned it to think on if it should be mine. Sometimes, though rarely, I am like Amy Jo. I usually find myself in this situation when it comes to a piece of jewelry.
And that is exactly what I have been finding myself dealing with in a self-induced stress over a leather cuff that for the past four years has resided in Waxhaw, North Carolina. Each year I have visited my favorite store when traveling in to visit family, and for four years I have found the cuff laying patiently waiting to be brought to its home. I would even try it on each year and tell myself, “You don’t need this,” a rare thing for me to do indeed! This time, though, I was a lot more sentimental than usual, and with each life event, I do usually purchase a piece of jewelry. It’s always been my thing to do so, that having been a tradition I was taught as a child. My mother’s princess ring when I turned 16, a gold watch upon graduation, my mother’s emeralds that she was wearing when she was killed, marking my marriage to sweet Brian. With each life milestone, I have a “something” to remember it by, and that same “something” to pass to the next generation. Something special with meaning and of excellent quality.
So, having come home to bury our last parenting pillar, my beautiful mother-in-law, Barbara Ann, who has been my mother for 33 years and long ago out-mothered my own, it seemed fitting to go back and see if that little “something” was still there. It was. The artist has carved and molded a beautiful rendition of the dogwood blossom, the state flower. At it’s center is a cluster of rough hand cut amethyst which is my birthstone. North Carolina is where Brian and I were born and raised, and suddenly I smiled and said to myself, “It’s time to make you mine.” Something in me felt at peace and simultaneously a sense that I was complete and ready for our next chapters without a mother. Each time I look at it, I will remember the beautiful Blue Ridge Parkway, the smell of red-eye gravy over grits, the best days of my childhood and my sweet Barbara Ann!
Take Care of YOU and Stay “Sweet!”
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