CHEERS: To the Texarkana community for supporting our Stone Soup luncheon on March 6 at the Cabe Center. We were successful in raising over $4,000 for children’s needs in our area. This includes school supplies for five schools, backpacks, summer camp for 20, Christmas angels, dolls and bears. We also meet needs of the Center of Hope. Only through your generous donations and purchase of tickets is this possible. Special thanks to the First Methodist Church, Arkansas, and merchants who helped.—V.V.B., Texarkana, Texas



JEERS: To the Texarkana, Texas, city officials and owners of Texarkana’s new professional baseball team. We don’t have enough violence and tawdriness in the Twin Cities so we now have a baseball team with the ridiculous name, Gunslingers, and a baseball field allowing beer to be sold at the games. That was some slick double-speak interpretation of city ordinance, I must say. Our cultural and moral dominoes just keep falling in this country, with no end in sight. God bless the United States, because our leaders sure don’t.—J.W., Texarkana, Ark.



JEERS: To Texarkana, Ark., school district personnel office. Why is it that the teachers who are assaulting students are allowed to resign with pay and the children who allegedly assault teachers are expelled, locked up and taken to court, expelled from school and not allowed to enter anyone’s school in state or out of state? Sounds like double standards to me and definitely unfair. You call DHS on parents if you think we spanked our child too hard but you don’t bother to call DHS on one of your own. This oath of silence is not protecting our children.—D.A., Texarkana, Ark.



Cheers and Jeers are published each Saturday on the Opinion Page of the Texarkana Gazette.

Cheers and Jeers must be limited to 100 words or less, and may be edited for length and legal considerations. No personal attacks, business/commercial, or consumer complaint Cheers or Jeers will be printed.

You may submit your Cheers and Jeers to us at P.O. Box 621, Texarkana, TX 75504; by fax at 903-794-3315; or by e-mail at opinion@texarkanagazette.com. Deadline for Saturday publication is noon Wednesday.

Although only initials and the city and state are printed with each entry, we require each Cheer and Jeer to include the writer’s name, address, telephone number and signature. Submissions become the property of the Texarkana Gazette.

Publication is limited to one entry per contributor within a 30-day period.