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Coleman throws hat in the ring for council
On a cold Wednesday morning at 303 Haning Street, the owners of Palio's Pizza Cafe stated that the store should open no later than three weeks
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With a new location recently completed in Melissa, Texas, Palio's is still in the hiring and training process of employees
Owners say that since the building is not a traditional shaped building, that the pitched roof required a lot of custom installation that otherwise would not have stalled construction. A custom ordered vent hood and limited construction time delayed the opening greatly
Construction began in June of 2015
Howe's Wheeler listed among winningest coach in Texas high school football
In 1980, Howe ISD hired a new head coach by the name of John "Buck" Smith and one of his assistants in that initial year was Howe High School 1977 graduate Mike Wheeler What Smith didn't know at the time was that his young assistant coach would rack up 237 wins in a long successful head coaching career at private school Dallas Christian That healthy amount of wins has him ranked 13th among active Texas high school football coaches according to an article published recently by
TexasFootball com
Wheeler has been at Dallas Christian since the early continued on page 8
Recently, there has been a new trend to city council races that hasn’t happened in Howe in quite some time Citizens under the age of 45 with children in the local school system are stepping up and wanting to have a say in the direction of the city during the growth period that is expected to happen in Howe over the next few years Darren Foster was the first Howe citizen with children in the local school system to run in a number of years This year, the trend continues as Jonathan Coleman has officially announced his candidacy for a seat at the city council table in the upcoming May 6 election
Coleman has found himself in leadership since the age of 16 starting with his role with Fellowship Christian Athletes He eventually had a quarter of his college paid for through leadership programs as well as an additional 50 percent in scholarships including music, where he graduated with a bachelor’s degree in Music. After serving for a year as a music associate in Mississippi Coleman moved to Fort Worth to attend Southwestern Baptist Theological Seminary where he received a Masters of Christian Education Today he has been in church leadership for 11 years, serving the past four and a half years at First Baptist Church in Howe A Mississippi native, Coleman has been in Texas for 10 years and sees Howe as the place where he wished he would have been raised
“I never found a town like Howe when I was growing up.” Said Coleman. “This is the town I always dreamed I had grown up in When God brought us here five years ago, I just said, ‘God just let our kids grow up here ’ He’s been faithful thus far to let us be able to do that. Being a continued on page 2 part of this town, I feel like you need to be contributing to it and building it up.”
Coleman’s desires to stay in Howe for the long term could be because he moved so much during his childhood The son of a minister, he was a part of a family that moved many times as his father took staff positions at several churches - a normal practice in the 1980s and 1990s
“My prayer since I’ve been in ministry, mostly due to my upbringing and having to move around a lot, has been, ‘God, please don’t do that to my family Let us have somewhere that feels like home ’ I have no plans of leaving We would love to be here as long as possible ” said Coleman
Having been hired by FBC Howe in 2012, it didn’t take long for him to dig into being a part of city volunteer activities He became vice president of Keep Howe Beautiful in 2013 before helping to initiate the reformation of the
Howe Area Chamber of Commerce, serving as secretary, in late 2014 Coleman has also been involved with Howe ISD volunteer work by serving on the Howe Middle School Campus Development Team and running the clock and scoreboard at Howe Bulldogs football games for the past four seasons Most recently, Coleman organized and initiated the Grayson Baptist Association Christmas Choir
“I’ve tried to be involved with the town I was even an assistant softball coach one year I didn’t do it a second year, but I did it one year” Coleman joked
One thing Coleman is serious about is the future of the city and the small town feel he would like to preserve while the community goes through an upcoming growth transition
“It’s not whether we are going to grow or not, but how we handle that growth The question is how do we maintain the close-knit welcoming feel and community pride of Howe continued on page 3
Coleman continued from page 2 amidst growth That’s a questi that has to be constantly asked every new business that wants come in and every new housing development that wants to com in How does this help us?” sa Coleman
He says that making hard choic between things that hinder or enrich the city is something tha must be done His idea for Howe in five years is to hold on to the roots that has made the community envied, but also develop the town to make it a better place to not only live, but also work
“I don’t just live here, I work here, I do business here, I worship here, and my children attend and will attend school here ” Said Coleman
Coleman believes the City of Howe is doing a great job of heading in the right direction, but wants to improve upon certain areas such as the park maintenance Having young children, he believes having nice parks and ballfields are an important message to the young families of Howe and even future residents
“Everyone is aware that our ballfields need some attention, so I’d love to see some lawn maintenance occur and up keeping of parks just so that our children have a place that’s clean to play” Said Coleman “There have been some churches in town that have been gracious to clean up and volunteer groups have done a great job, but I’d love to see the city take more of an initiative of keeping our public areas kept up ”
It appears there will be three candidates running for two council seats, however Debbie Lowery has not confirmed her bid for reelection While Coleman’s views are very similar to current councilman Bill French’s vision for the city, they are in stark contrast from Lowery French and Coleman each advocate a healthy morale among city employees when it comes to vacation, sick time, and general pay increases to help recruit and retain better employees
“I want to see us to continue to support the city workers and the great job that they’ve been doing and encourage them to bring more of the same-minded people in.” said Coleman “Overall, I think the city does a wonderful job and I have no complaints about anyone I just want to be a part of a solution to make our city more beautiful ”
Having served on the chamber of commerce board for two full years, Coleman says the revitalization of the downtown area has sparked a renewed sense of community pride for Howe “It’s sort of a gathering place where citizens can come together When I came here, there wasn’t much going on downtown and there wasn’t much of a sense of community downtown But now when you go to lunch at Abby’s or Gabriela’s, you just see all the Howe people and it’s neat to have a sense of community downtown ”
Coleman married is wife Natalie in May of 2009 and they have two children, Mackenzie Grace (6) and Titus Bryant (3)
“I would love to as a council member continue to see businesses coming to Howe, continue to see a full, clean and lively downtown area, continue to support the
