Commissioner Terry Cook holds an interactive display detailing the positive health effects of smoking cessation in time spans from minutes to years after quitting, while Kelli Becerra with the Williamson County and Cities Health District holds a giant cigarette replica featuring the harmful chemicals found in tobacco smoke. 

I was raised by a good father with a bad habit: smoking. My Dad was a hardcore nicotine addict who didn’t fully comprehend how dangerous tobacco was or how secondhand smoke affected his family. He died too early in life from cancer and congestive heart failure.

As a child who grew up inhaling second hand smoke, and today as your representative on the Central Texas Clean Air Coalition, I am a staunch supporter of all smoking cessation initiatives, such as the Great American Smokeout on Thursday.

“The Great American Smokeout is a campaign that encourages smokers to quit or create a plan to quit by Nov. 16,” said Kelli Becerra with the Williamson County and Cities Health District. “It also brings attention to the immediate benefits of quitting to let smokers know that it is never too late to quit and improve health.”

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Members of the board are Bill Peeples, President, Seat 7; Nancy Melancon, Secretary, Seat 6; David Schell, Treasurer, Seat 3; Tracy Gialusis, Seat 1; Prashant Nadkarni, Seat 2; Marvin Knight, Seat 4; and Roy Wiederkehr, Seat 5.

The 2017-2018 Club Board of Directors are: Marty Ellman, President; Selicia Sanchez-Adame, President Elect (Membership/PR); Lee Buckland, Secretary; Joe Sculock, Treasurer; Rick Arnold, Past President. 

 

 

My brother, Randy Riddle, sponsors interns at his heating, ventilation and air conditioning business in Greenville, North Carolina, to expose them to a career path they hadn’t thought of before. His daughter and business manager, Rachel Davis, has been encouraging Pitt Community College, also in Greenville, to expand their trade and technical programs.

Nationally, companies are desperate to find well trained workers who want these jobs, instead of training people not suited for these jobs or who leave after time and money was spent instructing them.

I commend my family members for their efforts and recently informed them of my tour of Texas State Technical College inside the East Williamson County Educational Center in Hutto. The center is housed in a 112,000-square-foot facility located on 54 acres in Hutto, and their master plan calls for a total of 13 buildings.

Texas State Technical College, along with Temple College and Texas A&M University-Central Texas, partnered with the Hutto community to create this visionary and multi-institutional teaching center that provides a variety of educational opportunities and workforce readiness programs.

I didn’t know what to expect as we pulled into the parking lot of this campus out in the middle of large, grassy fields when I first began my tour on Sept. 8. Michael Smith, field development officer, conducted the tour, and Edgar Padilla, provost, warmly welcomed me to the campus.

One of the most jaw-dropping facts I learned was...