The past year in Wharton has been interesting

This marks my first work anniversary with the Wharton Journal-Spectator and the East Bernard Express.

While one year may not seem that long, it apparently is looking back at my resume. Of the 14 newspapers I have worked for in the last 35 years, I was with five of them for less than a year. Two of them I left willingly, two I didn’t, and one was a two-month interim position during the pandemic.

My longest tenure was the nine years I spent at my hometown newspaper, the Longmont Daily Times-Call in Colorado. I spent seven hellish years at a daily paper in North Carolina, two years at a weekly in Minnesota, and the rest of the time here in Texas. I’ve had two two-year stints in Sealy, separated by three years at the Fort Bend Star in Sugar Land.

I don’t need to share my entire resume to say that my time here in Wharton County has been interesting. I’ve met some real characters and made some good friends and both are often the same. Wharton is a unique place and I’m enjoying getting to know it and the wonderfully colorful people who populate it. Like I said in one of my first columns after I arrived here, this is one of the warmest, most welcoming places I’ve been to.

To be sure there have been some people here that noted pastor and author Rick Warren would refer to as EGRs (extra grace required), but you get that anywhere you go. I’m sure there are more than a few people who would consider me an EGR. I can be stubborn, forgetful, and often oblivious to what’s going on around me. I can also be forgetful.

One of the things I’ve learned about Wharton is that the community is very proud of its history. One of the more notable historic events to happen here is what local historian and author Dr. Gregg Dimmick calls the Sea of Mud. It refers to the Mexican Army’s slow, mucky trek through here during the retreat after the Battle of San Jacinto in 1836.

I’m actually a bit surprised that no one here has capitalized on that to create an annual Sea of Mud Festival. The possibilities for that are endless. It would be a great way to draw tourists and capitalize on our history. Don’t believe me, look what Gonzales has done with the Come and Take It Festival.

I envision a weekend of events that include things like mud fights, mud volleyball tournaments, mud pie making contests, a mud run, mud wrestling, muddy t-shirt contests, and the usual array of live music, vendors, parade, and foods. Re-enactors who portray the Mexican Army of the 1830s could set up a camp (on dry, unmuddied ground) and demonstrate camp life and do weapon firing demonstrations. It would be the dirtiest clean fun you’ve ever had.

Getting back to some of my Wharton experiences this past year, I’ve enjoyed covering the Wharton County Youth Fair, the Snow Festival (which, sadly, will not be held this year), the Chamber Banquet, the Rotary Gala, Party Under the Bridge, the Wine Fair, and so many other events. A very memorable moment was the wild finish to the Wharton Tigers football game against Worthing where the 22-game losing streak came to an end.

Other unique experiences include covering the vitriolic theatrics of Gerry “Five-Star General” Monroe at Wharton ISD school board meetings; watching county officials first giving themselves a 10.5% raise and then upping it to 14.4%; two major fires; the sudden closing of an East Bernard developer who left numerous unfinished projects; local elections; a dispute over use of an historic former school; fossil discoveries in the Colorado River; numerous human smuggling arrests; and so much more.

I know there are other things I’m missing, but these highlights are enough to remind me what a fun and interesting place this is. The workload of putting out three newspapers a week (two in Wharton and one in East Bernard) can be stressful, but I generally look forward to coming to work each day because this is such an intriguing place. Rarely am I without anything to put in the paper.

Now that I’ve got a year behind me here, I have high hopes for the year to come. I have a better feel for the community and the things that are important to our readers. My goal is to improve our coverage of the community and to do our part to make this a better place to live and do business.

I hope you’ll join me on this next leg of my journey here. And who knows, maybe there will be a little mud-slinging along the way.

Joe Southern is managing editor of the Wharton Journal-Spectator and the East Bernard Express. He can be reached at news@journal-spectator.com.