CORPUS CHRISTI, Texas — It's a Saturday morning wake-up call for Coastal Bend veterans. The Star Spangled Banner leads off a two hour radio show on 1440 AM / 98.7 FM KEYS.
Every Saturday morning starting at 8:00, Korean War veteran Dotson Lewis and his sidekick Corpus Christi 4th District Councilman Greg Smith take to the airwaves to talk about issues affecting veterans and their families. They call it the Veterans Radio Round Table.
Need a problem related to your service fixed? They help out with that.
What about local events impacting veterans? Like the one coming up September 9 that honors Vietnam War Veterans at the Corpus Christi Hooksgame.
In fact, they cover just about every major issue impacting, well, everyone really.
Co-host Councilman Smith is quick to pass along information from COVID-19 vaccines to road repairs.
Smith said the city of Corpus Christi is committed to spending 120 million dollars on streets in the budget that starts October 1.
He also mentioned the ongoing road work on the highly traveled Ocean Drive should be completed sometime in October or November of this year.
They have a 'Who's Who' of guests on the show too. State Representative Todd Hunter and Nueces County Judge Barbara Canales joined them this week. Hunter gave a legislative update. There will be a Special Session until September 5 or earlier.
Hunter covered a few of the 17 agenda items:
* Anti-domestic violence laws.
* Thirteenth check, relating to a "thirteenth check" or one-time supplemental payment of benefits under the Teacher Retirement System of Texas.
* Election integrity bills (a public hearing will be held Monday, August 23 on Senate Bill 1).
Hunter also talked about legislative redistricting (census numbers will come out September 1).
Also on the radio show, among other topics, Judge Canales mentioned an idea to start a veterans gardening class.
"Well, you just let us know and we'll put that into our senior education program at Del Mar (College)," replied Lewis.
Canales said the Agricultural Extension Agency is probably "our secret weapon" in Nueces County. She said, through the state of Texas and Nueces County's budget, funding could be made available for the effort, especially since there are master gardeners who can help out.
"This is a great thing to do, when we're staying at home more these days, you can make yourself incredibly useful," said Canales. "Think about the incredible generational gift we give to our grand child saying 'hey, let's plant a tomato garden.'"
It doesn't stop there, but you'll have to tune in next Saturday morning for more of the smooth early morning sounds of service.
If you can't wait, check out theVeterans Roundtable Corpus Christi Facebook page for more.
