People, Places & Events

‘Texas Country Under the Stars’
Aaron Watson and Deryl Dodd headline at Mill Creek Ranch Resort July 24-25
Special to The Monitor
CANTON – Texas country-western music stars will fill the night under the stars at Mill Creek Ranch Resort in Canton Friday-Saturday, July 24-25.
Texas Music Association’s 2009 Rising Star recipient the Cody Riley Band will open the Saturday evening concert at 6 p.m. followed by highly-acclaimed lyricist Jamie Richards and headliner Aaron Watson with eight CDs under his belt.
Richards will also offer a matinee acoustic performance from noon to 2 p.m. Saturday.
The resort has arranged for misting machines and will have lots of cold refreshment on hand throughout both days.
Friday’s concert starts 6 p.m. with Whiskey Fish. Deryl Dodd follows with Rich O’Toole performing last to open the two-day “Texas Country Under the Stars” event at the award-winning resort.
Mill Creek is offering a VIP ticket concert package, which include many extras for the weekend.
Flat-rate tickets for Friday’s performances maybe purchased at the gate up to an hour before show time for $12 and $10 each for Saturday’s two performances.
Coolers containing alcoholic beverages will be charged an entrance fee of $15 for each performance, or $20 for the weekend.
Non-alcoholic drinks will be available for sale and will not be admitted into the event.
VIP tickets are $100 per person and are good for both days starting with a barbecue dinner at 5 p.m. Friday.
It also includes admittance to the after-party and meet-and-greet opportunities during the two days.
In addition, VIP ticket holders also get special discounts and shuttles to Wired Zip Lines for use in between the shows on Saturday.
Special overnight packages are also available, which include continental breakfast, shuttle rides to and from the concerts and late checkout Sunday morning. Cottage overnight accommodation is $399 for both nights and $120 for a weekend RV site. Single night stays are also available.
VIP tickets may be purchased on-line at www.outhousetickets.com
Individual ticket pricing is available by calling Mill Creek Ranch Resort (866) 599-7275.

Eustace grandmother seeks
help for tiny cancer victim
By Barbara Gartman
Monitor Staff Writer
EUSTACE–At the age of only eight months, Scott James Brown has been diagnosed with cancer.
“He was born with neuro blastoma, the number one type of cancer found in newborn babies,” his grandmother Jami Rabon told The Monitor.
Usually, treatment is fairly easy, and doctors expected it to go away as he grew, she added.
But in April, they found out that Little Scotty’s cancer is a rare form that refuses to respond to conventional treatment.
Three months ago doctors removed a tumor and again thought he would be okay.
“They (the parents) were told ‘that will be it. It won’t come back, go live a good life,’” Rabon said.
But it did come back and this time, the prognosis was not a good one.
“The cancer spread to his bones and liver. They said he needed chemo and started treatment. The doctors told them this would do it and that at least 50 percent of this type of tumors just go away,” Rabon said.
But once again, they were desperately disappointed.
“It didn’t just not shrink, he got more tumors during the chemo. That has never happened before,” Rabon reported.
Scotty’s father, Mike Brown, wrote about his son on a webpage he has on www.CaringBridge.org.
He said once in the web site, go to the “visit” box and type in baby scotty.
“It is with heavy heart that I report that not one of the neuroblastoma specialists have heard of a case like Scotty’s. We do not know the best treatment or the best facility to take him to,” Mike wrote.
Different doctors have proposed various high risk treatments, he said.
The sad and confusing part of Scotty’s case is that the treatment should have worked, but didn’t.
“The cancer had all the favorable pathology and should have responded to chemo. It was painful news to find out the tumors had grown,” Mike explained.
But the doctors also pointed out they have no idea what is actually going on or how he will respond to the next treatment – it could be good,” Mike wrote.
Grandparents Jami and Dave Rabon live in Eustace. Dave works for Story Electric in Mabank and Jami works at East Texas Medical Center in Gun Barrel City as an occupational therapist.
“I love it. I enjoy my job,” Jami said.
She enjoys helping people and became interested in becoming a therapist years ago while still employed at Monroe Realty.
“It was Ralph Monroe who made it possible for me to go to school at Trinity Valley community College. He allowed me to adjust my work hours to my class schedule,” she explained.
Now her job is helping people get back to work or back into their life-style.
“We work mostly with upper extremities, treating things like carpel tunnel syndrome, other nerve injuries and tendon problems,” she explained.
Jami lost her mother in February and is planning an estate sale to help raise money for her little grandson and his parents.
Scotty’s mother Julia (then Dorrell) graduated from Eustace High School in 1995. She was very active in drama.
After graduation she attended Trinity Valley Community College on a drama scholarship,” Jami proudly said.
“She’s a beautiful girl. She was Homecoming Queen, class president and prom queen,” she added.
Julia went on to get a nursing degree in Colorado, where she met her husband while attending the University of Northern Colorado in Greely.
Mike completed the Aims Community College flight training course, which led to his becoming a corporate pilot.
The couple have made their home in Colorado and began their family. They have a three-year-old daughter named Maylin.
They named little Scotty, now 11-months-old, after Mike’s brother, who was killed by a bomb in Iraq.
The couple ask for prayer that they make the right decisions as to their baby’s care and treatment.
In the slumping economy, Mike has received word he will soon be laid off.
Rabon took a three-month hiatus from her job to go to Colorado and help tend her grandchildren.
“It helps that Julia is a nurse, because she can do many of the needed treatments at home,” she explained.
A bank account for little Scotty has been set up at the Key Bank, 3607 Tower Road, Aurora, Colo. 80013. Anyone wanting to help with a monetary donation may make a check out to Scotty’s Smile Fund.

Talent Box auditions scheduled Aug. 2-3
Special to The Monitor
WILLS POINT–The Talent Box will hold auditions for the 2009-10 season opener, “Dearly Departed,” by David Bottrell and Jessie Jones, at 2 p.m. Sunday and 7 p.m. Monday, Aug. 2-3, at the theatre, 244 North Fourth, Wills Point.
The cast needed for this hilarious comedy is seven men and seven women.
The play will be directed by Virginia Reid-Yost of Terrell.
The characters are Bud Turpin, patriarch of the Turpin family; Raynell, his wife; Ray-Bud, the older brother; Lucille, his wife; Junior, Ray-Bud’s younger brother; Suzanne, his wife, Delightful, the younger sister of Ray-Bud and Junior; Marguerite, Bud’s sister; Royce, Marguerite’s son; Juanita, wife of Teddy Wayne, cousin of Ray-Bud and Junior; the Rev. B.H. Hooker, Raynell’s pastor; Norval, an old friend; Veda, Norval’s wife; Clyde, Ray-Bud’s boss; Nadine, a friend of Lucille’s and The Joy of Life Singers.
Some parts are pre-cast.
In the Baptist backwoods of the Bible Belt, the beleaguered Turpin family proves that living and dying in the South is seldom tidy, and the events surrounding both are always hilarious.
Despite their earnest efforts to pull themselves together for their father’s funeral, the Turpins’ other problems keep overshadowing the solemn occasion.
Firstborn Ray-Bud drinks himself silly as the funeral bills mount, while Junior, the younger son, is juggling financial ruin, a pack of no-neck monster kids and a wife who suspects him of infidelity in the family car.
Their spinster sister, Delightful, copes with death as she does life by devouring junk food, and each of the neighbors add more than their two cents.
As the situation becomes fraught with mishap, Ray Bud says to his long-suffering wife, “When I die, don’t tell nobody. Just bury me in the back yard and tell everybody that I left you.”
Amidst the chaos, the Turpins turn for comfort to their friends and neighbors, an eccentric community of misfits who just manage to pull together and help each other through their hours of need, and finally, the funeral.
Production dates for the play are Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursday, Oct. 9-11, and Oct. 16-18.
For additional information, please call the theatre at (903) 873-8945.