Art of teaching
Mirella Jaimes uses art in her ESL classroom to give students a visual approach to learning English. The art will be part of Artwork 2022, an exhibit created by students in and around Temple.
Mirella Jaimes, an English as a Second Language teacher at Temple High School, stands with some of her students’ artwork in the Carabasi Gallery at the Cultural Activities Center. The students used cinematic-style posters to create “portraits” of books they are reading for Artworks 2022, a massive student art exhibit that opens at 5 p.m. Friday. David Stone photo
By DAVID STONE, Our Town Temple
Artworks is a tribute to the dedicated art teachers and talented students in and around Temple.
Teachers select and display thousands of art pieces, totally redecorating the Cultural Activities Center for nearly two month — and opening day is fast approaching.
Artworks 2022 debuts Friday with an opening reception and ribbon-cutting at 5 p.m., and the CAC will be packed with children eager to show off their creations.
“This is my favorite exhibit of the year,” said Mary Black Pearson, interim CAC executive director. “Teachers showcase their students' work and share the creative spirit. We appreciate the teachers who passionately teach and inspire these young people and then bring the work to the CAC to share with family and friends.”
Pearson said students participating in art education are more likely to engage at a higher level in other disciplines such as math or literature, providing a springboard for success in future endeavors.
One of this year’s highlights, however, will be the work of a group of students who don’t take art. Instead, this year’s exhibits in the Carabasi Gallery were created by an English as a Second Language (ESL) class.
“We have a language barrier in ESL, so I try to incorporate visuals and art into my classroom,” said Mirella Jaimes, THS educator. “Visuals help the students identify with their lessons.”
The artwork on display resembles movie posters. In fact, cinematic posters inspired Jaimes to have her students “create portraits of the books they are reading.”
“I told them to create a poster that can portray a book to someone who hasn’t read it,” she said.
Jaimes teaches around 90 students at Temple High, and she has created a book club with various reading levels.
“We used seven books, each one representing a reading level,” she explained. “It was very exciting. The kids used mixed media — collages, charcoal, paint. I’m impressed. This is the first year I’ve done this in a book club format, and my students showed a lot of creativity.”
While artwork created by Jaimes’ students are in the front gallery, the CAC is literally wall-papered with paintings, drawings, masks and just about every form of art imaginable.
Artworks 2022 will run through May 15.
WEDNESDAY | MARCH 23, 2022
A taste of Temple gone by
By DAVID STONE, Our Town Temple
Burgers. Eggrolls. Ribeyes. Pizza. Chicken-fried steaks. Did I mention burgers?
Many of the great restaurants that served our favorites in Temple are gone, but they aren’t forgotten. What are the top 10 restaurants that you miss the most?
Here’s mine in no particular order:
Bluebonnet Cafe: Home cooked food at its best! Great pies, too.
Doyle Phillips Steak House: I’d still put their ribeye up against any chain restaurant. And their chicken-fried steak was beastly!
Smitty’s: What a fun place! First Temple restaurant to sell fried cheese balls and sticks…they came on the same plate.
DaVinchi’s: This was my go-to sandwich shop. The Italiano was amazing-o.
House of Lee: The owner was a hoot and the food was pretty darned good.
The French Quarter: Maybe the best burger ever.
Charcoal Inn: Maybe the best burger ever. (Is there an echo?). The burrito plate had a big following as well.
Giovanni’s: The restaurant was great but the by-the-slice store in the mall was The Bomb!
Mr. Gatti’s: Good food, cheap buffet and good game room, plus the first big-screen tv’s in Temple. It was jam-packed on the Monday night Tony Dorsett broke loose for a 99-yard touchdown.
Archie’s 39 Cent Hamburgers: No, it wasn’t great. But if you were short on folding money this was heaven. There have been days where I’ve missed it dearly. Can’t say I would ever want to read a list of ingredients though. Hey dude, how many of those fit in a bag?
El Cha Cho’s: OK, I picked 11. But I have to include the Mexican restaurant located in a plaster cave. Epic atmosphere, tasty tacos. More sopapillas, por favor.
No doubt you disagree. Please comment and leave your Top 10 (or 11) list.
READER FEEDBACK
JODY DONALDSON: Thanks for including the one-act play info in your emails. I hope we have a lot of supporters. This will be the only contest in Temple this season.
Thanks, Jody. Always great to hear from you. THS will be performing at 1 p.m. Thursday at Temple Auditorium, but get there at 12:45 p.m. or you may not be seated. No admission during performances.
TODAY’S BEST BET :
Comedy Open Mic Night at Corkeys. Sign up at 7:30 p.m., Show starts at 8.
To include your events in What’s Happening, email information to OurTownTemple@gmail.com. Photos are welcome to for use in the publication as space permits!
What was Temple’s first retail business?
ANSWER AT END OF TODAY’S ISSUE
To include your events in What’s Happening, email information to OurTownTemple@gmail.com. Photos are welcome to for use in the publication as space permits!
On this day in 1893, the Fort Worth Stock Yards were officially incorporated. The Fort Worth livestock market became the largest in Texas and the Southwest, the biggest market south of Kansas City, and consistently ranked between third and fourth among the nation's large terminal livestock markets for five decades, from about 1905 to the mid-1950s. When the Texas and Pacific Railway arrived in Fort Worth in 1876 promoters built pens to hold cattle, but business leaders were already dreaming of packing plants and stockyards to make their community a permanent focus of the cattle industry. By 1886 four stockyards had been built near the railroads. Boston capitalist Greenleif W. Simpson, with a half dozen Boston and Chicago associates, incorporated the Fort Worth Stock Yards Company and purchased the Union Stock Yards and the Fort Worth Packing Company in 1893. In 1896 the company began a fat-stock show that has survived to the present as one of the largest livestock shows in the nation, the Southwestern Exposition and Livestock Show. An agreement with Armour and Swift brought in two of the nation's largest meatpackers, who constructed modern plants adjacent to the stockyards. By 1936 Texas had become the largest-producing state for both cattle and sheep, with Fort Worth as the industry's hub. The stockyards began to decline in the 1950s as the industry became more decentralized, and today the Fort Worth Stockyards National Historic District is primarily a tourist attraction.
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On this day in 1923, Lamar University originated as South Park Junior College when the South Park Independent School District in Beaumont instructed superintendent L. R. Pietzch to develop plans for "a Junior college of the first class." SPJC opened on September 17, 1923, with an enrollment of 125 students and a faculty of fourteen. Classes were held on the third floor of the new South Park High School. In 1923 the name of the institution was changed to Lamar College, in honor of Mirabeau B. Lamar, second president of the Republic of Texas. The college was later renamed Lamar State College of Technology and, in 1971, Lamar University.
OurTownTemple@gmail.com | (254) 231-1574
TODAY’S TEMPLE TRIVIA ANSWER: The William Fuller Store started the same day Temple was formed in 1881, selling merchandise from a tent. Fuller soon built a stone building at the corner of 12th Street and Avenue D.
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