Banquet brings county together on the field and off
Last Friday was truly an historic event for all of us in Milam County, as the first ever Rockdale – Cameron Football Extraordinaire was held.
The KC Hall was packed with a standing room only crowd to honor the two best Class 3A Division 1 football programs in Texas. The crowd heard positive words of encouragement for county-wide unity and sportsmanship from State Rep. Terry Wilson, State Senator Charles Schwertner, Mr. Wayne Fisher, Esq., and Coach R.C. Slocum. Over 60 elected city and county officials, business leaders and civic organizations turned out to serve the food to the teams and their supporters!
The Rockdale-Cameron football game is the largest single sporting event in the county. More people turn out for this game than any other sporting event in the county. It has been that way for years. This is a great and good rivalry with a rich history. This is the only event in the county where there is competition for a bell, which is referred to as the battle of the bell. It gives everybody something to talk about and look forward to. This is a good thing.
However, there are times when disparaging things are said about our friends on the “other side of the river.” We must not have a dividing line in this county. We are all the same. A dividing line makes it difficult to have true economic growth in this county and that is what we need the most. Without real economic growth there are no new jobs and there is no new revenue for your government to provide the essential needs and services that we all enjoy.
Thus, this event made a statement to everyone that we are truly working together to make our county great. That is why the mayors, city council members, school administrators, school boards and civic organizations from Cameron and Rockdale all came together on this one fine evening to publicly show the youth and others of these towns that we are unified and working together for the best interest of both.
Everyone knows that working together is better than not working together and we see that time and time again. We saw that two years ago when the economic development groups of Rockdale and Cameron came together to make the Amazon bid, which was the beginning of new business coming to the County. That would not have happened if the two had not joined forces. But they did and look how far we have come.
We are grateful to Coach Brashear and Coach Miller and all of the many, many people from Rockdale and Cameron who came together for this historic unifying, harmonic event. Know that we will all continue to work together to Move Milam Forward!