Angelina Arts Alliance is seeking volunteers for their 15th anniversary season. To learn more about the duties, procedures and details, attend the annual EnCorps Volunteer Orientation & Open House, ThursdayAugust 20th, 6 pm at Angelina College. New and existing volunteers are invited to fill out volunteer applications, preview the upcoming season, take a backstage tour, meet staff members and enjoy free refreshments, thanks to Brookshire Brothers Food & Pharmacy, the event sponsor. Arts Alliance’s volunteers help with general operations at the theater during productions including greeting guests, handing out playbills,ushering, collecting tickets, and assisting with concessions and merchandise.

“2015-2016 season is our 15th anniversary, and to celebrate that milestone this season is packed with big shows — Blockbuster Broadway musicals, inspiring dramatic performances, singers, dancers, and musicians that will take your breath away,” said Ginger Trotter Marketing /Production Manager, “and we will need a large team of volunteers to make it happen.” Trotter added “Our EnCorps Volunteer Team ranges in age from 18 to 80 +, students to retirees, and come from a variety of educational and employment backgrounds. Each one donating their time and talent to ensure Angelina Arts Alliance events at the Temple Theater are a success – and in return, our volunteers see our amazing shows … for free!”

For more information, call Ginger Trotter at 936.633.3220, visit our website at www.angelinaarts.org or email gtrotter@angelina.edu. Like Angelina Arts Alliance on Facebook, for news from the performing arts world, and local ticket give-a-ways.

Remarriages often combine two families into one stepfamily unit. When that stepfamily unit dissolves after a divorce, little is known about the relationships between former stepparents and stepchildren. Now, researchers in the University of Missouri College of Human Environmental Sciences found stepchildren’s views of former stepparents depended on emotional reactions to the divorce, patterns of support or resource exchanges, and parental encouragement or discouragement to continue step-relationships. Whether stepchildren maintained relationships with their former stepparents largely depended on whether stepchildren viewed their former stepparents as family.

“For a substantial portion of these children’s lives, they’ve been living with a stepparent, who, in many cases, became a parent to them,” said Marilyn Coleman, a Curators’ professor emerita in the Department of Human Development and Family Science. “Then, the couple breaks up, the family breaks up, and what happens to these kids? Stepparents may have invested a lot of time, a lot of emotion in raising a child and then end the relationship completely. Sometimes, there’s an assumption that when the relationship ends, there’s no need to continue ties. But for children who have grown up viewing someone as a parent, it may not be so easy for them to lose that relationship.”

The researchers interviewed 41 young adults who had experienced stepfamily dissolutions. Half of the participants had considered or “claimed” their stepparents as family at one time or another. Of those, half of the adults still maintained relationships with their former stepparents, but the other half had since ended their relationships with their former stepparents.

“In post-divorce families – stepfamilies and former stepfamilies in particular – kinship is an important notion,” said Larry Ganong, a professor in the MU Sinclair School of Nursing and co-chair in the Department of Human Development and Family Science. “People make judgments about whether or not people are ‘family,’ and if you are, then there’s some sort of expectation about interactions, feelings, expectations. If you aren’t ‘family,’ then there’s ambiguity. It’s stressful, and people are less sure about how to act and feel.”

Ambiguity exists about what step-relationships mean even when couples are together; these ties become even more ambiguous when the relationships dissolve, Ganong said.

“Stepparent-stepchild relationships in particular have neither legal nor genetic ties, which are the two markers that legally and culturally we use to decide who is obligated to whom,” Ganong said. “When there’s a second divorce, there are neither blood nor legal ties binding stepparents and stepchildren, so that creates an added level of complexity about who’s in families and why.”

Divorcing couples should consider how their breakup will affect their biological children and stepchildren. Although a 10-year relationship might be a small portion of parents’ lives, it could be a significant portion of children’s lives, Coleman said.

“Don’t put your kids in the middle,” Coleman said. “When stepfamilies dissolve, the biological parent can completely cut ties with the stepparent – the children could never see him or her again. Until children are old enough to drive, they have no way to maintain contact with former stepparents unless the parents facilitate visits.”

The researchers said they noticed diversity among the relationships between stepparents and stepchildren. These family dynamics continue to evolve over time, Coleman said.

“We have a study of a point in time with these young adult children,” Coleman said. “Some are talking retrospectively. We don’t really know how all of these relationships are going to play out, and there’s so much diversity – some families break ties completely, others keep living together, give financial support or spend holidays together. Some stepchildren re-establish contact with former stepparents years after the stepfamilies dissolve.”

The study, “Stepchildren’s Views about Former Step-Relationships Following Stepfamily Dissolution,” was published in June in the Journal of Marriage and Family. MU co-authors include graduate students Luke Russell and Nick Frye-Cox.

Triple-digit heat is here for a little bit longer in Texas, and we’re all trying to cool, especially when it’s the hottest part of the day. As the house is trying to recover from the heat, we are coming in from work hot and sweaty, grabbing cold drinks from the fridge as we pull out ingredients for dinner, firing up the stove and throwing a load in washer and starting the dryer.

Researchers say that music can bring many benefits to your life, — and for households that incorporate music into their daily lifestyle, these benefits can extend to everyone in the family.

According to a survey conducted by Casio America, Inc., a leading manufacturer of digital pianos and keyboards, more than 80 percent of U.S. parents said they played a musical instrument as children. And nearly three in five parents say it is extremely or very important that their children learn a musical instrument,

There are many different ways you can make and appreciate music in your home and bring the family closer together.

See a Show

Step out of your weekend routine by taking the family to see a musical or concert. There are opportunities in every community to see musical theater or live music, and watching others on stage can be inspiring for kids who may be interested in taking up an instrument or other performing art.

Join the Band

In many school districts, music education starts early. Investigate your school’s music programming as early as possible and sign the kids up for chorus, band or the school play. The earlier kids get started on music education, the better. Motivate them to keep up the good work with private music lessons, new music books and other tools to master their instruments. Let your kids know music is important by prioritizing practice just as much as homework.

Bring it Home

Mastering the piano or keyboard is one of the best ways to learn music fundamentals. There are affordable, space-conscious ways to keep a high-quality instrument in your home. From full-size digital pianos with keys that feel like ebony and ivory and feature four positions of piano lid simulation, to portable keyboards with mini keys, perfect for little fingers. For these features and more, check out Casio’s full line of digital pianos and keyboards, which offer features like built-in microphones, lighted keys, an innovative lesson system that evaluates performance and tracks progress, among others. More information can be found at www.CasioMusicGear.com.

Movie Night

Break out the popcorn and watch an inspiring movie about music appreciation that the whole family will love like “High School Musical” and “Pitch Perfect.” If you have kids signed up for band, consider “Mr. Holland’s Opus,” or “Drumline.”

To spend more quality time together as a family, find ways you can make music a bigger part of your family’s life.

(StatePoint)

The Texas and Southwestern Cattle Raisers Association (TSCRA) will host a ranch gathering Thursday, Aug. 20 at the Texas Country Music Hall of Fame in Carthage, Texas. Registration will begin at 6:00 p.m. followed by a complimentary beef dinner.

 The ranch gathering is free and open to the public.

 TSCRA Special Ranger Larry Hand will provide a law enforcement update and offer ranchers information on how they can keep their livestock and equipment safe and secure. Additionally, TSCRA staff will update cattle raisers on important legislative issues.

Please RSVP to 800-242-7820, ext. 192, or rsvp@tscra.org.

The Texas Country Music Hall of Fame is located 0.2 mile west of Bus. 59/St. Mary Street on Bus. 79/Panola Street.

The ranch gathering is sponsored by Elanco Animal Health, Multimin, Inc. and Heritage Land Bank.  Anyone who joins TSCRA at the gathering will receive a free metal gate sign courtesy of Bayer Animal Health.

All members of the press are invited to attend.

TSCRA is a 138-year-old trade association and is the largest and oldest livestock organization based in Texas. TSCRA has more than 17,000 beef cattle operations, ranching families and businesses as members. These members represent approximately 50,000 individuals directly involved in ranching and beef production who manage 4 million head of cattle on 76 million acres of range and pasture land primarily in Texas and Oklahoma, but throughout the Southwest.