“Hi Santa

I love you”

– anonymous, in a letter to Santa

“I would say that PISD has been the best district I have worked at. The emotional intelligence of the people who work for the district – they have their heart in the right place and that’s trying to educate the children they serve. I think that for the most part all campuses in our district do that. They really focus on each individual child.”

– Mario Acosta, former Parmer Lane Elementary principal after the announcement he will assume a position with Texas Education Agency

“I love books and I love to talk to people, so I thought this would be a great job. I just like to read. I like to read and I like to talk, and I have a lot of energy.”

–        Beth Lee, owner of the recently opened The Book Box store

“Our main goal is that all high schools will truly prepare students for future college and career opportunities. We can do that with three high schools or four high schools. Although we may be delaying the opening of a fourth high school, we will continue our efforts to expand programs at our existing high schools so that every high school in PISD is an educational environment in which students want to learn and prepare for the future.”

–        Mark Kincaid, executive director of College and Career Readiness for Pflugerville ISD, on the delayed opening of High School Four

“Today no detail is forgotten in the effort to reenact the 19th Century ball. The 22-member Texas Cowboys’ Christmas Ball Association, which sponsors the dance and owns Pioneer Hall, strives each year to create a setting that transports guests back to the frontier days from the moment they enter Pioneer Hall.

“Men bow and women curtsy. The hall is decorated with quilts and cedar boughs. Association members don matching outfits with the men in black vests and cowboy attire, and the women in Victorian blouses and taffeta skirts over hoop petticoats. There is a strict no-jeans policy for women, and men are still required to check their hats, spurs and guns at the door.”

– U.S. Sen. John Cornyn on the 75th anniversary of “The Cowboys’ Christmas Ball”frontier dance in Anson, Texas

“The federal government continues to compromise the safety and security of our country, and is adding insult to injury by leaving the cost of incarcerating criminal aliens who have infiltrated a border Washington has failed to secure on the backs of our state and local communities.”

– Gov. Rick Perry Dec. 11 on the federal government’s proposed slashing of funding from the State Criminal Alien Assistance Program, which helps states cover the costs of incarcerating illegal aliens who have committed crimes in the U.S.

“One in eight women will be diagnosed with breast cancer in their lifetime, and one in five of those diagnoses will be made in women between the ages of 40 and 49. We are gathering here to make it clear to the women of Texas that annual mammograms for anyone over 40 are, and will continue to be, important tools in the battle against this disease.”

– Texas First Lady Anita Perry Dec. 7 as she was joined by breast cancer survivors, health care advocates and medical providers to emphasize the importance of routine screening mammograms for women over the age of 40.

“Unemployment is still an issue for too many families, but our state will keep working to cultivate a job-friendly business climate until every Texan who wants a job can have one.”

– Gov. Rick Perry on Dec. 18 on the state’s November unemployment rate of 8.0 percent, a decrease from 8.3 percent in October

“Moving suspected terrorists from Guantanamo to the United States is a disastrous decision by the President that defies the will of Congress and the American people. This is yet another step back to the pre-9/11 mindset that treated terrorism as only a matter for the federal criminal justice system. But we know that the attacks of September 11, 2001 were acts of war. The fact that there was a major terrorist attack on our own soil just weeks ago – at Fort Hood, in my own state of Texas – reminds us that we are still a nation at war.

“The administration has already fully embraced both of the policies for which Guantanamo was criticized around the world – indefinite preventive detention, and the military commissions. I don’t see what possible good it can do to close Guantanamo and let the accused terrorists back into countries that will allow them to have free reign.

“Conferring the rights and privileges of U.S. citizens on terrorists who do not deserve them is a reckless decision. It will put at risk their value as sources of intelligence, and the national security information we have about them. It will give them a chance to spread their ideology of hate among our domestic prison population, pose unnecessary dangers for local law enforcement, and raise the added risk of judicial release or even escape.”

– U.S. Sen. Kay Bailey Hutchison Dec. 15 on the President’s decision to move suspected terrorists from Guantanamo Bay to the United States