The Way I See It: August 2026

PUBLISHER’S LETTER
Robin Rogers, Ed.D.
August 2026

If there were ever a song that deserved a rewrite, it would be Willie Nelson’s “My Heroes Have Always Been Cowboys.” With all due respect to cowboys, my heroes have always been teachers.

Teaching is not for the faint of heart. It requires equal parts patience, persistence, creativity, diplomacy, detective work, referee skills, a sense of humor, and the ability to explain the same concept seventeen different ways before the light bulb finally comes on. Teachers celebrate victories no one else notices, carry burdens they can’t talk about, and somehow find the energy to greet their classrooms full of students every single morning with hope. That’s hero material if you ask me.

Education is woven into my family’s story. My mother was an English teacher, I taught English, and my oldest daughter, Ellen, is now an exceptional teacher herself. Three generations of women have spent our lives armed with red pens, writing manuals, and strong opinions about grammar. We are the people who quietly correct restaurant menus, mentally edit billboards, and occasionally bite our tongues in polite conversation.

Words matter—and punctuation matters. I remain fiercely loyal to the Oxford comma. Without it, breakfast could easily become “toast, eggs and jelly,” which sounds far less appetizing than “toast, eggs, and jelly.”

Years ago, when I taught advanced composition, I’d hand out a paper I intentionally filled with grammatical disasters, misplaced modifiers, punctuation mistakes, dangling participles, spelling errors, and enough writing sins to make an English teacher need smelling salts. The assignment was simple: find all the errors.

Nobody ever did—not one person. Watching students argue over commas, debate sentence structure, and suddenly realize English isn’t nearly as simple as they thought was one of my favorite classroom memories. They weren’t just memorizing rules; they were learning.

Most of my English students dreaded my class; sophomore-level composition was required for graduation, so naturally, many waited until their last semester to take it.

“I hate writing.”

“I’m terrible at writing.”

“I have writer’s block.”

And, my favorite: “I’ll never use this”—to which I silently wanted to reply, “You’ll spend the rest of your life writing emails, text messages, job applications, presentations, social media posts, reports, proposals, and maybe even love letters!” 

Education has a funny way of preparing us for things we don’t even know are coming.

Looking back, I can still name the teachers who changed my life: Vicki Melde. Stephanie James. JoAnn Day. Wendell Boozer. Mike Burks. Lois Toombs. Lori Ables. Charla Harris. Vernon Wilder. Beverly Tye. Mary Copeland.

I’m 56 years old, and I still remember them—not because they were funny or easy, but because they cared. They believed their subjects mattered, but more importantly, they believed their students mattered.

Outside my mother and grandmother, these were the adults I admired most. I wanted to grow up and be like them.

College brought another remarkable group of educators into my life. If you’ve ever had the privilege of sitting in one of Dr. Tom Wagy’s history classes at Texas A&M University-Texarkana, you know exactly what I mean. Great teachers don’t simply teach facts. They make you curious. They challenge you to ask better questions. They leave you thinking long after class has ended. That’s a gift.

This issue of Four States Living celebrates education in all its forms. You’ll meet outstanding teachers, inspiring students, accomplished authors who began in our local classrooms, college professors shaping tomorrow’s workforce, Bible-based educators, homeschooling families, and community members who invest their time and hearts into helping children succeed. What strikes me most is that every one of them understands something important: education changes communities.

Texarkana USA is positioned for tremendous growth, and our schools have been preparing for it for years. Outstanding school districts, expanding colleges, career and technical education, innovative programs, and first-class facilities are helping prepare students for careers that didn’t even exist when many of us were in school.

Businesses don’t relocate because of pretty brochures. Families don’t move because of catchy slogans. People invest in communities where children have opportunities.

If you haven’t walked through one of our schools lately, you owe yourself a visit. Schedule a tour of Parks Elementary on Texas Boulevard. Visit Arkansas Middle School on Jefferson. See the outstanding Career and Technology Education Center on Kennedy Lane. See the Aviation Mechanics program at Texarkana College. Drive down University and watch the progress of TAMU–T’s exciting new sports complex. Visit any campus across our four states area. You’ll find teachers pouring everything they have into helping young people become confident, capable adults. You’ll leave optimistic.

These days, my favorite classroom is very, very small. It includes a 6-year-old, a 3-year-old, and one very curious baby girl who will soon be convinced that her RoRo knows almost everything (for a little while, anyway). These children are teaching me as much as I’m teaching them. We’re sounding out words together, and the rhymes are somehow hilarious. Yahtzee is secretly a terrific math lesson—especially if everyone remembers to blow on the dice for good luck. And just when I think I’m the teacher, they remind me that Pluto is no longer a planet or drop a fact about whichever dinosaur is their favorite that week. Every Thursday, after a few too-short hours together, they send me home smiling—and a little smarter than I had been when I picked them up from school. Perhaps that’s the real magic of great teachers: they never stop learning.

Today, the teacher I admire most is my own daughter Ellen. Watching her challenge students, encourage them, believe in them, and inspire them to love learning makes this former English teacher incredibly proud. I know there are hundreds of educators across our region doing exactly the same thing as they prepare for another school year.

So here’s to the people carrying backpacks full of lesson plans, trading summer vacations for classroom bulletin boards, spending their own money on supplies, cheering at ballgames and performances, answering late-night emails, and believing in students who don’t yet believe in themselves.

My heroes have always been teachers. I have a feeling they’ll always be.

All of us at the magazine are wishing every student, teacher, administrator, staff member, and family across the area a joyful, successful, and unforgettable 2026–2027 school year. As always, thank you for reading FSLM.