Get Our Digital Issue Free Every Week!

Alvin and Brazosport college presidents stress record enrollment and affordable degrees By John Toth / The Bulletin Brazoria County’s two public community colleges are experiencing unprecedented enrollment growth this fall as students increasingly look to local two-year institutions over costly four-year universities. Alvin College President Dr. Robert Exley and Brazosport College President Dr. Vincent Solis highlighted their institutions’ expanding programs, affordable p

By John Toth The Bulletin When I attended college, reporters stuck to reporting, and photographers took the photos. That was the hierarchy at my college paper, and we stayed in our lanes. I have always been a shutterbug, though, ever since my mother bought a used camera in Vienna, Austria back in 1966. But in college, I had no use for a camera. Photographers were territorial. Cross their line, and you heard about it. That was fine with me, since I was focused on getting the i

By John Toth The Bulletin The official hurricane season extends through Nov. 30, but for all practical purposes along the Brazoria County coastline, the major threat typically fizzles out right around this time of year. It appears we have made it through another summer without a major storm. According to historical weather data, the odds of a major hurricane striking Brazoria County late in the season are slim. In any given year, the historical odds of a direct hurricane hit

By John Toth The Bulletin My Duolingo icon is not happy. It will send me a reminder email shortly with the heading, “Nobody ignores me for long.” I have been doing language lessons on Duolingo for several years. I use the free version and muddle through the ads because I am too cheap to use the paid version. While the ads are a small nuisance, along with the daily reminders, they are a minor trade-off for the benefits that come with learning or refreshing a language and givin

By John Toth The Bulletin I sat on the shores of Lake Ossipee one warm summer night and discussed with a couple of my friends what we thought it would be like when we get old. Under the New Hampshire moonlight, we came up with some scenarios based on what we had been doing in our young lifetime. When my turn came to talk, my prediction was less than spectacular. “I’ll still be writing,” I said. “I’m going to write until I die.” We were in high school, working summer jobs at a

By John Toth The Bulletin What are the chances of anyone in Brazoria County enjoying a late-summer beach outing, wading in the Gulf waters and being attacked by a shark? I know you have not been staying up nights worrying about this, as you shouldn’t. Brazoria County beaches are among the safest along the Texas coastline when it comes to shark-related encounters. You may be worried about strong currents along some sections of the county’s 17 miles of beachfront. You may disli

By John Toth The Bulletin I love to cruise, but I want to do it on an affordable budget. I don’t want to come back to port and be financially drained. I’m going to share with you in this column how I have a lot of fun cruising while keeping the cost down. Sharon, The Bulletin’s travel editor, and I have taken eight cruises so far and plan to take many more. In my humble opinion, it is the best way to relax and enjoy a vacation from the time we board a ship, to the sad morning

By John Toth The Bulletin I haven’t been dreading it, but I was also not looking forward to my annual visit to the doctor to make sure that all my vitals are still in the “alive and well” category. Sharon - my partner in The Bulletin and my life - decided to get our annual wellness visits at the same time to save a little gas and do some shopping afterwards. Sharon’s doctor was on one side of the clinic, and mine was on the other, which required that we go to separate waiting

By John Toth The Bulletin When I was a teenager in the 1970s, at the urging of a friend, I smoked a cigarette - or at least I tried. I was just puffing on the cigarette like it was a cigar. He encouraged me to inhale because, as he said, “that’s how it’s done. Otherwise, you’re just wasting it.” I did, and immediately I started coughing my lungs out. I couldn’t stop. It took several minutes for me to be able to breathe again normally. “That happens at first. You’ll get used t

By John Toth The Bulletin Thirty-two years ago this week, Sharon and I published the first Bulletin. It was eight tabloid pages, black and white. We didn’t know how long we’d last in the then-crowded Brazoria County newspaper market. Before we took on this endeavor, I worked 12 years for the Houston Chronicle covering Brazoria County and adjacent areas. I lived in the county and reported on events happening here. Sharon, the Bulletin’s co-publisher, was free-lancing for the C

By John Toth The Bulletin My former editor, Mary Moody, called me in 1995, five months after I quit the Houston Chronicle. “Did you get that weekly paper publishing bug out of your system yet?” she asked. “Why are you asking,” I asked back. “Because I have to fill your position, and I thought you’d like to come back,” she replied. I was honored. Mary and I didn’t always see eye to eye, although we managed to resolve our differences and became friends again – and again. I had