Last Friday, the thermometer in my car read 91 degrees.

I’ll be honest; that was possibly the best sign of summer approaching that I have seen all year.

Colleges are finishing semesters, high school graduation is only a couple weeks away and with school being out for summer, the time for family vacations and special trips will arrive.

I have a challenge for you, Garland – I want you to go online and tell me about your treks, journeys and staycations.

Set up a blog at neighborsgo.com and give updates from the road – who knows, maybe your chronicled vacation could find its way into print.

There is a second challenge that I am going to present to all of you readers. I want your story tips and news ideas. For this week’s issue, a voicemail on my office phone ended up leading to the cover story about the Buddy League of Garland.

Had Heather Miller not decided to call me, I may have never known about this amazing organization, and would have lost not only a chance to learn about a phenomenal group of ballplayers, but I would have also lost the chance for the rest of the city to find out about the league.

This summer, do not shy away from calling, e-mailing or posting information about something you think is worthy of a good story. Posts to neighborsgo.com have led to some of my stories before. 

I promise to be open to suggestions and, who knows, maybe we can really unearth some neat history of Garland together.

There are also other ways to contact and follow for information about Garland news. We have a Twitter feed with quick updates about neighborsgo activity online that can be found at Twitter.com/GarlandGo.

But the newest feature for helping you become involved with the editor and the community is my new editor’s blog – The Write Stuff. This blog will allow you go post story ideas and watch along with me as I develop and work on stories. In a way, it gives you, the citizens and community, a chance to get a backstage look at the development of a newspaper story. The blog can be found at neighborsgo.com/blog/writestuff.

Marcus Murphree is the Garlandneighborsgo editor and can be reached at 469-330-5692 or mmurphree@neighborsgo.com.

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For those who haven’t met me, I will sum up part of my personality in four words.

I’m a Momma’s boy.

Maybe it is because I am the youngest of three, or it’s the fact that I spent all four years of high school as the only child at home and had the luxury of Mom working at my school – let’s just say that getting to eat lunch in the offices is a nice perk of being a counselor’s kid.

Regardless of the situation, I never realized how much mothers everywhere know how to treat children as if they are their own.

This week is a time to honor those who tirelessly clean up stains, run the carpools, organize team parties, help with homework, prepare dinner, issue timeouts and give constant love and affection.

Highlighting this issue of neighborsgo, is my story about the mothers volunteering at BaylorMedicalCenter – Garland. While working on the piece, I was able to see the relationship that comes between mother and daughter, which is a type of family tie I did not experience grouping up in a house with all boys and my mother. For the full story, see neighborsgo.com/stories/35397.

Additionally, there are those who play mom to everyone. Homeroom moms in classrooms across the district, team moms on the sports fields keeping everything in check for the coaches. To those helping me at South Garland Little League, consider this a personal “thank you” for going out of your way to make this season a success, you are team moms and more.

This weekend, the typical Mother’s Day brunches will take place, families will join together to give that special thank you to mothers everywhere for going that extra mile for us even when we often come up a little bit short.

Sunday is your day. Remember, we appreciate all you do, even when our method of expressing thanks is spilling orange juice on the living room carpet and blaming it on the cat.

I love you Jeanne Murphree and thank you once again for making me who I am today.

Marcus Murphree is the editor of Garland/Wylie/Sachse neighborsgo and can be reached at 469-330-5692 or via e-mail at mmurphree@neighborsgo.com. Got a story, photo or video you'd like to share? Post them directly on neighborsgo.com. Got a story idea? Send it to me directly. For more about how neighborsgo.com works with our neighborsgo print editions, please visit neighborsgo.com/help.