Six Degrees of Separation?

The Progress Wants Your Stories

Years ago, a group of Roxton leaders and citizens decided our community needed a motto. After all, all cities, towns, hamlets, and burgs need common themes residents can rally around and look to as sources of pride. For some towns, a motto can live on for generations. No doubt, those who chose Roxton’s town motto had the future in mind as they recalled the past.

Roxton’s motto isn’t anything spectacular. After all, mottos like “twice as nice” or “the sweetest town in Texas,” don’t quite fit the unique families and characteristics who built Roxton into what it became starting what is now closing in on 150 years ago. But “Hometown U.S.A.” fits Roxton like a glove. It may sound trite, but while you can take someone away from Roxton, you’ll never take Roxton away from them. The proof is found in some of the people featured in the Progress over the last four decades.

Back in the 1920s, some fellow came up with a theory. He decided that everyone in the world is socially connected by no more than six degrees of separation. In other words, if you visit a foreign city and meet some random person on the street, talk long enough and you’ll find a mutual acquaintance (or an acquaintance of an acquaintance) through no more than six people. Lacy Jay Dalton’s song “Sixteenth Avenue” about wannabe country musicians is an example of how degrees of separation work — “One time someone told them of a friend of a friend they knew, who owns you know a studio on Sixteenth Avenue.” Based on those lyrics, the budding country music sensations Dalton sang about were only two degrees of separation from stardom when arriving in Nashville.

The standard six degrees of separation may or may not be based in fact. But if it is, it wouldn’t be a stretch to claim that the degrees separating Roxton from the rest of the world probably aren’t as numerous. Many tales of Roxton — past and present — make this theory just as reasonable as the one emerging in the 1920s. For example, I’ve mentioned Roxton to countless people during my lifetime, and if they don’t specifically know of Roxton, I can’t tell you how many have heard of Brookston, Petty, Ben Franklin, Tigertown, or of course, Paris. We are talking as little as two degrees of separation.

All this being said, we know plenty of our readers have stories about knowing someone who knew someone of fame and fortune or direct relationships with these same people. Likewise, and even more engrossing, are Roxtonites with children, grandchildren, great-grandchildren, nieces, nephews, and various in-laws who have gone on to achieve great things in their chosen fields. We want to hear about these relationships and document them. We all know Roxton is not just any small town in southwest Lamar County. Let’s let the world know that Roxtonite relationships stretch around the globe — or even just around the county. For an example, take a look at the article “Huckeba Vaulting to New Heights” in this issue of the Progress.

Your story doesn’t have to be grandiose. Perhaps your grandchildren have achieved something special in the towns they call home. Maybe a friend of yours visited the White House and had an interesting experience. Or maybe one day many years ago, you happened to catch Tex Ritter performing on stage in Paris’ Grand Theater. These are the stories that make a community newspaper interesting to those who don’t even live in the community.

Please pass along your experiences, tales (even if they are “tall”), chance meetings, coincidences, or just stories of Roxton and Lamar County’s past and present, and even your hopes for the future. It’s a fact of life for community newspapers like the Roxton Progress that have weathered the digital age to date — a community newspaper can’t serve its community if the community doesn’t participate and provide content.

It’s your content that will keep the Progress, and Roxton, alive for future generations. So, help us chronicle the “hidden history” of the Roxton area. A hundred years from now, you never know who will realize they are only a couple of degrees separated from Roxton and grow the notoriety of “Hometown U.S.A.” across the globe.