Sundae Best
The world’s longest ice cream sundae—more than 15 football fields long—was concocted four years ago in College Station. The creators at the Spirit of Texas Festival used 500 gallons of H-E-B Texans Tackle Crackle ice cream, 2,000 cans of whipped cream, 300 gallons of chocolate and strawberry syrup, 25 pounds of sprinkles, and 20,000 cherries to assemble 4,549 feet of decadence March 24, 2018.
We All Scream For …
July is National Ice Cream Month. Celebrate with our readers’ recipes, featured in Ice Creams and Sorbets in July 2021.
Globally, there are about 40 lightning strikes per second.
Dmitriy D | Stock.adobe.com
News Flash
Lightning over Texas reached a long way, though not to the ground.
A storm April 29, 2020, produced a bolt that stretched a record 477 miles, from Southeast Texas to Mississippi. Scientists used satellite technology to confirm the record in February.
Also this year, Flatonia, a small town about halfway between Houston and San Antonio, was announced as the lightning capital of the U.S. Vaisala, a weather measurement and analysis company, determined that Flatonia received 1,043 lightning events per square mile in 2021— more than any other city in the country.
Working From Home?
Save electricity by unplugging your least-used devices—printers and scanners—when you don’t need them.
Your electric cooperative is in the people business; it just happens to sell power. The less you use, the more you’ll save.
Dig This
Texas Co-op Power readers … well, they rock.
One reader, inspired by an October 2021 story, donated $20,000 to a research program in South Texas.
Learning Rocks featured a Shumla Archaeological Research and Education Center program involving high school students in Comstock. The donation will help Shumla purchase a camera with accessories, scaffolding to help students photograph rock art and tablets for data entry.
HQ TX
Texas is home to 53 Fortune 500 companies, the most in the nation.
Head of the Class
Clifton McNeeley was the first player ever drafted—75 years ago this month—by the league that became the NBA.
Never heard of him? That’s because the Texas Wesleyan University graduate chose to become a teacher and coach in his hometown of Greenwood instead of playing for the Basketball Association of America’s Pittsburgh Ironmen, who drafted McNeeley No. 1 on July 1, 1947.
Voice in the Night
Amelia Earhart was born 125 years ago this month. A Texas woman might have been one of the last people to hear the pioneering pilot’s voice before her mysterious disappearance.
Earhart, born July 24, 1897, became the first female pilot to fly across the Atlantic Ocean. Years later, the adventurer disappeared and supposedly crashed July 2, 1937, while flying over the Pacific Ocean.
Mabel Larremore was one of a few dozen people worldwide confirmed to have heard Earhart’s SOS call. Larremore reports hearing a distressed Earhart on her radio around 2 a.m. at her home in Amarillo. Assuming authorities also heard the call and were responding, Larremore didn’t report what she heard until much later.
