Glenn Tanner

After a week of worrisome predications, it would be hard to complain about the weather for the 2026 World’s Biggest Fish Fry grand parade. Forecasts had threatened rain on and around the parade’s start time at 10 a.m. Friday. Instead, a bank of cloudy skies and cool breezes kept temperatures in the low seventies for the parade’s roughly one-hour-45-minute duration.

Up until now, I’ve tried to keep anything about politics — mine or anyone else’s — as far away from my column as possible. Obviously, I’m about to make an exception to that policy. A big part of my job is attending public meetings of local city and county government bodies. Since about 2017, one of those meetings has been the Henry County Election Commission. It is, in the parlance of the newsroom, one of my regular beats.

The ice and snow from Winter Storm Fern caused one last headache to the Paris Special School District’s board of education after its members failed to agree on how to make up the six unplanned-for snow days on their hands. At its Feb. 17 meeting, the board considered two motions that would add additional instructional days to this year’s school calendar. Both were defeated by one-vote margins after discussion. The storm, which moved into Henry County on Jan.