🎓 Lone Star College Just Crossed 100,000 Students for the First Time

💧 Magnolia Homeowners Say Their Water Bills Have Doubled in a Year

🦞 After Heavy Rain, Woodlands Ditches Fill Up With Crayfish

🥣 The Granola With Six Ingredients You Can Actually Pronounce

WARNING: Heat Advisory in effect until 7 PM. Heat index up to 110. Take it slow outside and drink plenty of water.

🥵 Hot with isolated showers · 97°F / 77°F

Rain chance sits at just 15 percent, so the heat is the real story today, not the sky.

Source: Vaisala Xweather

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Lone Star College System crossed 100,000 students this fall for the first time since it was founded, according to a Sept. 14 news release. Enrollment for the 2026-27 school year sits at 100,023 across the system's more than 20 locations, which together offer about 200 degree and certificate programs.

That is a 2.81 percent jump from last fall's 97,294 students, and a 17.45 percent increase from fall 2022. When the system opened in 1972, it enrolled 613 students. Christina Hagerty, LSCS's senior associate vice chancellor of curriculum and instruction, said the system is proud to equip each of these students with the tools to pursue their dreams. Garth Howard, the system's interim vice chancellor of student success, credited the milestone to the faculty and staff who serve students every day.

Payton Lucus, a business student at LSC-Montgomery, is one of the 100,023, and picked the local campus for the smaller class sizes and a schedule flexible enough to keep working full-time. Lucus is already applying to four-year universities with help from an advisor there.

Why it matters: a college system this size growing this fast says something concrete about how many families in this region are still counting on local, affordable education to get somewhere.

Source/Credits: Community Impact · Woodlands Online

Homeowners in Magnolia's Lakes at Black Oak neighborhood say their water bills have doubled over the past year, even though they are using about the same amount of water or less. Some households have seen bills top $500 a month this summer while they wait on Texas regulators to decide whether Aqua Texas' new rates become permanent.

Steve and Kammie Bowen's bill went from about $266 in August 2025 to about $540 this August, for roughly the same 21,000 gallons both times. Cutting their sprinkler time in half only dropped the next bill by about $30. Doug and Deborah Kelton saw their bill climb from around $240 to more than $500 and, like the Bowens, are now rationing showers and laundry.

Aqua Texas says the higher bills come from interim rates in effect since March while a statewide rate case is pending before the Public Utility Commission, its first base-rate request in 20 years, covering nearly $700 million in infrastructure work done since 2004. The changes include steeper pricing as usage climbs and a switch from flat to usage-based sewer charges. More than 330 customers have filed protests with the PUC this year, and the Bowens say they have also reached out to state lawmakers.

Why it matters: this is playing out neighborhood by neighborhood across Texas, and Magnolia families are the ones deciding between a longer shower and a smaller bill until the state settles it.

Source/Credits: KPRC Click2Houston

After heavy rain moved through The Woodlands this past week, the local newsletter The Woodlands Outdoor Pulse spotted a crayfish moving through a neighborhood ditch, something they say only turns up after a big storm. Most crayfish spend the bulk of their lives hidden under rocks, in mud, or in underground burrows, and a heavy rain briefly opens up ground they would not otherwise cross.

That includes the Houston burrowing crayfish, a species found specifically in Montgomery County that can spend most of its life underground before wet conditions bring it to the surface. Texas is home to more than 40 crayfish species, more than any other state, with the highest concentration in the humid southeast corner, including species found nowhere else.

Beyond being fun to spot after a storm, crayfish serve as a kind of early warning system for water quality, since they are sensitive to toxins and tend to disappear first when an ecosystem is in trouble.

Why it matters: the ditch behind your house is a small, ordinary piece of a bigger and more fragile local ecosystem than it looks.

Source/Credits: The Woodlands Outdoor Pulse

Andreas Willfort built his granola brand, Whole Fort Inc., around a simple idea: ingredients a customer can actually read and understand. He sources extruded quinoa straight from Peru, where the grain has been grown for thousands of years, and processes it with no additives or fillers. You can find it most Saturdays at the farmers market at Grogan's Mill Village Center, where it has become a regular sellout among Woodlands shoppers picking up breakfast for the week.

The granola is a partnership. Willfort's Katy-based company teamed up with Zach Snacks, a Tomball business with the same focus on clean ingredients, combining Whole Fort's puffed quinoa with Zach Snacks' components into a six-ingredient granola in two flavors. Every batch is handmade and hand-packed in a Tomball commercial kitchen, using maple syrup dehydrated at low temperatures so the sweetener does not burn off the nutrients in the process.

The two questions Willfort hears most from customers say a lot about the product. People ask why the box empties so fast, and they ask whether it really only has six ingredients, with nothing artificial hiding on the label. He says the most common mistake shoppers make is judging a product on price instead of quality, since a fuller box and a shorter ingredient list cost more to produce.

Why it matters: in a market full of "healthy" labels that don't hold up to a second look, this is a local product where the label and the box actually match.

🗓️ Commissioner Wheeler's Fall Town Hall | Kevin Brady Community Center | 6:00–7:30 PM | Free | More info

🗓️ The Learning Zoo Animal Encounters | The Woodlands Children's Museum | 11:00 AM | $10 | More info

🗓️ Dolly Tribute Twist Paint Party | Painting With a Twist | More info

🗓️ Cold Process Soap-Making Workshop | Magnolia Ritual | More info

🗓️ Family Movie Night: Kung Fu Panda | Rob Fleming Amphitheatre | Free | More info

🗓️ Shootout Hunger Sporting Clays Tournament | benefits Montgomery County Food Bank | More info

🗓️ Concert in the Park: Texas Sundown (Country) | Northshore Park | 5:30–7:30 PM | More info

Note: Dates and times are as announced online. Organizers may make changes. Always confirm before heading out.

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The Woodlands has voted down becoming an official city twice. Under the 1999 agreement that protects it from Houston annexation, it has until 2057 to incorporate on its own terms, or risk being annexed by a neighboring city instead. Source: Rice University Kinder Institute, Texas Scorecard.

"That dog's been barkin' too close to the porch." Translation: he's meddling somewhere he shouldn't be, and it's about to catch up with him.

The TV remote is always closer to whoever didn't lose it.

Why did the barber win the race? He knew a shortcut.

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