Founded over 20 years ago, the Lone Star College Academy for Lifelong Learning program offers free and low-cost classes, events and activities for adults age 50 and older taught by volunteer teachers.

About the program: Founded at the Montgomery campus in 2000, Duval said other campuses soon followed and began offering the Academy for Lifelong Learning program at the Cy-Fair, Kingwood and North Harris campuses in 2004. Later expanding to other campuses, the program has remained an influential opportunity for seniors who want to continue expanding their skills.

With over 23 categories of courses offered, Duval said art, history and culinary classes are among the most popular.

Quote of note: “Once you're retired, a lot of people just don't know what else to do. They don't know where to go to hang out, or they lose contact with some of their friends who are still working,” Duval said. “So our goal is to keep them active and help them make new friends and keep them engaged with other people who have similar interests.”
 

A new studio focusing on improving individual's active range of motion is coming to the Spring area, business officials confirmed. 

The details: Stretching studio Stretch Zone is opening a new location along Spring Cypress Road in Spring, according to an announcement from the company.

The studio provides 30-minute sessions where individuals will practice stretching methods to improve range of motion long-term. Guests are guided by trainers throughout sessions to achieve a gradual increase in movement without causing muscle strains or tears. 

• 8765 Spring Cypress Road, Spring

The Texas House State Affairs Committee heard from power grid officials; data center developers and industry representatives; local government officials; cybersecurity experts; landowners and residents during an Aug. 19 hearing on the growth of data centers.

The details: Some Texans expressed concerns that data center development is happening too quickly and communities do not have enough say in that growth.

"The question is always going to be who pays for this infrastructure as we continue to grow," San Marcos City Council Member Amanda Rodriquez said.

Data center developers, meanwhile, emphasized that they wanted to be “teammates and partners” to residents of the communities they build in.

One more thing: Testimony on data centers was limited to six hours as the committee began discussing plans to build large high-voltage transmission lines from East to West Texas.

"I don't want anybody to think this is our last time that we're going to talk about data centers, or that you’re not going to get another opportunity to talk about data centers," committee chair Rep. Ken King, R-Canadian, said.