Well-wishers showered Milam County benefactor Drayton McLane with words of thanks and gifts of appreciation Monday at the County Commissioners meeting in the county courthouse.
“This is something I have been look to and that is to thank someone that happens to be in the courtroom who has done so much for Milam County,” Milam County Judge Steve Young said.
Young noted that McLane is not one to talk about all the things he has done for the county, but Young said he would.
He said that one day McLane sent an email asking him if the he thought the donation of 300 boxes of food McLane had given earlier in February did any good.
Young told him it did, then told this story:
There is a fellow that folks that spend a lot of time in downtown Cameron know of. He is a fellow with special needs who may or may not strike up a conversation with a passerby downtown.
Young had a box of the donated food from McLane when he saw the downtown walker on a corner one day.
He thought that is who I can give a box of food to.
Young got out of his pickup and handed the man a box of food.
“What is this,” the guy asked.
“Well, it’s a box of food,” Young said he told him.
“He was just gleeful about it. He was so happy on this cold winter day to have a box of food,” Young said.
About a week after Young related that story to McLane, he sent the county another 400 boxes of food.
“So, Mr. McLane, all we wanted to do here today was recognize you and to thank you for your inspirational leadership, for your unwavering support for all these years to the good citizens of Milam County. We cannot do enough, we cannot say enough, but on behalf of all the good folks of Milam County, we want to say thank you so much,” Young said.
McLane praised his mother, father and two sisters for making him who he is today.
“I had the two finest parents anyone could have and two great sisters,” he said. “We are all the product of our past and I treasure the past of growing up and when I got out of school I worked with my dad here in Cameron for a little over five years.”
The family operation moved to Temple, but McLane still calls Milam County home.
“It’s an honor and a privilege to be associated with and our family still engages in Milam County,” he said.
- Log in or Subscribe to post comments.