The Galveston Bay Foundation (GBF), Star Fleet Entertainment Yachts, and Wiredin.cc are happy to announce that the 6^th annual Redfish Raft Up will be hosted on Sunday, September 5^th of Labor Day weekend. The raft up event takes place at Redfish Island in Galveston Bay and benefits GBF. Entertainment will be provided by Kelly McGuire on the Star Gazer from 12:30 - 2:00 pm and DJ Michael Robertson with Musical Cheers and Andy and the Dreamsicles will entertain boaters from the deck of the Star Spirit from 11:30 am – 12:30 pm and then again from 2:00 – 4:00 pm.

We invite you to bring your boat out to Redfish Island and raft up for a fun day of live entertainment on the water all benefitting GBF. Visit www.galvbay.org to purchase your GBF membership and t-shirt or tank top combination packages, and purchase raffle tickets. Raffle items include a four-night stay in Costa Rica at the Lost Laguna Resort, dinner for two aboard the Star Gazer, and a wine and cheese tasting for twenty at the South Shore Harbor Resort. There are many other prizes so purchase your tickets today! T-shirts, tank tops, and raffle tickets will be available for purchase on the day of the event.

Eagle Springs schools fared very well in the new 2010 Accountability Ratings just released by the Texas Education Agency.

Eagle Springs Elementary School, located onsite in the 1,360-acre community, received a rating of Exemplary, the highest designation awarded by the TEA. An Exemplary rating means that a campus must have at least 90 percent of its students meet or exceed the Texas Assessment of Knowledge and Skills (TAKS) standard on each subject, including Reading, English/Language Arts, Math, Writing, Social Studies and Science.  A campus must also have a dropout rate of 2 percent or less to earn an Exemplary rating.

The University of Houston Small Business Development Center Network, which includes the Lone Star College System SBDC, announced its recent accreditation by the Association of Small Business Development Centers.

Successful accreditation is based on adherence to a set of standards modeled after the Malcolm Baldrige quality standards, and involves a stringent, weeklong examination of network leadership, strategy development, customer and stakeholder focus, performance measurement, staffing and human resources, design and delivery of services, and economic impact results.

Small Business Development Centers are required to be re-accredited every four years, and this was the fourth successful round of accreditation for the UH SBDC Network.

“I am so proud of each person and every center in our network.  Everyone worked hard to prepare for our review and represented the network extremely well throughout the entire accreditation process,” said Mike Young, UH SBDC Network executive director. “This accomplishment demonstrates our organization’s and our partners’ commitment to continuous quality improvement and gives us added credibility as a key player in the economic development arena.” 

The LSCS SBDC, created in 1985, is the first and oldest of the 15 centers included in the UH SBDC Network. The center, which marked its 25^th anniversary this year, provides no-cost, confidential management advice and affordable business skills training to entrepreneurs and small business owners in northern Harris and southern Montgomery counties. Its service area mirrors that of LSCS and covers more than 1,400 square miles.

With more than 62,000 students in credit classes in spring 2010, and a total enrollment of nearly 85,000, Lone Star College System is the largest institution of higher education in the Houston area, and the second largest and the fastest-growing community college system in Texas. LSCS consists of five colleges including LSC-CyFair, LSC-Kingwood, LSC-Montgomery, LSC-North Harris, and LSC-Tomball, six centers, LSC-University Park, LSC-University Center at Montgomery, LSC-University Center at University Park, Lone Star Corporate College, and LSC-Online. To learn more visit LoneStar.edu.

• Saturday, October 16
  
• Friday, October 22
  
• Friday, November 5
  
• Thursday, December 2
  
• Sunday, December 26
  
• Saturday, January 15

    Season tickets for the 2010-11 season are available by calling (713) 974-PUCK (7825). Stay up to date on the Aeros all summer on Aeros.com, as well as on Facebook andTwitter. 

Celebrations are already underway for the opening of the University of Houston-Clear Lake Pearland Campus. Classes will begin on August 23rd with more than 400 students enrolled in junior, senior and graduate courses in business, education and psychology.

Students from Alvin Community College, San Jacinto College, Houston Community College, as well as students from Pearland and Alvin Independent School districts, will likely attend classes at the Pearland campus. More than 80 percent of UHCL’s undergraduate students transfer from local community colleges to earn bachelor’s degrees.

Palmer Construction broke ground in May 2009 on the Pearland campus, located approximately one mile south of Beltway 8 on Pearland Parkway near McHard Road. The 30,659-square-foot facility includes classrooms, a library, student lounge, teaching labs, offices and faculty suite.

The Pearland campus shares space with the Pearland Economic Development Corporation. Pearland Mayor Tom Reid and other community partners have been advocates for the campus since 2004.The first scholarship endowment—the David and Stephanie Palmer Family Scholarship Endowment—was created in February 2010. Dion McInnis, UHCL Associate Vice President for University Advancement, recently announced that a landscaped plaza on the south side will be called Palmer Plaza, in recognition of the Palmer family’s generosity.A sundial and commemorative plaque will be added to the plaza later this year.

“UHCL is a partnership-oriented, community-minded university,” said Dr. William A. Staples, President University of Houston-Clear Lake. “We could not have a better group of partners or a better community. A government, business, education partnership speaks to what public universities should and must do in the 21st century to be successful.”

University of Houston Clear Lake-Pearland campus is located at 1200 Pearland Parkway, Pearland, TX 77581 for more information visit www.uhcl.edu/pearland.