{"id":26199,"date":"2020-06-17T00:00:00","date_gmt":"2020-06-17T00:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/web.tarleton.edu\/news\/tarleton-professor-reinforces-census-in-rural-northeast-texas\/"},"modified":"2025-10-07T09:32:01","modified_gmt":"2025-10-07T14:32:01","slug":"tarleton-professor-reinforces-census-in-rural-northeast-texas","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.tarleton.edu\/news\/tarleton-professor-reinforces-census-in-rural-northeast-texas\/","title":{"rendered":"Tarleton Professor Reinforces Census in Rural Northeast Texas"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE<\/p>\n<p>Wednesday, June 17, 2020<\/p>\n<p>STEPHENVILLE, Texas &mdash;<strong>&nbsp;<\/strong>Northeast Texas 2020 census efforts are being reinforced over the summer by Tarleton State University communication professor Jennifer T. Edwards.<\/p>\n<p>Dr. Edwards received a grant from the Hogg Foundation to promote the census in Panola, Rusk and Shelby counties. The counties have been deeply affected by covid-19 and are also considered hard-to-count areas of Texas.<\/p>\n<p>Through pop-up events, social media outreach and road-sign ads, Northeast Texans are getting the message.<\/p>\n<p>Recently, Edwards hosted an awareness event in Beckville, the city in the region with the lowest number of completed census surveys. The event resulted in a one-week increase in completed surveys from slightly under 13 percent to 28.6 percent, already exceeding the 2010 census overall completion percentage for Beckville, 26.5 percent.<\/p>\n<p>&ldquo;As a fifth-generation East Texas, I&rsquo;ve observed the positive impacts of the census,&rdquo; Edwards said. &ldquo;From healthcare and veteran outreach to education and safety, the census affects all areas of rural life in Texas.&rdquo;<\/p>\n<p>Her goal is for at least 60 percent of Northeast Texans to complete the census. The overall completion rate for the state is 56.1 percent.<\/p>\n<p>Due to covid-19, the deadline has been extended to Oct. 31. Individuals can complete the census by mail, telephone or at&nbsp;<a href=\"http:\/\/my2020census.gov\/\">http:\/\/my2020census.gov<\/a>.<\/p>\n<p>For more information, contact Edwards at&nbsp;<a href=\"mailto:jtedwards@tarleton.edu\">jtedwards@tarleton.edu<\/a>&nbsp;or 254-307-1375.<\/p>\n<p>Tarleton, founding member of The Texas A&amp;M University System, provides a student-focused, value-driven education marked by academic innovation and a dedication to transform today&#8217;s scholars into tomorrow&#8217;s leaders. It offers degree programs to more than 13,000 students at Stephenville, Fort Worth, Waco, Midlothian, RELLIS Academic Alliance in Bryan, and online, emphasizing real-world learning experiences that address societal needs while maintaining its core values of tradition, integrity, civility, excellence, leadership and service.<\/p>\n<p>Contact: Phil Riddle<br \/>817-484-4415<br \/><a href=\"mailto:priddle@tarleton.edu\">priddle@tarleton.edu<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Northeast Texas 2020 census efforts are being reinforced over the summer by Tarleton State University communication professor Jennifer T. Edwards.&nbsp;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":26200,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"inline_featured_image":false,"advgb_blocks_editor_width":"","advgb_blocks_columns_visual_guide":"","wds_primary_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[423],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-26199","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-academics-research"],"acf":{"image":null},"author_meta":{"display_name":"keegan","author_link":"https:\/\/www.tarleton.edu\/news\/author\/keegan-2-2-2-2-2-2-2-2-2-2-2-2-2-2-2\/"},"featured_img":"https:\/\/www.tarleton.edu\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/65\/2021\/11\/image-391-300x200.jpg","coauthors":[],"tax_additional":{"categories":{"linked":["<a href=\"https:\/\/www.tarleton.edu\/news\/category\/academics-research\/\" class=\"advgb-post-tax-term\">Academics &amp; Research<\/a>"],"unlinked":["<span class=\"advgb-post-tax-term\">Academics &amp; Research<\/span>"]}},"comment_count":0,"relative_dates":{"created":"Posted 6 years ago","modified":"Updated 7 months ago"},"absolute_dates":{"created":"Posted on June 17, 2020","modified":"Updated on October 7, 2025"},"absolute_dates_time":{"created":"Posted on June 17, 2020 12:00 am","modified":"Updated on October 7, 2025 9:32 am"},"featured_img_caption":"Three people smiling outdoors with \"United States Census Bureau\" text overlay.","series_order":"","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.tarleton.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/26199","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.tarleton.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.tarleton.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.tarleton.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.tarleton.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=26199"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.tarleton.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/26199\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":54079,"href":"https:\/\/www.tarleton.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/26199\/revisions\/54079"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.tarleton.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/26200"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.tarleton.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=26199"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.tarleton.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=26199"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.tarleton.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=26199"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}