When I was a about fifteen or sixteen years old, a buddy of mine named Matt Phillips, loaned me a dog-eared paperback copy of Frank Herbert's fiction classic "Dune." I have been voraciously reading everything I can about "Dune" ever since. The story's central theme revolves around a desert planet named Arrakis. In this inhospitable place there developed a culture of desert dwellers who worshipped the great sandworms that lived in the deep desert of their world. When these "Freman" would encounter these worms... they would chant a spiritual matra:

"Blessed be the maker...
Blessed be both the coming and going of him."

Here in San Marcos everything revolves around the river. The river is the reason San Marcos is here. It is our very lives. In San Marcos, the river is nothing short of a miraculous gift from God. So here... in San Marcos we say: