It’s strange at times the things one can notice when thumbing through a publication.

The Texas Parks & Wildlife magazine, for example, contained a little surprise for me. I found it on Page 11 of the magazine. I noticed a list of the governing commission that sets policy involving the state’s many state parks.

I’ll tell you what I found: None of the TP&W commissioners hails from West Texas. The commissioner who hails from the farthest western portion of the state is Anna Galo, who’s from Laredo — which is South Texas, on the Rio Grande River.

I’m not going to make a huge deal of this, but it does rankle me that West Texas — which has its share of state park jewels throughout our vast landscape — doesn’t have any political representation on the board that’s appointed by the Texas governor.

I recall when Amarillo businessman Mark Bivins served on the commission. He’s since cycled off. Why couldn’t he have been replaced with another West Texan?

I remember back when I was writing editorials for the Amarillo Globe-News, we asked then-Gov. Rick Perry to select someone from the Panhandle to fill a vacancy on the Texas Supreme Court. I looked then at the roster of justices and noticed they all came from that corridor that sits between Interstates 35 and 45. They all resided from Houston to the Dallas-Fort Worth region. We urged the governor to look west for a Supreme Court justice.

And he did! He chose Phil Johnson, chief judge of the Amarillo-based 7th Court of Appeals, to the state’s highest civil appellate court. Good for Gov. Perry!

Gov. Greg Abbott also can do West Texas right as well by filling the next vacancy with someone who lives in this part of the state.

We have voices out here, too, governor.