Archives for October 2000

The Donley County Sheriff’s Department reported Friday that burglars involved with Columbus Day crimes in Lelia Lake have been arrested.

Chief Deputy Butch Blackburn said Brandy Machell Savers, age 24, and Cecil Ray Turner, age 26, were arrested by Postal Inspector Fermin Romo in Palestine, Texas, on October 13.

Savers and Turner confessed to the October 9 break in at the Lelia Lake Post Office where they stole several money orders, Blackburn said. The duo also broke into Reynolds Machine & Supply and stole cash and tools.

The couple also burglarized the Estelline Post Office the same night.

Blackburn said Savers and Turner tried to pass off the one of the stolen money orders in a Dallas post office, but the postal clerk recognized it as being stolen.

The clerk refused to take the money order, went to the parking lot, and wrote down the suspects’ license plate number. They were also captured on video tape.

Fermin recovered some money orders as well as tools taken from Reynolds’ store.

Blackburn said the couple is scheduled to be arraigned on federal charges in Amarillo this week. They will also face state charges for the break-in at Reynolds.

Turner has a long criminal history, Blackburn said.

Donley County Clerk Fay Vargas reports a recent article in the Amarillo newspaper has caused some confusion about voting a straight ticket in the General Election.

Voters can mark an X next to their favorite party to cast a vote for every candidate of that party. But if a voter then marks a vote for an individual candidate in another party, that vote would override the straight party vote for that particular race. In other words, you don’t get to vote twice in the same race.

Early voting began Monday and will continue in the Donley County Courthouse Annex until November 3, 2000. Vargas reports her office will be open for early voting from 8 a.m. to 5 p.m., including the noon hour.

The General Election will be November 7, 2000, and a sample ballot will be printed in next week’s Enterprise. Profiles of local candidates are being published this week on page 12.

The Clarendon School Board met in regular session October 17.

A bid to replace the doors on the Old Gym was accepted from a Childress firm in the amount of $11,378.

The board approved a motion to add girls softball as a UIL extracurricular sport. Athletic Director Roger Hoeltzel presented cost factors, and Coach Kathy Barton presented results of a survey to assess the level of interest in adding the sport.

Time management, conflicts with other sports, and transportation issues were discussed. Stan Shelton offered the support of the Little League.

Coach Keila Cruce reported on tennis issues. She was concerned about the conditions of the courts and said a lot of the work can be done by personnel and students.

The board expressed appreciation to the coaches for their efforts and also for their eagerness in getting softball started for the girls of CISD.

CHS Principal Larry Jeffers gave a report on Parental Consent Requirements. He is mailing a waiver out that parents can sign allowing their children to leave the campus. A policy will have to be adopted by January 1, 2001, and will go out with registration packets at the beginning of the next school year.

Hysinger reported on school alteration and cancellation procedures for bad weather. He also discussed spending Activity Fund Miscellaneous money on trophy cases and a grill/vent for the Bronco Gym.

MUNDAY – Hot, dry weather conditions this year favored two boll weevil eradication efforts under way on the Rolling Plains, said a Texas Agricultural Extension Service entomologist.

“There are two active boll weevil eradication programs on the Rolling Plains – the Rolling Plains central zone and the Rolling Plains northern zone,” said Emory Boring, Extension entomologist based at Texas A&M’s Agricultural Research and Extension Center at Vernon. “Next year will be a critical period in the central zone.

“Fewer insecticide applications will be made there, and remaining boll weevil infestations will be spotty. Most insecticide applications there will occur from mid-June through mid-July and from mid-August through September.

“But trapping to gauge weevil numbers will continue at the same pace as this year. By the end of 2001, the central zone will probably be pretty close to their eradication goal.”

Boll weevil numbers are low in the northern zone, which begins in Hardeman and Foard counties and stretches east through Wilbarger, Wichita, Archer and Clay counties, he noted.

“Most irrigated cotton in the northern zone is located in Hardeman and Wichita counties. This year’s drought helped raise weevil mortality there, and lower September treatment thresholds have pushed weevil numbers well below those in the western counties of this zone,” Boring said. “There is little boll weevil migration from the north or south into this zone – thanks to its isolation from weevil-infested counties further to the east, and eradication programs in Oklahoma and the Rolling Plains central zone.”

Boll weevil migration has been a problem on the western side of the northern zone – especially around Turkey, Texas, the entomologist said.

“Even so, the addition of about 56,000 acres of cotton below the Caprock in Motley, Dickens, Kent, Briscoe, Garza and Crosby counties should help curtail weevil migration,” Boring said. “Producers and landowners in these counties voted to become part of the Rolling Plains northern zone in May. Diapause control applications started on this acreage in early September.

“This additional acreage establishes a well-defined boundary, and better isolation, for the western part of the northern zone, and will help limit weevil migration into the northwest part of the central zone.”

Trapping will continue to be an important part of both zone’s eradication programs.

“Workers in both zones will again place boll weevil traps around fields, after producers establish the 2001 cotton crop,” Boring said. “If there are fields in your area without traps by the time cotton reaches the four-leaf stage, contact the eradication program work unit in your county.

“Trapping, and monitoring trap numbers, tells us when to make insecticide applications. It’s very important that these applications are made where over-wintered boll weevils are moving into young cotton. This keeps weevils from depositing eggs in squares that are ¼-inch and larger. If producers and landowners continue to work closely with their eradication zone, we can lessen the cost and time necessary to achieve eradication on the Rolling Plains.”

There are eight active boll weevil eradication zones (programs) in Texas, operated and governed by cooperative efforts between producers and the Texas Boll Weevil Eradication Foundation. In late September, the Southern Rolling Plains zone was the first to declare its counties (Coke, Coleman, Concho, Irion, Mason, McCulloch, Runnels, Schleicher, Tom Green, and southern Taylor) “weevil free.”

There are three active boll weevil eradication zones on the High Plains. Producers in two other High Plains zones will soon decide when, and at what cost, to “activate” their eradication programs.

The Texas Agricultural Extension Service estimates that boll weevils cost the state somewhere between $25 million to $50 million annually, before eradication programs were initiated.

Eradication programs in regional zones are first approved by producers, and are funded by a combination of farmer assessments and state monies.

More information on the boll weevil eradication effort under way in Texas is available by visiting the Texas Boll Weevil Eradication Foundation site ( http://www.txbollweevil.org).

The Clarendon Board of Aldermen considered contracting for a part-time city administrator during their  regular meeting October 10.

Gary Pitner of the Panhandle Regional Planning Commission (PRPC) spoke about the possibility of the PRPC providing city management services to Clarendon.

Under the proposed agreement, the city would contract with the commission to have a PRPC employee serve as a part-time City Administrator for an estimated $32,539 per year.

Pitner said the PRPC already provides this service to the City of Bovina and two other Panhandle area communities. He listed several benefits and outlined proposed duties of the administrator. The Board of Aldermen would still set policy for the city and oversee the city administrator. The city administrator would oversee daily operations of the city including the areas of personnel and business and financial matters.

Pitner said PRPC Local Government Services Program Specialist Colby Waters would be the person he recommends for this position. Waters currently serves Bovina in addition to his PRPC responsibilities.

The board requested Waters and his supervisor, PRPC Local Government Services Director Jarrett Atkinson, to appear at the next possible board meeting. A special meeting may be called for the purpose of speaking to Waters and Atkinson.

In other city business, attorney Kevin Brennen spoke on behalf of the Donley County Appraisal District to answer questions regarding an ordinance to defray the costs of collecting delinquent taxes. The penalty required by the ordinance goes to offset the attorney costs involved. The board voted in favor of the ordinance, 3-1 (Smiley Johnson, Bobbie Kidd and Billy Jack Land, Yes. Michael Tibbets, No.)

Sara SoRelle asked the board if she could purchase 600 brick pavers to finish a project she had started. Alderman Johnson moved, seconded by Tibbets, to have Ms. SoRelle check with Lynn Floyd to see if he still had the bricks first; and if not, then the City might open up the sale of bricks with the understanding that they not used outside the city or for resale and with a 3,000 bricks per household limit. Motion failed, 2-3 (Johnson and Tibbets, Yes. Kidd, Land, and Stavenhagen, No.)

Dr. Guy Ellis and Gene Hommel spoke on behalf of the Clarendon Chamber of Commerce, which is working to promote wildlife observation in our county to increase tourism. They requested $400 from the Motel Bed Tax to purchase a banner to be hung over US 287. The board voted to do this.

The Clarendon Economic Development Corporation budget was presented and approved. The board also voted to accept the resignation of Jack Hall from the EDC board and to appoint Dr. Myles Shelton in his place.

The municipal judge contract with Jimmy Johnson was discussed. Alderman Tibbets voted to table the contract. Motion failed for lack of a second. The board voted 3-1 to approve the contract (Johnson, Kidd, and Land, Yes. Tibbets, No.)

The TxDOT building was discussed and was tabled.

The tower rental agreement for A-1 Communications was discussed. The board approved offering the company a five-year agreement of $1,680 per year.

The airport was discussed. A notice or letter will be written concerning the airport agreement.

The equipment policy was tabled, and department reports were given.

In a 4-2 vote, the Clarendon ISD Board of Trustees last Friday upheld the punishment of a local student who brought a gun to school.

The decision means the 17-year-old Clarendon High School senior will have to remain in the Alternative Education Program (AEP) until October 31, 2000.

Criminal charges against the boy are pending and will be determined by a Grand Jury, which is not scheduled to convene until November 13, 2000, according to County Attorney Stewart Messer. Formal charges have reportedly not been filed.

The case stems from the October 3 arrest of the student who reportedly left his .12 gauge shotgun in his vehicle after going dove hunting. A random search of the school parking lot by trained dogs alerted on the student’s vehicle, and school officials found a dead dove, several rounds of live ammunition, and the gun in the vehicle.

The student reportedly became ill while hunting with a friend and forgot he had the gun in the car when he went to school the next day.

During Friday’s special meeting, CISD trustees listened to a tape recording of the expulsion hearing held the week before, which featured testimony from CHS Principal Larry Jeffers and the boy’s attorney, Jerry Courtney. At that time, CISD Superintendent Monty Hysinger ruled that the student should be placed in AEP for a period of four weeks beginning on the date of the incident.

AEP excludes a student from participating in extracurricular activities and restricts his contact with other students. Basic instruction and counseling are provided in a separate building on the CISD campus. Under the law, the student could have faced one full calendar year of expulsion without AEP being used to continue his studies, school administrators say.

Following the taped hearing, each side was given an opportunity to state its case to the Board of Trustees. Courtney said that all evidence showed the boy had forgotten the gun was in the car and that he did not “knowingly” possess the gun under the definition of the penal code.

“[The student’s] only sin was in getting sick and forgetting the shotgun,” Courtney said, urging the trustees to overturn Hysinger’s ruling.

Jeffers said CISD was charged with protecting the safety of the students and that disciplining this student was not an easy decision. He said he was hired to make Clarendon schools safe even though sometimes those decisions break his heart.

“Everyone needs to know that guns are absolutely, positively not allowed in school,” he said.

Hysinger told the board that he and Jeffers must deal with student discipline problems everyday.

“Every single student can tell us he forgot or he can tell us some other excuse,” he said. “I know I personally have been asked to look the other way in this situation. But we did the right thing, we did the legal thing, and we did the ethical thing. And we were very compassionate and very considerate in our decision.”

The board then deliberated in closed session for approximately 45 minutes before coming back to vote in favor of the administration. Board members in favor of upholding the action were Lance Thornberry, Weldon Sears, James Shelton, and Joe Lemley. Voting against were Reneé Betts and Marvin Thompson.

Following the vote, the board informed the student he had the right to appeal the decision to the district court. As of Tuesday morning, Courtney said his client was not planning to appeal.