Archives for January 2003

Cheryl Johnson, Clarendon Enterprise

Seventy-eight youth from Donley County FFA Chapters and 4-H Clubs will be exhibiting their livestock at the Junior Livestock Show this Saturday.

The youth will be showing 107 head of livestock in the Clarendon Community Center.

The sheep show begins at 9:00 a.m. followed by the goat show and the gilt and barrow show. The Steers will be showing at 1:00 p.m.

A buyer’s supper will begin at 6:00 p.m. at the Community Center, followed by the premium auction. During the sale, the young people receive a premium from area businesses and individuals for the effort they made this year.

Everyone is invited to come out and support the youth of Donley County. These young people have worked extremely hard this year with their animals and will greatly appreciate your contributions.

Filing for local offices closed last Wednesday with all but three local incumbents drawing opponents.

The Democratic and Republican primaries will be held March 12, 2002, and early voting by personal appearance in the county clerk’s office will be February 25 through March 8. No local candidates are contested in the primary elections however.

In countywide races this year, incumbent Democrat Jack Hall will face Republican challenger William J. “Jimmy” Thompson for the office of county judge. Democratic incumbent Fay Vargas is opposed by Republican Vicki Knowles to be county/district clerk. The incumbent county treasurer, Republican Becky Jackson, will face Democrat Vicki Sloan.

Justices of the Peace Jimmy Johnson (R) and Ann Kennedy (D) drew no opponents this year. County Commissioner Pct. 2 Don Hall (R) is also unchallenged.

The incumbent Pct. 4 commissioner, Democrat Bob Trout, will face Republican Wayne Riggs in the general election.

In other offices of local interest, District 13 Congressman Mac Thornberry (R) of Clarendon will be challenged by Democrat Zane Reese of Crosby County and Libertarian Dale Sutherlin of Sheppard Air Force Base near Wichita Falls. State Rep. Warren Chisum (R) of Pampa is unopposed as is State Sen. Robert L. Duncan (R) of Lubbock.

The 2002 Olympic Torch passes through Amarillo on Saturday morning, January 12, on its way to the Winter Olympics, February 8-24, 2002 in Salt Lake City.

Clarendon resident Clint Green will carry the torch.  Green is the son of Katherine and Don Williams and the grandson of Naomi Green of Clarendon.

The 2002 Olympic Torch is like a fiery icicle in motion, its curvature representing the dynamics of speed and fluidity. It is 33 inches long, 3 inches wide at top and 1/2 inch wide at the bottom. Each torch bearer will cover two-tenths of mile and will be escorted by a caravan of official vehicles and two attendants.

The celebration in Amarillo will begin at 7 p.m. Friday night, January 11 when the Amarillo Rattlers face-off against the Tulsa Oilers. Then a variety of activities will be offered throughout the evening leading up to the arrival of the Olympic Torch.

Green is scheduled to carry the torch at approximately 2:42 a.m. north on Amarillo’s Buchanan Street.

Other torch bearers include Kati Artho, Dustin Holladay, and Cheryl Hukill, all of Canyon; Ron Lee II, Cindy Miller, Greg Mitchell, Eveline Rivers, and Andy Justice, all of Amarillo; Leta Payne of Lubbock; Randy Adams, Jr. of Odessa; James Burleson of Snyder; Scotty Gorley of Wichita Falls; Stanley Graff of Dallas; Steven McHenry of Enid, OK; and John Slider of Odessa.

For more information on the Torch Run in Amarillo and activities leading up to it, contact Kris Miller at 806-378-4297.

Donley County Junior Livestock Show and Auction will be held Saturday, January 11, at the Clarendon Community Center located behind Suna AutoMall.

More than seventy young people will be exhibiting their beef, sheep, and swine projects at 9:00 a.m. The day’s activities will conclude with an auction at 6:00 p.m.

During the year, these participants spend many hours feeding and caring for their animals, and the auction gives them an opportunity to be rewarded for their hard work.

Many participants will take their livestock on to major shows in Ft. Worth, San Antonio, and Houston.

If you would like to support the Junior Livestock Show and sale or need more information, contact Lon Adams at (806) 856-5323.

By John Taylor, CISD Counselor

Students in Clarendon Schools and across the state will face a new assessment this spring. The Texas Assessment of Knowledge and Skills, or TAKS test replaces the decade old TAAS test.

The new TAKS test, (pronounced ‘tax’) is more rigorous due to increased depth and complexity of the questions.

Teachers prepare students for the TAKS by teaching the state curriculum, the Texas Essential Knowledge and Skills or TEKS.

One of the biggest changes brought about by the new assessment program is the Student Success Initiative. Under this program, 3rd graders must pass the TAKS Reading test in order to be promoted to the 4th grade. They will have three opportunities to meet expectations. Additional instruction will be provided for all students who do not pass. A parent can request a GPC or Grade Placement Committee be formed that will ultimately decide if the student will be retained should the student not meet requirements on the third test. In 2005, all 5th graders will have to pass both the TAKS Reading and Math tests to be promoted to the 6th grade. In 2008, 8th graders will have to pass these tests to be promoted to the 9th grade.

Another change TAKS brings is a shift in the Exit Level test (the test that high school students must pass to graduate) from the 10th to the 11th grade. The Exit Level TAKS will consist of an English Language Arts test, a science test, a math test, and a social studies test- all of which must be passed before the student can graduate.

Clarendon High School has made several changes the past few years to address the TAKS requirements. An alternating block schedule has been in place for 2½ years. Longer blocked classes allow the teachers enough flexibility during each class to teach the TEKS and address the critical thinking required by TEKS. Several master schedule changes have been made, and all student graduation plans are devised with TAKS preparation in mind. Also, all juniors are now required to be enrolled in both a science and math class.

Since this year’s juniors took the Exit Level TAAS last year, the new TAKS Exit Level requirement will go into effect in the spring of 2004 for the senior class of 2005. All current CHS students have met Exit Level requirements.

The new TAKS test brings a more complicated testing schedule. Writing at grades 4 and 7, Reading at grade 9, and English Language Arts at grades 10 and 11 will be given on February 25. The third graders’ first opportunity to pass the Reading test will be on March 4 (any student not passing will retest on April 30 and if necessary, again on July 8). Reading at grades 4-8 will be on April 30. TAKS Math will be as follows: grades 3-8 and 11 on April 29, grade 10 on April 30, and grade 9 on May 1. Social Studies will be given on May 1 in grades 8, 10, and 11. Science will be assessed on May 1 for grade 5 and May 2 for grades 10 and 11.

TAAS has not gone away completely. It is still the graduation requirement for any current junior, senior, or out of school examinee who did not pass while in school. While no CHS students will need to retake the TAAS, it will be offered to out of school examinees this spring to those who register by January 24, 2003. Anyone interested in testing should contact the Clarendon counselor’s office at 874-3241.

Four area men are starting the New Year in the custody of the Texas Department of Criminal Justice following their December 30, 2002, sentencings by 100th District Court Judge David McCoy.

According to information from the district attorney’s office, Dustin Dean Dann and Bobby Carol Atkinson, both of Childress, came to plea agreements with the State through District Attorney Stuart Messer. They were represented by attorney Earl Griffin.

Dann received 2½ years in prison for the third degree felony of Unlawful Possession of a Firearm. Atkinson was sentenced to three years in prison for the third degree felony of Driving While Intoxicated.

Carson County inmate Terry Wayne Gollihugh and Donley County inmate Preston Wayne Havens came before the court on motions filed by Messer to revoke probation.

Gollihugh was placed on felony probation on January 4, 1999, for Driving While Intoxicated. He received three years in a TDCJ Institutional Division for his probation violation. Gollihugh was represented by attorney Steve Cross.

Havens was placed on probation for the second degree felony of Indecency with a Child and the first degree felony of Aggravated Sexual Assault on May 23, 2002. He was sentenced to 15 years in a TDCJ Institutional Division for violating probation, and he was represented by Earl Griffin.

The district attorney complimented the Probation Department on these cases.

“I want to commend the work of the Probation Department for keeping tabs on these men and letting us know when they violate their probation requirements so we can work to keep our cities and counties safe for all of us,” Messer said.

Renowned painter Olive Freda Vandruff Bugbee of Clarendon died here on Saturday, January 4, 2003, at the age of 94.

Memorial services will be held at 2 p.m. January 15 in the Hazlewood Lecture Hall at the Panhandle-Plains Historical Museum in Canyon

Born at Martin’s Ferry, Ohio, on April 17, 1908, to Ross and Mame Buskirk Vandruff, she spent much of her childhood traveling in the Southwestern United States with her geologist father and her mother. In Chicago, she studied with painter Edmund Giesbert at the University of Chicago.  She also studied with Chicago sculptors Elisabeth H. Hibbard and Frederick C. Hibbard in the mid 1940s, eventually becoming an assistant to them. Vandruff moved to San Antonio in 1931, where she became an assistant to sculptor Pompeo Coppini.

About 1937, she married the engraver Charles F. Anderson.  In 1950 she operated a sheep ranch near Kerrville. While in the Hill Country, she became a renowned painter of animals and birds and was often commissioned to paint pet and horse portraits. She met Western artist H.D. Bugbee of Clarendon in 1960, marrying him the following year and relocating to Clarendon. 

Upon Bugbee’s death in 1963, Vandruff succeeded him as curator of art at the Panhandle-Pains Historical Museum until her retirement in 1982. After retiring, she still volunteered at the Museum, driving the 150 mile round trip from Clarendon nearly every day until November 2002.

Vandruff worked in several media, including pastel, watercolor, casein, and oil.  She was a member of the Coppini Academy of Fine Arts in San Antonio and began exhibiting there in the early 1930s.  By the early 1960s, she had had numerous solo exhibitions.  Vandruff’s paintings are found in private collections across the United States.

Among her patrons were former President Lyndon B. Johnson and Texas Governor Dolph Briscoe.  Her public commissions consist of murals in Texas and Oklahoma, including a mural of Palo Duro Canyon for the First National Bank of Amarillo, now Bank of America. In 1976, she was included in the landmark exhibition, “The Women Artist, in the American West, 1860-1960,” in Fullerton, California.  Recently, she was included in the Dictionary of Texas Artists, 1800-1945.

A memorial exhibition of Vandruff’s paintings will be presented in the Bugbee Gallery at the Panhandle-Plains Historical Museum in Canyon.  The exhibition will include works of art from her personal collection as well as from the Museum’s.

Her body will be cremated.  Arrangements were under the direction of Robertson Funeral Directors, Inc., of Clarendon.