Archives for September 2004

Rick Gage, who will be leading the Go Tell Greenbelt Crusade beginning Sunday at 7:00 p.m., took the long way around to reach where he is today.

An evangelist who specializes in holding Christian rallies outside of the major cities in America, Rick is the son of an evangelist. He grew up in the church, knowing all the right words to say and all the right things to do. But he only did them when Dad was looking.

When Dad wasn’t looking, when Rick was on his own through high school, he would – party with the best of them, occasionally coming home drunk and sneaking into the house. Football was his whole life. He chose his college according to where he could play football, going the junior college route when no four-year school seemed interested. He had a successful first year on the field, in the classroom – and on the party scene. Rick and his friends regularly cruised bars and clubs.

“Drugs and alcohol became rituals in my life,” he says in his book, The Coach. “It wasn’t a matter of needing to be ‘accepted.’ I was already accepted and, to some extent, admired. I simply wasn’t strong enough to say ‘no.’”

But at the beginning of his sophomore year, he injured his knee badly enough to need surgery. Four-year schools that had been looking at him backed off, worried that his knee would not recover properly. Except for one school in Lawton, Oklahoma. Rick went on to play football for them and earned his degree with a goal of coaching football. Eventually, he wound up coaching at the college level, first at West Texas State and later at Texas Tech.

Through all of this, his hard partying habits didn’t change, even though every time he went home he still knew how to talk the talk. When he lost his job at Tech, Rick reached a low point. His job would end soon, he had no prospects for a new one, and he decided to go to New Orleans with friends to watch football and have a good time in the bright lights of the Big Easy. It didn’t help. He was still lonely, empty, and without hope.

Rick spent Christmas with his family; and before he went back to Lubbock to what was left of his dead-end job, his father urged him to go hear a family friend preach. So on Sunday, Rick went. James Robison talked about how God’s Son came to free captives and prisoners, and Rick realized he was a captive.

“All I could do was approach God in repentance and faith…I went forward and knelt down on my knees at the altar and cried out to God for forgiveness. Immediately, I felt as if a huge weight had been lifted from my heart.”

Rick Gage did not immediately move from that point to becoming the preacher he is today, but his life changed. He was not the same person he was before. “Christ changed my emotions (feelings); my intellect (beliefs, thought patterns); and my will (desires, choices.)”

Rick went on to coach at various universities, mostly in the east, for several years after this before he understood that God had other plans for him. Those plans are fulfilled in the crusades he conducts all across America, and in Clarendon beginning Sunday night continuing through Thursday. Come and hear what he has to say.

Fifteen wagons will be rolling into Clarendon next weekend for the tenth annual Col. Charles Goodnight Chuckwagon Cookoff to be held September 25 at the Saints’ Roost Museum.

Gates will open at 7:30 a.m. with breakfast and lunch concessions provided by Boy Scout Troop 433. The tradeshow starts at 10 a.m., and museum tours will be available throughout the day.

The second annual Saints’ Roost Gun & Knife Show will again accompany the Cookoff from 9 a.m. to 5 p.m. The gun show is located inside the Clarendon Community Center, and admission is free with a cookoff ticket or $3 at the door.

Back on the museum grounds, Patrick Robertson and KEFH-FM will provide music at 11 a.m.

Live entertainment follows with afternoon performances scheduled by Audrey Brown of Clarendon, the Saints’ Roost Jamboree Band, music by Katie Askew of Clarendon, Delbert Trew of Alanreed, cowboy poet Oscar Auker of Clarendon, Dusty Michele Armstrong of White Deer, Gary Alan Bruce of Clarendon, Donna Sheppard of Clarendon and Booker, Payton Kane of Dodson, and the National Anthem performed by Bill Houston of Clarendon.

The Chuckwagon meal will be served at 5 p.m. with a menu of chicken fried steak, potatoes, beans, and cobbler.

At 6:30, the museum will raffle off a pair of James Owens Handmade Boots followed by the presentation of the cookoff awards.

Admission to the all-day event is free. Tickets for the authentic Chuckwagon supper are $10 each and can be purchased in advance at Henson’s in Clarendon by calling 806/874-3517.

Boot tickets are also available at Henson’s or from any museum board member.

On Sunday morning, cowboy church will be held under the tent at the museum with preaching by Shannon Hall of Loco, Okla.

Proceeds from the cookoff and the gun show benefit the Museum’s continuing efforts to preserve the history of Donley County.

AUSTIN – Texas Comptroller Carole Keeton Strayhorn on Monday announced that the state collected $1.42 billion in sales tax in August, up 8.2 percent compared to a year ago.

And when the state’s 2004 fiscal year ended August 31, general revenue-related sales tax collections totaled $15.3 billion for the year, up 7.9 percent compared to FY 03, reflecting rising consumer confidence and increased business spending.

“Sales tax grew at its highest annual rate since Texas’ 1998 economic boom,” Strayhorn said. “2004 was truly an economic bumper crop of a year for Texans.”

Clarendon’s own sales tax revenue for August was up 14.77 percent to $22,841.98. Hedley’s rebate was down 50.83 percent to $244.36; and Howardwick was down 3.54 percent to $1,244.70

Clarendon is running more than 3.5 percent ahead of its collections for the year-to-date. Hedley and Howardwick are both less than one percent below their year-to-date figures for the same time in 2003.

Texas cities, counties, transit systems, and special purpose taxing districts began their sales tax rebound earlier than the state. Overall, they have now seen 15 consecutive months of increased sales tax revenue.

Strayhorn this week delivered $327.4 million in September sales tax payments to local governments, a 7 percent increase compared to September 2003. So far this calendar year, local sales tax allocations are up 8.2 percent compared to the same period in 2003. September’s sales tax allocations include local sales taxes collected in July and reported to the Comptroller in August.

Strayhorn sent September sales tax allocations of $222.4 million to Texas cities, up 6.5 percent compared to September 2003.

Calendar year-to-date, city sales tax rebates are running 8.2 percent higher than last year. Texas counties received September sales tax allocations of $19.4 million, up 5.2 percent compared to a year ago. Calendar year-to-date, county sales tax allocations are 8.2 percent higher than last year.

Another $9 million went to 87 special purpose taxing districts around the state, an increase of 11.9 percent compared to a year ago.

So far this calendar year, sales tax allocations to special purpose districts are up 6.9 percent compared to 2003.

Nine Texas transit systems received $76.5 million in September sales tax rebates, up 8.5 percent compared to a year ago. Year-to-date, transit sales tax revenues are up 8.4 percent.

Medical Center Nursing Home officials have something to strut about after a state team found no deficiencies for the second year in a row.

The Texas Department on Aging & Disability Services gave the facility a clean bill of health during an annual review late last month, and the final report was received Monday.

Donley County Hospital District Administrator Alan Graham said state personnel were impressed with MCNH.

“One surveyor told me in all his time he had never seen as happy and as content residents as he did here,” Graham said. “He told me there were no complaints, and that was a first for him.”

MCNH officials say it’s rare for a nursing home to have zero deficiencies given the broad scope of the inspection, and to have zero deficiencies two years in a row is even more rare.

“Happy residents and families that are satisfied – that’s the mission we have,” Graham said.

The inspection looks at everything from regulation compliance to food preparation to sanitation and administration.

The state team can make its unannounced visit any time from three months before to three months after the date of its visit the year before. This year, the team arrived at about 7 p.m. and stayed on site until after 11 p.m.

“Ten percent of their annual inspections each year have to be done either at night or on weekends,” Graham said.

Graham credited a team effort – from the staff up to the hospital board – for creating an atmosphere of quality care, and Director of Nurses Vickie Robertson agreed.

“Having a deficiency-free survey two years in a row is testimony to our qualified staff who exemplify teamwork and quality care,” she said.

Robertson said all the praise should be put on the employees.

“They [the staff] sent me flowers, and I told them they should have saved their money because they are the ones who make the difference.”

In addition to high marks from the State of Texas, Medical Center Nursing Home also boasts a five-star rating for 1999-2003 from the Gannett News Service’s Nursing Home Quality Report.

Donley County Tax Assessor/Collector Wilma Lindley this week released a statement denying a rumor that she is planning to retire.

Lindley, who is running for re-election, says she appreciates citizens who have come to her to learn the truth and says she fully intends to serve another four years if re-elected.

“If I had any plans of retirement, I certainly would not have paid a filing fee of $750 to have my name on the ballot,” Lindley said.

AUSTIN – Texas Comptroller Carole Keeton Strayhorn today transferred $594.5 million into the state’s Rainy Day Fund, bringing the fund’s balance to $878.1 million.

“I am pleased to report today that I transferred $594.5 million into the state’s Rainy Day Fund,” Strayhorn said. “As I have said so many times before, the money in the Rainy Day Fund should only be used for an emergency. I still believe we should grow the Rainy Day Fund to at least $3 billion. This would only be 5 percent of our state’s General Revenue budget, which is what rating agencies recommend for fiscal soundness and a minimum necessary if, God help us, we have a true emergency.

“I have always said that conservative fiscal policies have served our state well in the past and are the best bet for the future,” Strayhorn said.

Despite the raid of the Rainy Day Fund during the last regular Legislative session, Strayhorn said the unexpected surge in the natural gas severance tax has begun to restore the fund. All three of New York’s top bond rating firms gave their highest possible ratings to Texas’ 2004 Series Tax and Revenue Anticipation Notes (TRANs).

The Rainy Day Fund, also known as the Economic Stabilization Fund, was created by the 70th Legislature in 1987 as a savings account to help offset fiscal instability in cases of a downturn in the economy. Dollars are transferred into the fund in two ways – either by appropriations from the Legislature, which has never occurred, or when oil and gas severance taxes are above the benchmark year of 1987, 75 percent of those dollars trigger into the fund.

It takes either a two-thirds vote of the Legislature to make withdrawals from the Rainy Day Fund, or a three-fifths vote if the Comptroller’s forecasts reduced revenue before a session or if a deficit hits after a budget is approved.

Strayhorn also said economic news from her agency at the end of the fiscal year shows that the Texas economy is fighting back and poised to make strides in the near future.

A split Board of Aldermen ended the City of Clarendon’s relationship with its longtime grant consultant last Tuesday in the wake of a disaster grant that cost the city $30,000 more than expected.

With two divisive votes during a called meeting, the board rescinded its agreement with Kay Howard of Lubbock for her to prepare the city’s upcoming Texas Community Development Project grant application and took action to have the Panhandle Regional Planning Commission (PRPC) provide future grant consulting.

“I like Kay, but I think she made an error on the last grant, and I think we need to make a change,” Alderman Bobbie Kidd said.

Howard had provided grant consulting services to the city since at least 1985, according to Kidd; and replacing her with PRPC upset Alderman Michael Tibbets.

“I don’t remember Kay ever calling a member of this council a criminal, and PRPC did,” Tibbets said. “I haven’t received an apology.”

Tibbets was referring to a November 6, 2003, article in The Clarendon Enterprise, in which a PRPC employee and former Clarendon board consultant was cited in classifying an October 28, 2003, action by the board of aldermen as spot zoning, which is illegal under state law.

“Pending an apology by them [PRPC] for a public assault by them, I can’t imagine that this is occurring,” Tibbets said.

His comments drew sharp criticism from Alderman Janice Knorpp, who said, “It’s time to get over it and do something good for the city.”

Mayor Tex Selvidge said he had not read the November 6 article the same way Tibbets had.

“There was not even an attempt to obtain an apology,” Tibbets said, “and now we have more bad blood on this council.”

“No, you do not,” Knorpp retorted. “You get over it.”

In both votes regarding grant consulting, Aldermen Knorpp and Kidd voted for the measure, Aldermen Tibbets and Tommy Hill voted against, and Mayor Selvidge broke the tie, voting in the affirmative.

In other city business last week, the board rejected all bids for the 2004 street paving project since all of them came in higher than expected.

Aldermen also discussed the 2004-2005 municipal budget, which will be considered for approval at the board’s regular meeting on September 14.