Archives for September 2010

The Hedley Senior Citizens Center volunteers are constantly working, asking for donations and doing fundraisers in order to keep their facility going.
But that is still not enough.

They are working in a 105-year-old building that is falling apart, and their only hope to continue their service is to build another building before it is too late.

“It’s going to fall down,” said Kathy Spier, bookkeeper for the Senior Citizens Center. “There is absolutely no other place in town we could serve the elderly if something happens to this building.”

According to Spier, the Senior Citizens Building might not make it through this winter.

“Right now as it stands, if we get a heavy snowstorm our roof may cave in,” she said.
The building, which is one of the first built in Hedley, has fallen six inches on the south side, has a condemned second story, and has no central heating or air.

“The wall furnace we use just doesn’t keep us warm enough during the winter,” Spier said. “And we just now got our evaporative cooler to work. We went through the summer without any air conditioner.”

It is also not handicap accessible.

“We’ve had elderly people that have fallen trying to get up the high steps,” Spier said. “And our restrooms aren’t handicap accessible either, so they aren’t able to use them.”

Spier said that they received permission to use five lots across Main Street from their current center to build a new building from scratch.

“The new building will definitely be handicap accessible, energy efficient (which our current building is not), have central air-conditioning, a good dining room, two handicap restrooms, and doors wide enough for wheelchairs,” Spier said. “It could also be used as a community center for showers, school programs, reunions and birthday parties.”
The total estimated cost of this project is around $200,000.

“We have to have everything from the ground up, which includes concrete, electricity, plumbing, and we will probably need some new equipment, like freezers,” Spier said. “We will use as much as we can, but there will have to be some new stuff.”

The center feeds around 60 people a day, and delivers to about 20 homebound people.
Since they cannot legally ask anyone over the age of 60 to pay for a meal, they request a donation of three dollars. But they rarely receive it.

“There are a lot of elderly people that can’t even pay that, but they need the food,” Spier said. “This whole area is under the poverty level. For some of the homebound people, that is their one meal for the entire day.”

Spier said that many people believe that the state pays for the center’s food expenses and the employee’s salaries, but she said that is “far from the truth.”

“It costs us about $5.90 to make a meal, and the state reimburses us less than half the cost of that,” she said. “The center spends between $3,000-$5,000 a month for food. And this is not like New York and California. We can’t have $10 plates.”
In many cases, the money they manage to save up has to go towards bills.

“For the last five or six years we’ve been saving up for the other building, but at one time we didn’t even have enough money to pay the bills,” Spier said.

“Our savings are very little because we have to use most of it for food and utility expenses. So we don’t have a lot saved up, but we’re still working on it.”
Spier said state money seems to ignore small towns like Hedley.

“It’s like all the money that is out there is geared toward large towns,” she said. “It seems like they think small rural areas don’t matter, so they try to help the masses. But our little elderly people are just as important, and we need help just as much as the big towns.”

The center received a good response from an article about their predicament in the Amarillo Globe-News back in August.

“Since the article came out, we’ve received $5,000 from the Jay O’Brien grant, and besides that we’ve received $2,500,” Spier said. “Besides the money, we’ve gotten a lot of encouragement and ideas as well.”

To make donations to the Hedley Senior Citizens Center, either call Kathy or Patsy Spier at 806-856-0143 or e-mail hedleysr@valornet.com.

“The people in this community are so supportive of the senior citizens,” volunteer Roger Hagar said. “They’ll always help and support us, and we owe a big thanks to them, as well as the people of Clarendon and Memphis.”

The center’s next fundraiser is October 9 at the Cotton Festival. They will raffle off a Judge pistol, as well as sell hamburgers.

“Please come out and support our Senior Citizens program,” Spier said. “We need all the help we can get.”

The CO Ranch Chuckwagon Team of Quanah took home top honors Saturday at the 16th annual Col. Charles Goodnight Chuckwagon Cookoff.

Led by head cook Nickey O’Neal, the team had the first place beans and potatoes as well as first place in Overall Cooking on the way to racking up enough points to win the Best Overall award.

Officials with the Saints’ Roost Museum, which sponsors the event, were pleased with this year’s cookoff, but attendance was down this year. The museum sold 415 tickets to the cookoff and served 400 people.

“We had a lot of tickets that were not sold until that morning,” said museum board member Lindy Craft, who felt that there may have been too many things going on Saturday.

“There were three other events that just sort of popped up on the calendar two weeks before the cookoff,” Craft said. “We’re a small town, and we all need to work together if these events are going to be successful.”

The third annual Junior Cookoff the day before the big event drew seven contestants, who were paired with experienced wagon teams to prepare potatoes for the cooks’ dinner Friday night. Jayden Bressler from Happy won first place with his own recipe and was teamed with the Honey-Do Spoiler Cooking Team. Kade Hunsaker of Clarendon was second with the Bar H Dude Ranch Cooking Team, and Darcie Hunsaker of Clarendon was third with the Rising W Cooking Team.

Following the Junior Cookoff, an estimated 135 people enjoyed a delicious steak dinner Friday night on the museum grounds. The invitation-only event was held exclusively for Chuckwagon teams and members of the Museum and their families.

The trade show was held throughout the day, and live entertainment was provided. Museum tours were led by the Clarendon High School Junior Historians. Relatives of Chuckwagon inventor Charles Goodnight also were present for their annual reunion.

Ten wagons served a menu of chicken fried steak, mashed potatoes, gravy, biscuits, beans, and cobbler. Prizes totaling $3,250 were paid out to the winners.
Complete results were:

Overall Wagon & Cooking: 1) CO Ranch of Quanah.
Overall Cooking: 1) CO Ranch, 2) Rising W Chuckwagon of Happy, 3) Cross Wagon of Vega, and 4) T Half Circle of Silverton.
Best Wagon & Camp: 1) C4B Chuckwagon of Amarillo, 2) J Bar D Ranch of Amarillo, 3) T Half Circle, and 4) Honey-Do Spoiler of Pampa.
Best Meat: 1) Rising W, 2) Cross Wagon, 3) Honey-Do Spoiler, and 4) J Bar D.
Best Beans: 1) CO Ranch, 2) T Half Circle, 3) HX Ranch of Lubbock, and 4) Rising W.
Best Potatoes: 1) CO Ranch, 2) Rising W, 3) HX Ranch, and 4) T Half Circle.
Best Bread: 1) C4B, 2) Cross Wagon, 3) T Half Circle, and 4) Rising W.
Best Dessert: 1) Rising W, 2) CO Ranch, 3) C4B, and 4) Cross Wagon.

Wagon Judges this year were selected by the teams from among themselves, and Food Judges were under the direction of Tashia Duncan.

Wes Thomas was the winner of the Kevin Johnson merchandise, and George Hall won the James Owens Handmade Boots.