Archives for August 2012

The Sandell Drive-In Theatre is celebrating the tenth anniversary of its re-opening this weekend, and Sunday, September 2, has been dedicated as Customer Appreciation Night with the showing of a free movie.

The Sandell was opened in 1955 by Gary Barnhill and named for his two daughters, Sandra and Adele. It closed in 1984 and was re-opened in 2002 by John Morrow.

“The Hunger Games” will be the feature presentation and donations will be taken to help support the renovation work of the Mulkey Theatre. Everyone is encouraged to come celebrated the Sandell’s anniversary and help “Bring Back the Mulkey” at the same time.

 

By Dennis Kirk Knowles as told by Edna DeBord Dishman

On November 25, 1992 just before Thanksgiving, it was like any other day. Edna DeBord Dishman shared 59 years of her life with her husband, Elmer Dishman. She married Elmer at 22 after being courted on horseback by her admirer. The couple experienced the great depression, World War II with seasons of droughts and times of prosperity.

I remember a quote by Edna, “No one knows when they walk out the door in the morning, if they will ever walk back through that door in the evening” and this was the case on that cold day in November. Elmer and Edna were driving to Amarillo when they were involved in a car wreck. Edna suffered a broken jaw and five broken ribs. Elmer lost his life. After this tragedy, Edna would wake up in the middle of night realizing she was all alone. One night, she finally said, okay Lord I give it all over to you for I cannot go on like this anymore. This is when things began to change for this 82-year-young lady. Edna shared that this was a turning point of her life and the beginning of a new chapter.

Edna went to Salt Lake City after looking at a condo with her son, Keith Dishman. She was visiting her daughter, Ann Reeve. Edna spent this time reflecting on her life and meditating on direction from God. Before traveling to Utah, Edna was considering leaving Clarendon, Texas, and starting a new life in Dallas Texas. This would be Edna’s biggest Leap of Faith leaving Donley County where she had lived for over 80 years. Edna started unpacking her suitcases after arriving back to Clarendon from Utah. The phone rang and it was someone wanting to buy her house. This was an answer to prayer. She felt like there was a bigger plan for her life and dove into the waters of uncertainty, head first. Edna sold the household items and started this new adventure at the age of 85.

As Edna settled into her 7th floor condo overlooking the vast expanse of trees along Turtle Creek in Dallas, she quickly made friends with her new community. I walked through her high rise, recently, and mentioned her name to varied tenants. The faces lit up saying how she was such an inspiration and friend. Edna is a stranger to no one as she shares her faith and pearls of wisdom. Some of her neighbors will see her in the gym as she works out on the treadmill each day.

In her nineties, Edna and other contributors helped renovate the Parlor at her Methodist church in Dallas. She also helped in implementing a wireless system, in which, individuals with hearing impairments could be able to hear the service during church.

At 100, Edna felt a need to be a part of a production entitled, “It Gets Better.” This was a national campaign to encourage teens not to give up on life from the abuse of bullying. Her heartfelt words of encouragement are still being heard to this day. There was a young man she mentored who had thoughts of suicide and desperation. Through her tenacity and love, he found his calling in life. Edna stated, love is the key to everything and she has lived by this motto all of her life.

When Edna was 101, she and some other durable saints started an intercessory prayer meeting at Grace United Methodist in Dallas. Edna is a strong believer in the power of prayer. She said one of her keys to a long, successful life is when she wakes up in the morning her thoughts and prayers are on others and not herself. Another key she shared is to not live in fear. She stated, “When I came to earth, I was sent on a mission and life will continue until the work is done, so fear has no room to exist. It is God’s Will, not mine.”

One of Edna’s greatest desires was to have a blond hair, blue eyed grand baby. At 101, she was able to experience this. Her great grandson, Austin Craig and wife had a son, Jackson Reeves Craig. Edna held her blue eyed, blond hair great, great grandson on a recent trip to Salt Lake City, Utah.

In parting, Edna reflected as she looked across the trees of Turtle Creek in Dallas. She stated, “Life is like a season, you see all the buds on a plant, it becomes a flower. The seasons change, the flowers fall. The leaves begin to turn red, yellow, brown, and orange. As the leaves fall, they all come together and the snow covers them in the winter season. Well, this is how life goes. There is a time to live and there is a time to die. Fear will never dwell in my heart for Heaven is my home.” One of her favorite bible verses is Luke 12:1-4. It states, “In my Father’s house there are many mansions, if it were not so, I would have told you so, where I am there you will be also.”

There will be an open house honoring Bruce Ferguson on August 29, 2012 from 8:30 am to 11:30 am at the Donley County FSA Office located at 321 S Sully ST in Clarendon, TX.  For the past 34 years, Bruce served the farmers and ranchers of Donley, Armstrong, Potter and Oldham counties.  Come by and congratulate him.

School and college facilities in Clarendon are completing about $680,000 worth of summer improvements as students prepare to return for classes next week.

Clarendon College is wrapping up the most ambitious agenda with most work centered in residence halls that are about 40 years old. Upgrades to Vaughan, Phelan, and Knorpp halls are running about $400,000 and are expected to be completed by next week.

All three dorms received new doors on each room at a cost of about $30,000, and the college also renovated 22 bathrooms in Knorpp Hall with new showers at a cost of $89,000.

Sixty rooms in Vaughan and Phelan halls received new cabinets, dressers, and bookshelves for $150,000, and one-third of mattresses on the campus have been replaced for $10,000.

In addition, Vaughan Hall has been re-plumbed and had new plumbing fixtures added at a cost of $65,000; and new bathroom petitions and sinks have been installed in Phelan and Vaughan and curtains have been added to communal showers in those dorms also.

The college has also spent $30,000 painting in the dorms, and elsewhere around campus CC has purchased a new refrigerator/freezer in the cafeteria and restriped parking lots and updated paint on curbs and cross walks.

CC President Phil Shirley said students living on-campus are in for a treat when they arrive next week.

“I am so excited,” Shirley said. “We’ve done a lot of work, and both Vaughan and Phelan especially look wonderful.”

At Clarendon ISD, public school officials are finishing up $280,000 worth of improvements that included $75,000 to completely re-plumb and modernize 45-year-old bathrooms in the junior high and elementary buildings. The work included all new, self-flushing toilets, handicapped accessibility, new partitions, and new sinks. A three-inch mud-bed securing the old floor tile was busted out and replaced, and galvanized pipes were replaced with copper.

“Most of our older waterlines have been replaced now,” said Superintendent Monty Hysinger. “We still have some galvanized going to water fountains, but we’ll replace those on our own.”

The school spent $40,000 to repaint the Bronco and Colt gymnasiums and the Functional Living Center as well as handrails around the campus.

The biggest project was a $165,000 replacement of aging heating and cooling systems for the high school, band hall, and agriculture buildings. The project only cost the school $65,000 thanks to a $100,000 SECO energy grant administered through the state.

“These units were 23 years old, and the new ones will be much more efficient,” Hysinger said.

For next year the school will be looking at the district’s latest addition, the E-Wing on the west end of the elementary building that is now 15 years old and showing signs of settling cracks.

“The projects this year were all things we felt like we needed to do,” Hysinger said. “You’re never through repairing, but our board has been proactive and taken baby steps to stay after things so we keep them looking good.”

State officials notified Donley County Judge Jack Hall last week that they have approved a site location for the proposed Ten Commandments marker on the Courthouse Square.

The Texas Historical Commission approved locating the marker east of the Courthouse Annex in the second tree line from the street, placing it on the opposite side of the sidewalk from a 1976 Liberty Tree out of the main view of the 1890 Courthouse.

Backers of the marker had asked for it to be placed in front of the east face of the Courthouse in the same tree line, but the state preferred the Annex location that was proposed by Commissioner Donnie Hall and agreed to as an alternate site by the project’s supporters.

According to documents on file in the judge’s office, the Ten Commandments marker project will cost an estimated $20,000 and will be purchased locally from Wallace Monument Co., which is co-owned by Donley County Commissioner Mark White. The monument will be made of polished Georgia grey granite and will measure four feet, eight inches tall at the back, and three feet, four inches tall at the front and will be about 55 inches wide and just over 54 inches deep.

The Ten Commandments will be inscribed on a carved open Bible measuring 28 inches by 28 inches on the sloped top of the marker. Three sides of the monument will bear inscriptions that will be taken from a list of 16 historic quotations or phrases, and the fourth side will include a synopsis of the history of Clarendon.

Under the THC’s historic structure permit, supporters of the marker have until September 30, 2013, to complete the project.

The Mulkey Theatre project took another important step forward Monday when the Clarendon Economic Development Corporation selected a contractor-at-risk for Phase One of the rehabilitation of the downtown landmark.

Pioneer General Contractors of Amarillo will conduct the bid process and lead the construction team that will implement the renovation of the 1946 theatre’s façade.

Project architect Mason Rogers said Pioneer will place bid notices in the Amarillo Globe-News and The Clarendon Enterprise in about two weeks to begin the process of selecting sub-contractors for the job, and the CEDC Board is encouraging all local contractors to watch for that notice and bid on work they may be interested in.

The Phase One project is expected to cost about $123,000 and will include replacing stucco on the façade with a new EFIS material that is flexible and infused with the paint color, replacing badly damage stucco work on the underside of the marquee, fabrication and installation of new aluminum doors to match existing doors, and a new electrical service capable of supporting the entire building will be installed.

Damaged tiles will be repaired or replaced, and the corrugated accent on the center of the façade will be refinished. The project also calls for neon or LED lighting to be restored on the underside of the marquee and for new neon or LED tubing to be added in the porthole windows and along the top of the building.

Also on Monday, the CEDC also authorized soliciting bids for a contractor to do more work on the Mulkey barbershop, which is being converted for use as a city visitor center and economic development office. A bid notice is found on this week’s classifieds page, and the CEDC will meet in called session next Monday, August 27, at 5:15 p.m. to consider those bids.

When completed, the new visitor center will house both the office of CEDC Executive Director Chandra Eggemeyer and the Chamber of Commerce, providing a “one stop shop” for travelers and those who may be interested in locating their businesses or families in Clarendon.

The Clarendon Board of Aldermen voted 3-2 to authorize issuing $700,000 in tax revenue notes for water and sewer improvements during a called meeting Monday night.

The funds will be used to replace utility lines under several blocks of city streets that are scheduled to be repaved following a May bond election in which voters authorized borrowing a separate $700,000. The total project is now expected to cost about $1.4 million.

The streets were to have been paved this summer, but aldermen expressed concerns about the utility lines, causing City Administrator Lambert Little to come up with a plan to replace the lines. Little presented the project and the idea of using tax notes (a form of bonds that does not require voter approval) to pay for the extra work last Tuesday during the regular city meeting, but board members objected to issuing that much debt with citizen input.

As a result, the city held a town hall meeting Monday night at the Burton Memorial Library, which was attended by 17 citizens.

Little told the town hall that adding the water and sewer lines to the project would basically double the total cost of the job and would mean that the city would lose the window of opportunity for paving this season.

The administrator said the city could make the payments for both the bonds and the tax notes with its current 26-cent debt component of its ad valorem tax rate, and then there would be two years of balloon payments.

Payments the first five years would be about $140,000 each, and that would be followed by balloon payments totaling $420,000 in both 2018 and 2019.

Little said he anticipated paying down the notes early using sales of the city’s groundwater to Greenbelt Water Authority so that the balloon payments would not be an issue. And, he said, in the worst case scenario the city would refinance the debt in the last two years to stretch the payments out.

Citizens asked a range of questions about the project and the financing. Former alderman David Pitts said paving the streets without doing the utility work would be like building a house with no foundation but he expressed dismay that the utility lines were not included in the original scope of work presented to voters.

Billie Shaffer encouraged aldermen to “do it right the first time” so that the city will hopefully “save money in the long run.”

Blake Osburn and others asked several questions about what will be done regarding paving the roads, especially with regards to selection of contractors, who will do the base work, and who will check the base density.

Following the town hall meeting, aldermen met in a called session and voted unanimously to dedicate 100 percent of the revenue from groundwater sales to Greenbelt to the repayment of the tax note debt, and then voted 3-2 to issue the debt. (Aldermen Will Thompson, Terry Noble, and Abby Patten in favor, and Aldermen Tommy Hill and Jesus Hernandez opposed.)

In other city business, the board met in regular session August 14 where they discussed the budget for the coming fiscal year and approved a request from Mullins Music Ministry for $2,700 from the Hotel Occupancy Fund for a Thanksgiving Jamboree. Mullins told the board that he had an estimated 150 people at his last jamboree earlier this year which the city had provided $2,100 for and he said he knew for sure that three people had stayed in the local hotel.