Back to basics
Archives for August 2014
Saving Sophie
By Roger Estlack, Clarendon Enterprise
Despair turned to joy last week when a local family’s pet was rescued from a well hole after 27 hours.
The 15-year-old Yorkie named Sophie began an ordinary day last Wednesday, July 30, with her owner Jim Whitlock, putting out feed on the old Reynolds place five miles south of Clarendon on the JA Ranch Road.
That was at 10 a.m.; and when Whitlock got ready to leave, Sophie was nowhere to be found.
“She was always with me and usually stuck close to me,” Whitlock said. “When I couldn’t find her, I thought she might have chased a rabbit.”
The search was on with Whitlock and his wife, Sue, joined by Troy Ritter and Tye and Cortney Jackson diligently looking for Sophie.
Finding her was imperative. This was more than a dog to the Whitlocks. This was their family.
“We lost a daughter in 1960 to a drunk driver,” Whitlock said. “So we don’t have any kids or grandkids. We just have our animals.”
And Sophie, along with her sister, had been Whitlock family members for eleven years.
As the search wore on more than half a mile away, Sue Whitlock convinced her husband that there was no way Sophie had wandered that far off.
“We went back to the windmill, and as I got to the other side of it, I saw that hole. A shiver went up my spine,” he said.
The hole was 15 feet deep, nine to 10 inches in diameter at the opening but narrowing to about four inches at the bottom.
“I thought ‘surely not,’ but I hollered her name, and she barked from the bottom of hole.”
As the Whitlocks’ hearts sank, they were joined by other friends and neighbors over the next several hours – R.J. Kemp, John Morrow, Tanner Morris, Kelly and Linda Hill, Kelly and Vicki Tunnell, and others – as numerous methods were tried to pull Sophie from the well.
Morrow put a camera down the hole that showed it was wallowed at the bottom, and that Sophie was off to one side.
“We were trying to get a noose on her,” Whitlock said. “We got her front legs in, but we couldn’t get her through the small part of the hole.”
Next, they devised a hook that successfully snared Sophie’s collar and brought her up in the hole. But about five feet up, the collar slipped off, and she fell back to the bottom.
The Whitlocks, joined by Mrs. Tunnell, turned to prayer to guide the rescuers.
“I prayed out loud, and she would come over and we would pray some more,” Whitlock said.
But at 2:30 Thursday morning, Whitlock decided it was time to stop for the night.
“I called it off,” he said. “Sophie was tired. We were all tired. We needed to rest.”
Sophie remained on everyone’s minds throughout the night, and Morrow had a realization that would prove the key to saving her life. Nooses and catches were too risky and might harm the dog, but Morrow knew what needed to be done.
“John called me the next morning and said we were going to save her just like that girl in the well,” Whitlock said.
In 1987, eighteen-month-old Jessica McClure fell down a 22-foot well near Midland. Rescuers ultimately saved her by digging a parallel hole to the well and then tunneling to her. Morrow felt the same method would work with Sophie, and he brought his backhoe to the site and began to dig.
Ten feet was the limit of his equipment, so Chris Schollenbarger joined the effort with a trackhoe that could continue to get the last five feet. Then the tunnel was dug to get to Sophie.
At first she would stick her head up but not come out. Then Kelly Hill was able to get her out and relief flooded their emotions.
“I bawled like a baby,” Whitlock said. “I just love her.”
The Whitlocks are forever grateful to the people who rescued their loved one. For her part, Sophie is safe, healthy, and happy. But now she stays not more than about three feet from her owner’s side.
“We got her back through a bunch of great people and prayer. A lot of good people showed up and no money was exchanged,” Whitlock said. “We owe a big thanks to everyone who helped.”
Morrow urges everyone remember the need and responsibility to plug, cap, or seal, abandoned well holes to prevent tragedies.
Regents consider FY ’15 budget
Clarendon College Regents began work on a $9.1 million projected budget for fiscal year 2015 during a called meeting last Thursday, July 31.
The budget is forecast to be less than the current expenses, and CC President Robert Riza said the administration’s numbers are based on statewide projections of no growth in college enrollments.
“The new norm is zero and down for enrollment,” Dr. Riza said, noting that the plentiful availability of jobs in the economy makes it hard to recruit students for college.
College officials plan to adopt an ad valorem rate in the Clarendon College District, which covers all of Donley County, set at $0.220802 per $100 valuation, which is lower than the current tax rate of $0.222732. However, due to higher property values, the lower rate will actually bring in about $31,000 in increased revenue.
The proposed rate is eight percent higher than the effective rate of $0.204447, the rate which would bring in the exact same revenue as last year.
Regent Tex Selvidge spoke in favor of adopting the proposed rate, noting that it was better to raise taxes a little when times are good than to get behind and have to raise them a lot. Other board members also agreed with Selvidge.
CC won’t be looking at any tuition increases, and Riza said state appropriations will remain unchanged. The college is expecting to receive about $100,000 more from the five-cent tax in Gray County due to higher values there.
The 2015 budget will be condensed compared to the current budget, Riza said, and it will be easier to track expenses and related programs.
Thursday’s workshop did not include any information about the college’s auxiliary budget, which covers expenses for athletics, the bookstore, and cafeteria operations. Regents will hold a public hearing and continue budget talks on August 14 and are set to adopt a tax rate that day as well.
In other college business, Riza gave Regents their first look at the administration’s strategic plan being developed for 2014-2017, labeled “One College…One Vision.”
When finished, the plan will take the college through its upcoming reaccreditation process and also has goals to redesign and increase student services, implement a district-wide master plan, strengthen college-community relations, and identify programs for expansion.
Regents also met in closed session to discuss personnel, but no action was taken following the closed session.
We have the Congress we deserve
The US House of Representatives last week voted to sue President Barack Obama, claiming the chief executive has overstepped the limits of his powers.
The Republican-led House doesn’t like the way Mr. Obama enforces some laws and not others, and they specifically don’t like the way his administration has chosen to enforce parts of the Affordable Care Act (also known as Obamacare) but not enforce other parts of the same law.
They have a point, and this column largely believes the GOP is right to be upset with the president on this. However, a lawsuit doesn’t seem like a very good way to handle things. The House’s most effective tool remains its control of the purse strings, and they should pull those strings tight every chance they get, effectively strangling any Obama program they don’t like. Congress putting on the breaks is probably the only way we’ll ever get the shackles back on our government.
Expectations of Congress doing anything right isn’t too high right now. In fact, CNN posted an online story Tuesday with the results of an informal poll. They asked their followers on Facebook and Twitter to describe Congress using only one word. More than 5,000 people responded, and “useless” was the number one response, followed by “worthless” and “joke.”
And it didn’t get any better after that. The next seven most popular responses were “corrupt,” “incompetent,” “lazy,” inept,” “idiots,” “selfish,” and “dysfunctional.”
A word cloud – a graphic representation of the most popular words – showed virtually no positive responses to the question. And some words made the top ten look like compliments. Consider these responses: “criminals,” “traitors,” “crooks,” “losers,” and “crap.”
The article quotes a NBC News/Wall Street Journal/Marist College poll this week that reports only three percent of voters as considering Congress “productive,” and another poll showing Congress with a 15 percent job approval.
Who are these 15 percent that are pleased with Congress? They need to have their heads examined and their voter registration cards taken away.
Typically, individual Congressmen and Senators get high marks from their constituents. The old “I hate Congress but love my Congressman” phenomenon has been prevalent for years in politics. However, CNN says the Washington Post reported that 51 percent of people now disapprove of their own representative’s job performance.
Results for individual members of Congress weren’t available, but I suspect that our own Mac Thornberry still enjoys a pretty high approval rating by Texans in the 13th District. He shares our values and votes the way most of us probably want him to. Your editor disagrees with Mac occasionally, but largely thinks he’s doing the best he can in a corrupt and broken system.
As a body, Congress is out of touch with the people it represents, has no qualms about ignoring the Constitution unless they want to beat the president over the head with it, and mostly serves to spend money we don’t have to fund a government that generally only makes life more difficult and more expensive.
You can blame it on gridlock if you like. You can point to the fact that Republicans don’t like Democrats and vice versa or that things are more polarized that ever in Washington. But the fact of the matter is things don’t seem to get better whether we have united government or divided government. The government itself is the problem.
Obama had his time with his party in control of both houses of Congress, and yet nothing much was accomplished other than a poorly written health care law that causes more problems than it solves. George W. Bush had his time with his party in power, and yet there were no great strides in rolling back government. The last Bush administration was a study in lost opportunities and, unfortunately, lost freedoms.
Some say that term limits are the answer to this vexing problem. A House full of inexperienced Congressmen, however, would put all the power in the hands of entrenched Congressional aides. The same thing has happened with the executive branch where bureaucrats are running the show largely without the president’s knowledge or permission.
The quality of our Congress and our White House won’t get any better until the people demand it. But the people, for all their supposed frustration, are largely indifferent to Washington. And that is the biggest problem.
Willie Jo Seitz
Willie Jo Seitz, 91, died July 27, 2014, in Canyon. Private family services were held. Arrangements were under the direction of Brooks Funeral Directors
Willie Jo Seitz was born February 14, 1923, in Eldorado, Oklahoma to John Gossett and Euna Denton. She graduated from Eldorado High School and attended Altus Community College. She married Elbert L. Seitz in Lovington, New Mexico on February 5, 1949. They have been married 65 years.
Willie Jo worked for the Texas Department of Health and Human Services for 22 years. She was a loving companion and will be fondly remembered as ‘Grandma’ by her grandchildren and great-grandchildren. She loved ice cream, cookies, and puppies. Willie Jo took pride in her grandchildren and did everything she could to ensure that they received a college education. She will be greatly missed.
She was preceded in death by her mother; a brother, Garland Gossett; and a sister, Bobby Miller.
She is survived by her husband, Elbert L. Seitz, of Canyon; daughter, Jo Jan Nunley, of Canyon; three grandchildren, Scarlet Estlack and husband, Russell, of Clarendon, Patrick Nunley, of Canyon, Spencer Nunley and wife, Cathy, of Canyon; three great-grandchildren, Maggie Nunley, of Canyon, Nathan and Daniel Estlack, of Clarendon; and a special cousin, Tommy Kirk, of New York.
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