Ashlee Estlack

Cuts in state financing are having a big impact on the Clarendon Public Schools and Clarendon College, but officials at both institutions say they are trying to make the best of a difficult situation.

CC President Phil Shirley and Clarendon School Superintendent Monty Hysinger addressed the Donley County Retired School Personnel Monday night, and both men said they are trying to do more with less.

“We have learned that in a financial crisis, the Legislature can and will cut public education,” Hysinger said. “It’s going to take teachers and the public to make a change.”

Public School Impact

Hysinger said the 82nd Texas Legislature last spring was historic in that it was the first time in 60 years the state failed to finance schools under existing law and that public school financing was cut by a total of $5.4 billion.

In the 2011-2012 fiscal year, Clarendon ISD cut $468,748 from its budget, and it will have to cut another $120,757 in 2012-2013.

“We can weather the storm for a year,” Hysinger said, “but beyond that we will have to make major changes.”

The school has few options to raise money on its own. The local tax rate is capped at the current $1.04 per $100 valuation, but the district could ask local voters to raise that up to $1.17.  Doing so would raise $180,000 locally and trigger additional state funding of at least $150,000.

The district may also have to reinstate its tax on personal property, which could generate $250,000.

“We may reach a point in a year or two where we have to look at that.”

In the meantime, the school has taken several proactive steps to close its budget shortfall, including eliminating six positions through attrition. One those positions, the pre-kindergarten teacher, was saved by charging tuition for that unrequired class. The school has also stopped planned purchases of a new vehicle and a new bus, reduced travel expenses, extended the date that it planned to replace student laptop computers, and found other savings.

Clarendon ISD has also joined the Equity Center in one of four lawsuits against the state regarding the disparity in school funding.

At the same time funding is being reduced, Texas is growing by more than 80,000 students per year, Hysinger said. But in Clarendon, enrollment is falling from 511 last year to 499 this year. This also hurts financially since state funding is based on student numbers.

While facing funding issues, public schools also have another challenge. The state has adopted the new STAAR accountability testing for students which puts more pressure on schools and increases the number of standardized testing dates from 25 to about 45.

College Impact

At the community college level, President Phil Shirley said CC suffered a $300,000 cut when all was said and done and the next round of cuts may be that much or a little more.

“It’s going to be tough, but we will persevere,” Shirley said.

The college has three main ways to raise more money. Raising property taxes from the current 22¢ per $100 valuation would bring in only $30,000 without triggering a rollback election. Increasing tuition and fees is not a good option because the college has gone to high in that area already. Grants are a possibility, but in the current economy, foundations aren’t giving out money like they used to.

“We’ve got to be smarter and more efficient, and we’ve got to operate cheaper but operate well with excellence in mind,” Shirley said.

The cuts in state funding also come as the college tries to find ways to deal with aging dormitories that need renovating and at a time when the college is seeking to improve its other facilities. Shirley said the Livestock & Equine Center needs bathrooms and a concession area, and there is a need for a field house, bathrooms, and a concession area to compliment the baseball and softball fields.

Forming new partnerships and finding ways to serve more students will also help the college as it moves forward.

Both the college and the public school welcome interested citizens to visit their facilities. Shirley and Hysinger say they are trying to be good stewards of the money they are entrusted with and doing their best to weather the financial storms of the current economy.

A petition to hold a local option election in Hedley is valid, but voting to legalize the sale of alcoholic beverages in that city won’t happen until May.

Donley County Commissioners reviewed the petition containing 82 signatures during their regular session Monday afternoon and found it to be legal and in the proper format, but county officials say petition backers did not get it filed soon enough with the county clerk’s office to be placed on the November ballot.

“A petition like this has to be in my office for 30 days, and then [the commissioners] have to vote on it prior to the 71st day before an election,” County Clerk Fay Vargas told the Enterprise.

But that doesn’t mean there was anything wrong with the petition itself, Vargas said. And with a new law in place as of September 1, petition backers can now take their quest directly to the City of Hedley, where the Board of Aldermen will order the issue be placed on the May ballot.

“The city will now have to bear the cost of having that election instead of the county,” Vargas said.

Petitioner Tonja Ruthardt was not unsettled by the news, telling the Enterprise Tuesday morning that she wanted the election to be held in May anyway.

“Everything is good,” she said.

At press time, Ruthhard did not know when she would present the petition to the city.

The Ranger Bradley Ranch took top honors during the Clarendon Outdoor Entertainment Association’s annual Ranch Rodeo last Friday and Saturday.

Ranger Bradley’s scores beat out 16 other local and regional teams as working cowboys put their skills to the test as part of the 129th anniversary Saints’ Roost Celebration.  The team was made up of J.B Miller, Johnny Miller, Jim Tackett, Dewey Hill, and Benton Easter.

Finishing second was the Bit Ranch of Clarendon with the team of Danny Bennet, Teal Bennett, Tate Bennett, and Klay Waters.  La Mejor was third with the team of Bo Borden, Bray Chamblis, Dustin West, and Stacey Pipes; and the RO Ranch came in fourth with the team of Monte Hollar, Slim Stevenson, Mike Wallendorff, and Will Wallendorff.

The top Hand award was won by Tate Bennett of the Bit Ranch. Jim Thacket of the Ranger Bradley Ranch took home the Top Horse award.

Event winners were as follows:

Bronc Riding – First Crutch Ranch (Friday) and Bit Ranch (Saturday).

Sorting and Doctoring: Ranger Bradley (Friday) and Bit Ranch (Saturday).

Cow Milking: Hall (Friday) and La Mejor (Saturday).

Branding: Ranger Bradley (Friday) and JA/Spade (Saturday).

Results from the Wild Mare Races were not available at press time.

The winner of Friday’s Bronc Riding Competition was the First Crutch Ranch, and Saturday’s Bronc Riding Competition was won by Tate Bennett of the Bit Ranch. 

On Tuesday night in the long go around, first place went to Cody Lewis, and a split for second was between Josh Halsell, Hobbs Magaret and Zane Peters.  In the second go around, Josey Shadle won first, Zane Peters placed second, and Hobbs Magaret placed third.

Overall winners of the Bronc Ride were Zane Peters and Josey Shadle (split for first) and Hobbs Magaret (third).

Calf scramble winners from the four nights were Liberty Autumn, Chance Roland, and Tanner Arnold (Friday); Steve Siata, Corey Barker, and Pecos Williams (Saturday); Levi Molesworth, Justin Shadle, and Casey McCleskey (Monday); and Brayden Philips, Brittany McAnear, and Cole Ward (Tuesday).

Junior Calf Riding was held all four nights.  Winners were Halton Hufsteder (Friday), Brett Green (Saturday), Mitch Montgomery (Monday), and Jacob Anglin (Tuesday).

Winners of the Junior Steer Riding were Blake Fox (Friday and Tuesday) and Tell Stewart (Saturday).

Jake Owens took home first in the Junior Donkey Riding on Friday, Saturday, and Monday and tied with Brayden Phillips for first on Tuesday.

Brett Green was the overall winner in the junior calf riding, Blake Fox took home first overall in the Junior steer riding, and Jake Owens placed first overall in the junior donkey riding.

The Overall Junior Rodeo winners from Monday night were S&L Ranch, first; Tule Ranch, second; and Brent Ranch, third.

The top horse winner for the Junior Rodeo was Cooper Cogdell, and the Top Hand award went to Dakota Kennedy.

Beef certificate winners for the four days of rodeo were Ted Shaller, Grady Van Pelt, Mandy Jaramillo, and Stormy Mann.

A fire on Friday, November 25, has one Clarendon family counting their blessings this week.

The Clarendon Volunteer Firefighters responded to a house fire in the 600 block of W. Sixth, the home of Will and Lynn Thompson, Friday, November 25.

The 911 call came in at 3:35 p.m.; and according to Assistant Fire Chief Pat Robertson, the blaze started after a fire got outside the firebox.

“It went up the wall and into the attic,” Robertson said. “There was a breach of the firebox.”

Lynn Thompson said her son Todd discovered fire coming out of the wall.

Once the firefighters arrived they opened a hole in the roof to let the smoke out, Robertson said, and the fire was put out within 30-45 minutes.

“I would really like to commend our volunteer fire department,” Lynn said. “The inspector and adjuster said the hole they cut saved us from a lot of smoke damage.”

Robertson said the portion of the house where the fire started is separated from the remainder of the house by the garage and this also helped to eliminate smoke damage.

Thomspon said they have no dollar amount for the damage yet but will be completely replacing the fireplace and chimney along with ome sheetrock and flooring.

Thompson said an inspector listed the cause of the fire as a failure of the fireplace.

“No one was hurt and we didn’t lose anything that can’t be replaced,” Lynn said. “Clean up has already started.

“We have not been displaced, and we’re very blessed.”

Walking up stairs without holding on. Touching your toes. Putting on your own shoes. Riding a bike. Sitting with your legs crossed.

These tasks may seem easy, but they are things that one little girl could never do… until now.

Tristin Miller’s story started on July 19, 1996, when she and her twin sister, Kristin, were born premature with twin-to-twin transfusion syndrome. They weighed just two pounds, 14 ounces and four pounds, 13 ounces.

Their mother Misti Watson said when the girls were born, Tristin had nothing wrong. She went home after just a week with no problems while her twin sister, Kristin, went home after five days and had to be on oxygen.

“Both girls never seemed to have problems until Kristin began doing things that Tristin couldn’t,” Misti said. “Tristin had a hard time sitting up, and doctors told me it was just because she was so small; but I knew something wasn’t right.”

Both girls suffer from hearing loss and a seizure disorder; but when Tristin was one and a half, she was diagnosed with Cerebral Palsy, a condition that causes a loss of muscle coordination.

She started visiting the Shriners Hospitals for Children at the age of two. There they put her into bracing and worked with her in physical therapy until she was ready for surgery at the age of eight.

“Before surgery Tristin was given a doll, and the doctors used it to show her exactly what they were going to do,” Misti said.

Tristin’s three-hour surgery was at the Shriners Hospital for Children in Houston on October 27, 2004; and the doctors did eight different procedures on her legs during that one operation.

“After her surgery she got very grouchy and mean for a few days. She kept saying, ‘Help me Mama; help me.’

“I just thought, ‘Why did I do this? Why did I put her through all this pain?’” Misti said. “But after five or six days, Tristin said, ‘I can do this;’ and then I knew she was going to be all right.”

While in the hospital, Tristin enjoyed celebrating Halloween and participated in daily activities.

“She also had a teacher while she was there,” Misti said. “We went to school everyday after therapy.

“We always had something to do. They told us that the kids there aren’t sick; they just have something wrong with them, so they didn’t need to lie around in a bed.”

Tristin spent just three weeks in the hospital and came home with casts from the knees down.

“She used a walker to get around at first, but now she is doing great,” Misti said. “We have a therapist who comes twice a week, and we do stretches with her everyday.

“Right now her therapy is a game to her, but it’s painful some days. The doctors said we are trying to reprogram her brain to walk correctly. She spent eight years walking the wrong way, so now she’s learning to walk all over again the right way.”

Tristin sleeps with a wedge pillow between her legs and knee immobilizers, and during the day she wears braces to protect her muscles; but as soon as her muscles are stronger, she can go without them.

Everything at the Shriners Hospital is personal Misti said.

“They don’t ever forget her,” she said, “and they have several doctors and therapists that do everything they need right there together.”

After returning from Houston, Tristin went right back to school.

“She would cry sometimes, but the kids were great with her,” Misti said. “The kids fought over who got to help her.”

Thanks to the Shriners, Tristin is now off and running. She can walk up the stairs without holding onto the rail, put on her own shoes, touch her toes, ride a bicycle, and sit with her legs crossed.

“She doesn’t see herself different than anyone else,” Misti said. “She loves everybody and doesn’t see that she has ever had a problem.”

Tristin said she loves to read and one day hopes to be a teacher or a doctor.

“I want to help other people,” she said.

Tristin and Kristin will be third graders in the fall, and they are spending their summer playing baseball and wrestling with each other.

“They are very different but also very close,” Misti said.

There are not enough words to describe what the Shriners Hospitals for Children do, Misti said.

“They don’t ask for anything, but just do and do and do,” she said. “We are so appreciative of everything they have done for our family.

“They’re amazing and good hearted, and people don’t realize how they help until you actually see someone up walking around like Tristin is.”

Tristin should not have to have any more surgeries in the future, but she did have to travel to Houston a few weeks ago for Botox injections into her legs after she went through a growth spurt. According to Misti, the entire process of getting Tristin better has been slow and aggravating at times but completely worth everything.

“I have cried myself to sleep many a night over her. You just feel like it’s your fault,” she said. “But seeing her get better made it all ok. The good Lord has taken care of me.”

“And me,” Tristin said. “He’s a good guy.”

 Everybody can help Shriners help children 

Twenty-two Shriners Hospitals are Masonic charities and are located throughout North America – 20 in the United States and one each in Mexico and Canada.

Since the first Shriners hospital opened in 1922, about $7 billion have been spent to help 770,000 children at Shriners hospitals. Shiners operate two children’s hospitals in Texas – an orthopedic hospital in Houston and a burn hospital in Galveston.

There is never a charge to the patient, parent, or any third party for any service or medical treatment received at Shriners Hospitals, which accept and treat children under 18 years of age without regard to race, religion, or relationship to a Shriner.

Clarendon’s Al Morrah Shrine Club traditionally supports the hospitals by donating funds raised at the annual Saints’ Roost Celebration barbecue to the Khiva Temple’s travel fund, which pays for transporting children to and from the hospitals.

This year’s barbecue will be held from 11 until the food runs out on Saturday, July 2, at City Park. Tickets are $6.50 each and are available from Henson’s or The Clarendon Enterprise.

For more information about Shiners Hospitals for Children, visit their Web site at www.shinershq.org.

If you know a child that Shiners Hospitals for Children can help, please call their toll-free patient referral at 1-800-237-5005.

Results from the Texas Assessment of Knowledge and Skills reading exams are in, and local administrators are pleased with the scores.

Hedley School Superintendent Bryan Hill said all ten of his school’s third-grade students tested passed the reading portion of the TAKS test.

“Our third grade did excellent,” Hill said.

According to Clarendon ISD Counselor John Taylor, 94 percent of the third graders tested met the standard.

“They’re strong scores,” Clarendon Elementary Principal Mike Word said. “We really think we’ll have 100 percent mastery by the second and third opportunities.”

Word said that those who did not pass the reading test the first time are receiving extra instruction.

“We’re offering them more opportunities in school to work on it,” he said.

The reading test was also conducted in the fifth grade.

Of those tested, 63 percent of Hedley’s fifth graders met the standard, and in Clarendon 86 percent met the standard.

“We’re proud of our kids’ efforts,” Clarendon ISD Superintendent Monty Hysinger. “We continue to stay above state averages, and we’re expecting great things in the other tests.”

Hill said the kids in Hedley are tired from all their hard work.

“We appreciate the hard work of the teachers and students,” he said.

Statewide passing rates on the third grade reading exam reached 89 percent this spring, and in fifth grade they reached 75 percent.

The final portions of the TAKS testing will take place April 27, 28, and 29.

Last year, the met standard for TAKS was 2 SEM (standard errors of measurement), but this year the standard was just 1 SEM.

If the 2005 state passing standards had been in place in 2004, 88 percent of the third-grade students and 73 percent of the fifth-grade students would have passed the reading test last year.

According to a press release from the Texas education agency, third-grade students must pass the reading exam to be promoted to fourth grade; and fifth-grade students, for the first time this year, must pass the reading and math exams to be promoted to sixth grade.

Community leaders wanted it. Kids wanted it. Parents wanted it. But no one group could do it alone.

Now through a spirit of cooperation, the dream of making Clarendon’s ball fields suitable for use by high school teams and turning them into something people can be proud of is being accomplished with the city, the school, the Little League, and the kids themselves joining forces to turn an idea into a reality.

“We finally got enough people to sit down and talk about it,” Clarendon Junior High Principal Marvin Elam said. “We got people… actually making plans and implementing them.

“No one group has the money to do it alone,” he said. “This is an instance where the school, Little League, and city have come together, come up with a vision, and are working to achieve it.”

That vision was to build an entirely new softball field and substantially renovate McClelland Field by erecting new fences, adding new lighting, and constructing new dugouts.

“The school has had a need to improve the parks for our teams,” Clarendon School Superintendent Monty Hysinger said. “We knew since the city and school both own the fields, and the Little League uses them, we needed to work together.

“We have a lot of booster parents that were very interested in it and were ready to get something done.”

Hysinger said the support of the community has been tremendous.

“It’s been neat to see everyone coming together to get things done. The three organizations realized that things are tight, and we’re all trying to pitch in.

“We talked about it and realized if everyone pitches in we can accomplish anything for our community.  When you work together you can make your dollar stretch farther.”

City Administrator Sean Pate said he would like to think the organizations have set a precedent for others to follow.

“These three organizations have joined and worked together. It goes to show what can happen when you get people together and really want to accomplish something.”

Elam thinks the cooperation on this project is the only way it could be achieved.

“If you get people working together with a vested interest, anything can be done. I think this project is proof we can do more than just sit back and expect things to happen.

“It’s proof that when you work together and share talents, anything in the community can get done,” he said. “I hope this will show people we can overcome any problem in town, like the streets.”

Elam believes the project will give the kids and community an object of pride and the kids agree.

“I think the new fields are going to give us pride in our teams and town,” said high school junior Quentin West, who plays baseball for the Broncos.

Junior softball player Kaitlyn Howard agrees with West and likes the cooperation on the project.

“I like seeing people come together and work. It gets me excited about softball. It’s not only beneficial to just us, but to the whole community. It’s nice that the community is taking an interest in the youth.”

While the school has put up some money towards the project, much of the improvements have been made with donated materials and volunteer labor.

As work is nearing completion on McClelland Field and a new softball field is arising out of a formerly weed-covered lot south of Hart-Moore Field, Hysinger is pleased with the progress that is being made.

“I think that when we’re through, both fields will look tremendously better,” he said. “We’re getting some really nice fields that cost less than they could have without help.”

Hysinger said he encourages people to drive by and see the work that is being done.

“Get out and help if you would like,” he said. “We want to do this right where everyone will be proud of it, and we want these improvements to be nice in order to enhance the park area and add to future improvements.”

Elam says this project is a good investment into the community.

“We’re trying to make it something the kids and the community can be proud of. Whether people like it or don’t, this has proven there’s enough talent in Clarendon; and when you work together, you can get a lot done.”

Pate says for anything in a community to be truly successful the community should get involved.

“It all comes down to people taking pride in their community and unifying to make a change for the better.

“If we work together, we can accomplish things like better streets, nicer community areas, and a lot more.  A lot of people will say things need be done, but we need to come together and get it done.”

Pate also said the community needs to be willing to donate time and support one another.

“Now is a time to be unified. The most detrimental thing in a community is to not unify. It’s up to us to better ourselves and make a change for the better.”