2010 Summer Celebration
New Hedley City Secretary Quits
After less than a week on the job, Hedley’s incoming city secretary has called it quits. Bill Farris was hired last Tuesday and went to work Wednesday to succeed Randy Shaw, who is leaving the city July 31. But City Hall says Farris quit Friday after the job turned out to be more than he could handle.
Hedley hires new staff
The Hedley Board of Aldermen hired new staff members during a called meeting Tuesday night, July 20.
Mayor Dusty Wilkinson tells the Enterprise that Bill Farris will succeed Randy Shaw as City Secretary, and Leah McCleskey and Jason Conatser will be the city’s new clerk and maintenance worker.
Farris began work Wednesday, Wilkinson said. McCleskey and Conatser will begin next Monday.
Jury finds Randall guilty of assault
A Donley County jury convicted Michael Randall of the second degree felony offense of sexual assault of a child last Thursday, July 15, and sentenced him to 13 years in the Institutional Division of the Texas Department of Criminal Justice.
Randall, a 22-year-old Clarendon resident, was arrested for the offense of burglary of a habitation with intent to commit a sexual assault on May 29, 2009. The Donley County Sheriff’s Office earlier that day had received a report that a man had forced his way into an apartment on Rosenfield Street and assaulted a 15-year-old girl.
Randall was indicted by a Donley County Grand Jury on June 22, 2009, for three different felony counts that occurred on May 29, 2009.
The trial began last Tuesday morning with jury selection taking most of the day. At four o’clock, District Attorney Luke Inman presented the opening for the State to the 12-member jury of Donley County residents.
Late Tuesday afternoon, the State called its first witness, the victim to the sexual assault, which had occurred on the last day of school for Clarendon ISD in 2009.
“It takes great courage to get up before your attacker, your family, members of the court and 12 complete strangers and tell them all about the horrific events that you just want to forget,” said Inman. “Our victim is a courageous young person and made this guilty conviction possible.”
After the victim testified on Tuesday afternoon, the court recessed.
On Wednesday morning, the State continued its case by calling five more witnesses. State’s witnesses included Virginia Young, Sexual Assault Nurse Examiner, Sheriff Charles “Butch” Blackburn and Chief Deputy Randy Bond.
The Donley County Jury deliberated on Thursday morning before returning their verdict of guilty to the lesser included offense of sexual assault of a child.
“Like always, the Donley County Sheriff’s Office did an excellent investigation and provided this office with all the information to proceed in this very serious trial.” Inman said. “Sheriff Blackburn and his deputies, along with the SANE nurses in Amarillo, place high importance on offenses involving children and they cannot be commended enough for the outstanding work they all do.”
Sheriff Blackburn commended Inman’s efforts to convict Randall.
“I appreciate the hard work the DA’s office put into this case,” Blackburn said. “He worked closely with us, and the end result was we sent a rapist to prison.”
Randall was also assessed a $3,000 fine by the Donley County Jury. Randall has four felony counts still pending in District Court. This trial was continued two previous times due to the defendant’s requests.
Enterprise wins WTPA awards
The Clarendon Enterprise received three first place honors in the West Texas Press Association’s 2009 Better Newspaper Contest last Saturday, July 17.
Results of the contest were announced during the WTPA’s 79th annual convention at the MCM Grande Dome in Odessa.
The Enterprise won first place in Advertising with two ads. One was a Cornell’s Country Store ad designed by Julie Shields, which judges praised for its ability to attract the right target audience through the good use of photography and copy. The other ad was an Enterprise-D “Postal Hike” ad designed by Ashlee Estlack that pokes fun at the Post Office. Judges said the headline and illustration worked hand in hand to get the selling point over immediately which is the key to a strong ad.
Roger Estlack earned a first place plaque for Editorials about last year’s sheriff’s contract with the city and about the impact to the community when Stanley’s closed its General Motors dealership last spring.
The local paper also received first place honors for Photography from last year’s basketball playoffs, and Estlack received a third place recognition for Column Writing.
The Enterprise competed in Division D for small weeklies. The Albany News was recognized as the top paper in that division.
City aldermen discuss issues with water lines
The Clarendon Board of Aldermen were meeting in called session to discuss water lines as the Enterprise went to press Tuesday night after the topic generated comments at last week’s regular meeting.
Following a public hearing last week on the city’s application for a state grant to replace an aging main sewer line, Alderman Kyle Davis inquired as to why a grant couldn’t be applied for to replace water lines in problem areas of the city. A representative of the Panhandle Regional Planning Commission responded that grants are most likely to be awarded in neighborhoods with the low incomes.
As the meeting drew to a close, Davis again brought up water issues and asked if residences in the west side of the city were all tied in to new water lines yet.
Interim Administrator Phyllis Jeffers replied that the city only had two men to do that work and discussed some of the delays they have had in working on that.
Several aldermen said they understood the constraints of time and being understaffed, but they expressed a desire to see more attention paid to tying into the new lines.
“I have been chewed out royally about it,” Alderman Larry Hicks said, noting that there are many residences with black pipe stubbed up in their yards.
Alderman Will Thompson said he thought addressing water concerns should be more important that some other activities from a health perspective.
Jeffers explained that if the city pulled more resources to address the water issues other work around the city could suffer, but also said she would speak to the city engineer about the possibility of hiring a contractor to finishing tying things together.
In other city business last week, the Board of Aldermen took the following actions:
Approved a resolution authorizing the application of a $275,000 grant for sewer line replacement; Approved a new five-year contract for law enforcement with the Donley County Sheriff’s Office; Approved a request for a curb cut at 621 S. Leroy Street; and Approved allocations from the Motel Bed Tax Fund of $5,000 each for the Buck’N Blowout Rodeo and the Col. Charles Goodnight Chuckwagon Cookoff.
The board also voted to change the time and location of its regular meetings, which will now be held on the second Tuesday of the month at 5:30 p.m. in the Burton Library.
Summer Celebration to spotlight Clarendon
Clarendon will be in the spotlight this Thursday evening as NewsChannel 10 comes to town with its 2010 Summer Celebration on the Donley County Courthouse Square.
The Clarendon Tourism Committee invites everyone to be on hand as the news team broadcasts live at 5:00, 6:00, and 10:00 p.m. Activities scheduled from 4:00 p.m. to 11:00 p.m. KEFH and KLSR radio stations are also going to be broadcasting from the celebration.
This fun-filled event will showcase Clarendon as a progressive community with a rich heritage of Agriculture, Education, Religion, and the Arts. The Celebration promises to have something for everyone including local musicians, an antique car show, a Farmers’ Market, demonstrations, and raffles.
One of the highlights of the celebration will be the Amarillo Star contest, which is reaching out this year and opening auditions to soloists, duets, trios and quartets.
“We thought it would be fun to add more competition to the event this year by opening the contest up to more than soloists,” said Maryann Hueston, Amarillo Star Chairman. “We look at this as an event to showcase our areas talent and since we encompass the Tri-State area we wanted to open the competition up to groups.”
For more information about the Amarillo Star contest, call (806) 376-7767.
Summer Celebration organizers have also planned games for kids of all ages, such as a dunking booth, water games, a bounce house, a Busy Town Mystery, a greased pig catch, a stick horse rodeo, horseshoes, washers, marbles, sack races, limbo, redneck golf, wagon rides, marbles, a cow train, watermelon seed spitting, and more.
Food vendors are scheduled to offer a wide variety of tasty morsels, including candy, sausage wraps, chopped beef sandwiches, stuffed jalapenos, burritos, pizza, cotton candy, nachos, cakes and pies by the slice, funnel cakes, ribbon fries, corn dogs, and brownies.
The evening will conclude with a special movie showing of The Karate Kid at the Sandell Drive-In from 11:00 p.m. to 1:00 a.m.
Contact Terry Askew at 874-5001 or Denise Bertrand at 874-2846 for more information.
New City Judge
One big flower
Government will monitor your fatness
Uncle Sam wants to know how fat you are, and he’s going to make your doctor report your tonnage.
Reports are now circulating that new federal guidelines have been issued that will make it mandatory for health care providers to include your Body Mass Index in electronic records that all Americans will have to have by 2014.
And while one would think that such a rule would be part of the health care reform bill, the records requirement is actually part of last year’s stimulus law.
Doctors and hospitals that refuse to comply with the new rules will risk penalties such as reduced Medicare and Medicaid payments, according to CNSNews.com and FoxNews.
Nutrition expert Mitzi Dulan told FoxNews: “The fact we’re now tracking BMIs’, I think knowledge is power for us. There are a lot of people that don’t know their BMI and it’s denial.”
Dulan unwittingly hit the nail on the head with her analysis – knowledge is power. And in this case, it is power for the federal government to further meddle and control our lives.
There is no good reason for the federal government to have this information. There is no constitutional activity that requires it. But this is what the American government does now instead of doing important things like – oh, I don’t know – say securing its international borders.
The FoxNews report also cites Dulan as noting that that $147 billion is spent annually on obesity-related costs.
Now why is this significant? Just as this column has warned before, the Food Nazis are taking pages from the War on Big Tobacco years ago. Remember how much tobacco-related illnesses cost the nation? Remember how tobacco manufacturers were accused of marketed their products to kids? All of this and more was used as fodder for lawsuits against tobacco companies and as a means to control and suppress tobacco consumption.
Now, we learn that billions are spent on obesity related costs; health nuts are targeting McDonald’s and others for marketing to – altogether now – the children; and the feds believe they have a vested interest in what you eat.
This is just the beginning. The government is here to help us, and the powers that be are determined that you will be healthy whether you want to be or not.
Meanwhile…
I swear I don’t know what the world is coming to. The end, perhaps. Things just get stranger and stranger, and sometimes seem to go from bad to worse.
Case in point, I’m perusing the Internet Monday morning and learn that, in honor of its 65th anniversary, Baskin-Robbins is pulling the plug on one of its longest running flavors, French Vanilla. Sort of like, Coca-Cola celebrated its centennial back in the mid-1980s by changing its 100-year-old soda formula. A simply brilliant example of public relations stupidity. Why this has been done this is beyond me. Obama probably has something to do with it, I’m sure.
I grew up with Baskin-Robbins; it was part of the excitement of going to Amarillo back in the day. As I recall, there were at one time three locations to chose from, and my family ate at all of them depending on which was closest. We would eat at the Zuider Zee, Myer’s Drumstick, or Shakey’s Pizza; and then have dessert at
Baskin-Robbins. And there, I always, always got French Vanilla. Sometimes I’d put something else with it – Mint Chocolate Chip or Strawberry Cheesecake or something – but there was always a scoop of French Vanilla in my cup.
B-R sent my brother and me birthday cards every year, provided him with some sweet treats during some rather unpleasant dental procedures, and also was the source of the dry ice that he used to burn a wart off my hand very unexpectedly when I was about 13… but I digress.
I guess it has something with my approaching 40th birthday, but the things of my youth now seem further and further away and some of the things I loved the most have almost disappeared entirely. Baskin-Robbins wounded me deeply about 10 or 12 years ago when they suddenly pulled all their franchises out of Amarillo and Lubbock, but one did finally re-open in Lubbock just a couple of years ago.
But now comes this news, the end of B-R’s French Vanilla. I don’t know how much more I can take really. I’ve joined the Facebook page that is trying to save this beloved flavor and coerced my employees into doing the same. The page started last Thursday and by Monday morning it had more than 900 followers and that grew to more than 1300 by Monday evening, and they are all as outraged as I am.
For example, Glenn Causer of Ruckersville, Virginia wrote: “Keep French vanilla, fire the idiot that decided to get rid of it.
But it was Gary Brefini of Dedham, Mass., who summed it up best: “You ba*****s! <shaking my fist>…French Vanilla? Have you no conscience? No humanity?”
No, Gary. They apparently don’t.
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