News

A major power failure last week plunged most of Clarendon into darkness and threatened the water supply for towns as far south as Crowell.

 
Workers for AEP-West Texas Utilities took down the historic WTU sign from the front of their Kearney Street office in Clarendon last week in preparation for closing the office later this month. In an unrelated incident four hours after the sign came down, the city was plunged into darkness when a AEP-WTU mobile substation failed.
Enterprise Digital Photo.
 
A mobile substation owned by AEP-West Texas Utilities (AEP-WTU) went down last Tuesday, July 18, at 6:49 p.m. Power was not restored for nearly eight hours.

A spokesman for AEP-WTU said Clarendon’s substation was undergoing routine maintenance, which involved cleaning and upgrading the transformers and insulators, when workers experienced a problem with the plant’s voltage regulator.

“The problem with the voltage regulator required immediate attention,” said Linda Caton, a communications consultant for AEP-WTU.

Workers transferred the city’s electrical load to two mobile substations to make repairs on the main substation, Caton said. A failed relay in the larger 5MW mobile substation caused the power outage.

With temperatures in the high 90s, residents quickly began feeling the effects of the outage as air-conditioners stopped all over town.

Commercial activity also died as service stations were unable to pump gas, and restaurants were unable to prepare meals.

B&R Thriftway manager Buddy James said his store has backups on the cash registers that are good for only about 20 minutes. After that, the town’s only supermarket was shut down. James said Thriftway lost some meat but other stock was not affected by the blackout.

Perhaps hardest hit was Greenbelt Municipal Water Authority, which provides water for several area towns including Clarendon and Hedley. With the power out, Greenbelt’s pumps were halted.

“The water towers in Clarendon were completely out before the power came back on,” said Greenbelt’s Bobbie Kidd. “The tower in Hedley was half empty, and the two million gallon ground storage tank east of Hedley was totally empty.”

Kidd said several miles of water pipeline to Childress were empty also.

“It affected us all the way to Crowell,” he said.

After the power came back on, Greenbelt began pumping non-stop to get caught up. Storage facilities were not filled until Sunday, Kidd said.

“We lost over nine hours of pumping time Tuesday night and had lost two hours during an outage the day before.”

Kidd said this was the second longest power failure Greenbelt Water had experienced in his 25 years with the authority. But, he said, the previous outage was in the winter, and there wasn’t a problem with running out of water.

Greenbelt has back up power only for its offices, and Kidd said purchasing a generator to run even one of the plant’s three-phase pumps is financially unfeasible.

Other back up power supplies around town kept critical functions online.

Chief Deputy Butch Blackburn said the generator at the Sheriff’s Department did get hot, but a box fan was enough to keep it running throughout the blackout.

GTE’s switching station has battery backups that power the city’s phones. Bob Curtis, a spokesman with GTE, said the company did have a generator in Memphis ready to move if it had been required.  However, the batteries still had several hours of power when the electricity came back on, he said.

Donley County Hospital District Administrator Alan Graham said the emergency generator at the Medical Center Nursing Home never missed a beat. The diesel-fueled generator provided priority power to critical systems without any problems.

A new backup generator that powers the countywide repeater tower also kicked in.  The repeater tower provides communications among local law enforcement, fire department, and emergency medical personnel.

The tower’s generator did “sound funny,” according to Graham. But it carried the load during the outage just fine.

“Emergency personnel were never out of communication,” he said.

Graham said the tower generator was disconnected over the weekend so it could be recalibrated but that it was back online by Monday afternoon.

Caton said AEP-WTU crewmen worked diligently to bring the city’s substation back online. Ten transmission service techs and three distribution service techs were in town working on the problem. Five dispatchers in Abilene were on the job also.

Power was restored at 2:34 a.m. Wednesday.

A smaller 3.75 MW mobile substation continued to operated normally during the outage and kept the lights on in parts of the north and east sides of town.

Nickless Devin (left) participating in activities at the Johnson Space Center in Houston.
Nickless Devin of Clarendon was one of 25 Texas high school students who spent a week at the Johnson Space Center in Houston using their math and science skills to design a human mission to Mars.

Devin was nominated by State Senator Tom Haywood to be a part of a unique educational experience called the Texas Aerospace Scholars Program.  The program is the result of a partnership between NASA – JSC and the State of Texas to encourage students to pursue engineering options in school.

After being nominated, Devin began the program with distance and web-based learning experiences that culminated in a one-week long visit to JSC in Houston.  Devin and his teammates used their imagination, coupled with math and science skills, to develop a plan for how humans will get to Mars and then learn to live and work on the planet’s surface.

Their expertise came from a series of classroom sessions, field trips, hands-on projects, and assistance from JSC employee-mentors who provided them with insight into the challenges of living and working in a hostile environment.

For more information on the TAS Program, visit the website at http://aerospacescholars.jsc.nasa.gov/

On July 8, thirteen area girl scouts with five leaders left on a trip to Washington and Canada. 

The girl scouts were Lacie Fincher of Wellington; Jessica Noland, Whitney Rodgers, Caitlin Smith, Ashley Stansbury, and Erika Thompson, all of Amarillo; and Laura Dziedzic, Meghan Gribble, Valerie Taylor, Lydia Hartman, Melissa McAnear, Kelsey McQuien, and Treva Rowland, all of Clarendon.  The girls along with Debbie Oliver, Julie Hartman, Medina Gribble,  Becky McAnear, and Linda Rowland have been planning this trip for over a year and a half. 

Their first stop was in Seattle, Washington, for two days where they explored the underground city in Pioneer Square, the Pike’s Market, and the Space Needle.  From Seattle they headed for Vancouver, stopping on the way to wander through the Minter Gardens.  Once they reached Vancouver, they visited Gastown and rode the sky train.  They also crossed the Capilano Bridge, which more of the leaders were afraid of crossing than the girls.  From Vancouver the girls went to Victoria.  The highlight of the entire trip was the Empress Tea Room in Victoria.  They experienced the true form of an afternoon English tea. 

The following day they visited the Craigdarroch Castle and went whale watching.  This was the first for all of the girls and a very exciting experience, especially when one of the whales came very close to the Zodiac they were in. 

On Friday, they rode a ferry back to the states and drove down to the Hoh Rainforest, the only rainforest in the United States.  The last day before flying back, they visited Mt. St. Helen, which exploded twenty years ago.

Together, they learned about our past, had fun, and developed a friendship that will last for many years.

Hedley duo Dustin Monroe and Roger Wade made an impressive showing at the Six-Man Coaches Association all-star game between the North and East boys at Monterey last week.  The Hedley athletes played for the North team.

Monroe led the team in scoring with 17 points for the game.  Wade scored a total of 12 points for the game, including six straight in the second half and four in the beginning of the fourth period.

The North defeated the  East, 75-64.

In the girls’ game, Hedley Lady Owl Ashley Hill put three points to the board in her team’s victory over the east in a rough and tumble all-star game on Friday against the East.

North defeated the East, 52-50.

WASHINGTON, DC – The US House of Representatives Monday afternoon passed H.J. Res. 72, legislation that will ratify the Red River Boundary Compact between Texas and Oklahoma and help put an end to a border dispute that dates back 200 years.

The bill, which was introduced by US Rep. Mac Thornberry (R-Clarendon), was approved by a voice vote.  The bill establishes the boundary between the states of Texas and Oklahoma as the vegetation line on the south bank of the Red River, which leaves the riverbed itself under the jurisdiction of Oklahoma.

In addition to establishing the boundary between the two states, the measure also ensures that the property, claims, and sovereignty of federally recognized Native American tribes living in the area will not be altered by the Compact in any way.  The legislation is based on the boundary compact was approved last year by the Texas and Oklahoma legislatures and signed into law by Governors Bush and Keating.  If enacted, the Compact will take effect on August 31, 2000.

“One of Congress’ Constitutional duties is to ratify agreements like this between two or more states,” Thornberry said.  “If there’s any one thing that sets this agreement apart, it’s that it’s been so long in coming.  This boundary dispute dates back 200 years and has its roots in the Louisiana Purchase.

“So clearly, this is something that is long overdue and something that will hopefully make things easier for those who live and work in the surrounding area.”

H.J. Res. 72 must now be considered by the Senate.  A date for the vote has not yet been set.

American Electric Power (AEP)-West Texas Utilities (WTU) Clarendon office will remain open for customers to make bill payments until July 31, 2000.  After this date the front office will be closed for all customer transactions.

“We announced in February that the office would remain open until September 30, 2000; however, personnel changes have made it necessary for us to discontinue taking ‘walk-in’ payments sooner than we had originally planned,” said Jeff Thigpen, AEP-WTU area business manager.

All local phone calls to the Clarendon office will be forwarded to the Customer Service Center in Corpus Christi, which is available to accept calls 24 hours a day, seven days a week.  Representatives at the Customer Service Center provide prompt attention to requests for service connection or disconnection, account information, outage reports, or to answer other questions that customers may have.  For customer service, the toll-free number to call is 888-216-3523.

Customers currently have a number of convenient bill payment options available.  These include by mail, by automatic bank draft through the DirectAdvantage Plan, Internet electronic bill payment through www.transpoint.com, and credit or ATM card payment via the telephone for the ChoicePay Plan.

The Clarendon office will continue to be used as a base of operations for service technician employees, Mike Proffitt and Leon Ward, who work in the energy delivery area of the business.

“While we’re making changes in the way we conduct business, our commitment to provide superior customer service and reliability hasn’t changed,” Thigpen said.

Darrell Leffew and Stan Leffew look over the Terex S17-E tractor from Scotland, which will be married to a locally produced scrapper.
Enterprise Digital Photo.

After a seven-month delay, a tractor from Scotland finally arrived in Clarendon last week.

The tractor, which was initially to have been here December 1, 1999, will be hooked up to a 17-yard scraper built by Clarendon Manufacturing & Distributing.

Clarendon Operations Director Stan Leffew says testing of the S-17E prototype will begin within the next two weeks, and the unit is tentatively scheduled to be unveiled in the latter part of August.

Changes in the design of the transmission and engine of the S-17E were responsible for the tractor’s delayed arrival, Leffew said. Also, the Scotland company, Terex Equipment Limited, had another unit in production that had to be completed before the S-17E tractor.

The tractor started its trans-Atlantic voyage from South Hampton, England, on June 19 and arrived in Galveston on July 3. Clarendon’s president and general manager, Darrell Leffew, arrived here with the tractor last Thursday.

When the S-17E is in full production, it will compete head to head with similar models of earthmovers made by Cat, Leffew said.

Clarendon Manufacturing & Distributing Co. has been in business since 1971. The local firm hopes to land a contract to produce 50 of the scrapers for Terex, which is based in Motherwell, Scotland, and has offices in the United States.

Rental of hanger spaces at the Clarendon Municipal Airport was again a topic of discussion when the board of aldermen met last Tuesday, July 11.

Alderman Smiley Johnson reviewed the history of airport’s development and said nothing had been found regarding who would be responsible for the maintenance of the facility.

The city had been charging hanger owners $25 per month to keep their hangers at the airport. But in October 1998, the city raised that rate to $40 per month. Some owners stopped making payments to the city, and pilots have told the city they felt as though they were being asked to pay for the entire cost of the airport.

“The pilots who live here should pay a portion of the cost [of the airport] but not the whole amount,” Johnson said at last week’s meeting.

Mayor Tex Selvidge suggested the city return to charging $25 per month and require everyone to pay. The hanger owners who have been paying the $40 per month would receive credit. “Then when everyone is caught up, [the city] goes to a per square foot charge,” he said.

The board approved a motion by Johnson, seconded by Alderman Mac Stavenhagen, to collect the delinquent rent and charge $25 per month to the end of the current fiscal year.

The board also approved a motion by Alderman Michael Tibbets, seconded by Johnson, to have the city attorney write a letter to the delinquent hanger owners informing them of the city’s decision. The vote was 3-1, Stavenhagen opposed.

The board then debated the amount of a square foot charge. After much discussion, the board voted 3-1 to charge 20¢ per square foot per year to lease hanger space at the airport. Johnson voted against the measure.

The new charge will result in the hanger owners paying about 50 percent of the operating expense of the airport.

Johnson said he thought they should only have to pay 25 percent of the cost. And one citizen in attendance, Pat Robertson, said, “It’s never been brought up that we also pay [municipal property] taxes on the hangers and the planes.”

In other city business, Michael Tibbets was sworn in by Mayor Selvidge to fulfill the remainder of former alderman Kent Womack’s term.

The board adopted a resolution establishing an Affirmative Action plan for the Texas Community Development Program from the Texas Department of Housing and Community Affairs.

Alderman Mac Stavenhagen was appointed to serve in the position of the Fair Housing/Equal Opportunity Standards Officer for the city.

The revision of the water, sewer, and sanitation ordinance was discussed and changes made.

The aldermen reviewed the 2000-2001 budget for the Donley Appraisal District and voted unanimously to disapprove the budget. The board was critical of the district’s budgeted salary increases.

The Commissioners’ Court last week voted to temporarily relocate the district courtroom and to move a precinct ballot box in the first steps in vacating the aging Donley County Courthouse.

Monday’s actions were the most recent decisions in the long process of the upcoming $2.9 million restoration of the 1890 courthouse, which will require the county offices and records to be relocated for two years.
 
Chris Hutson, John Volz, and Tracy Hirschman go over a roof design last week as part of the planning for the restoration of the 1890 Donley County Courthouse.

Enterprise Digital Photo.
 
Commissioners approved a resolution designating Clarendon College’s Bairfield Activity Center as the temporary facility to hold county and district court as well as court proceedings for Precincts 1 & 2.

Commissioners also decided to temporarily move the location of the voting box for Precinct 2-01 from the courthouse to the courthouse annex.

Still in question is where county offices and records will be moved to.

The court approved two contracts relating to the restoration. John Kiehl of the Panhandle Regional Planning Commission will provide administrative services for the restoration grant from the Texas Historical Commission (THC). And Ken Smith of Southwest Securities Group, Inc., was hired as a consultant to assist the county with financing its matching funds.

Also last week, a three-member team from the county’s Austin-based architect firm spent four days going over the courthouse from the roof to the foundation.

“Donley County is our favorite project and also the most challenging project,” said architect John Volz. “We’re really excited about the opportunities here.”

Volz & Associates, Inc., is providing architectural services for courthouse restorations in Grimes, Llano, and Sutton counties. The firm is also working on the courthouse master plan for Fayette County, which hopes to receive funding in the THC’s second round of grants.

Information from last week’s survey of the building will be used in an upcoming report to THC, according to Volz intern Tracy Hirschman.

The design development package must be turned in to THC by July 24 and will explain what work is planned for the courthouse, Hirschman said. Volz will then begin working on construction documents in preparation for the bidding process.

AUSTIN – Texas Comptroller Carole Keeton Rylander last week delivered a total of $208.9 million in monthly sales tax payments to 1,106 cities and 119 counties.

Cities in Donley County saw sizable increases in their July payments over the same period one year ago.

Clarendon’s rebate was up nearly 33 percent for a total of $18,479.17. Hedley received $257.46, a increase of 20.16 percent, and Howardwick’s payment of $988.88 reflected a 16.66 percent increase.

Across the state, payments were up 17.1 percent for July.

July sales tax rebates represent sales taxes collected in May and reported to the comptroller in June.

For more information visit the Comptroller’s Website.