This Week

By Carrie Helms

The room is dark and dusty.  Sounds of power tools and of cracking wood echo off the walls.  He knows there is a great job to be done, and he is the only man who can do the job right.  With a little laugh and a big smile, Andy Roberts picks up his giant sledgehammer and goes to work.

The place is Main Street Ministry Center where 12 youth met last Saturday to lend a helping hand to the construction effort.  For almost a year, men have been working to pull up small portions of the hard wood floor to stack building materials.  That is until these youth cleared almost 500 square feet of flooring in one day.

“We got to the building at about 10:00, and by the time 4:00 came around, I was absolutely filthy,” Carrie Helms said.  “Austin Sears was tearing up floor with his bare hands, and it was great just to see stuff getting done.”

The building is divided into two parts. The front section houses the Clothes Closet and Food Pantry that are completed. The back section is still full of possibilities but designed mainly for youth activities.

“If we could just get more people down there every week, we could do so much work,” Megan Roberts said.  “It could be a great place for youth to get involved.”

That is the goal of the Ministry Center: to get people involved in work. 

The Center will be open every Monday from 4:00 p.m. to 6:00 p.m. to accept food and clothing donations as well as Saturday mornings from 10:00 to 12:00.

The math and science teams at Hedley High School recently competed at the Texas Tech University Invitational UIL Academic Meet and posted excellent scores.  Fifty-four schools of all classifications competed at the meet.

The math team was paced by Lana Wallendorff, who won overall individual honors for schools 1A-3A.  The number sense team composed of Dustin Knowles, Lauren Hill, Lisle Rowland, and Aaron Bugg placed first among 1A schools.  Hill was fifth place individual at the meet for schools 1A-3A.  She also set a new school record in Calculator Applications at the meet.

The science team won the overall championship for schools of all classifications, with Lora Llewellyn winning the individual championship, Lana Wallendorff placing third overall, and Lisle Rowland placing fifth overall.

“We are very proud of the young people who took a Saturday to go and represent our school,” said Hedley science team sponsor Bruce Howard.  “They obviously competed very well, and it was good to see Hedley’s name out in front, especially against some larger schools.”

Hedley will next compete at the Coronado High School Invitational February 10.  District competition for all UIL events will be held late in March at Clarendon College.

The keen observations of two Donley County Sheriff’s Department employees probably prevented a burglary here January 19.

Sheriff Butch Blackburn said Deputy Bruce Burrell was headed home after his shift ended at 1 a.m. when he noticed a suspicious male subject near the rear door of Henson’s. When the man saw Burrell’s patrol car, he took off running and went behind the Community Bank. Burrell immediately called for back up, and Sheriff Blackburn and Deputy Kelly Hill responded.

As the officers searched for the suspect, off-duty dispatcher Lee Ann Cook called in. It seems she was having to scrape the ice off her windshield after her shift when she noticed a strange pickup on Third Street near Henson’s. She described the vehicle as a being white with tail lights mounted both high and low.

Simultaneously, as Cook’s description was read over the radio, a truck matching that description passed by the sheriff on US 287 at Gorst St, and “the chase was on,” Blackburn said.

The sheriff pursued the vehicle south on SH 70 to one-quarter mile past Citizens Cemetery, where the subject abandoned his truck and took off through Ronnie McAnear’s cotton field. The sheriff gave chase in his patrol car and caught the subject.

The subject was identified by Dep. Burrell as the man who intended to break into Henson’s.

Vincent A. Lada, age 19, from Nebraska was arrested on charges of evasion and was arraigned the next day on a stolen vehicle charge. He was transferred January 20 to the custody of Gray County officials.

Lada was driving a Southwestern Public Services pickup that had been reported stolen near Pampa, Blackburn said.

Two local men who stunned the city when they set a cross on fire last October received the maximum sentence for their actions in county court January 18 before Judge Jack Hall.

Max C. Rippetoe and Joseph M. Shadle waived their rights to a jury trial and entered pleas of guilty, according to records in the Donley County Clerk’s office. The two are serving 180 days in the Donley County Jail.

The sentences stem from the October 30, 2000, burning of a cross  on N. Jefferson Street. Another cross was found on S. McClelland Street but did not catch fire after it was lit.

Rippetoe and Shadle were arrested for the crime two days later by the Donley County Sheriff’s Department, and the two subsequently confessed to building and lighing both crosses. They said they had meant their actions to be “a joke.”

Local residents said the acts were unprecedented.

“There’s never been an incident like that before,” former city alderman Mack Smith told the Enterprise at the time. Smith has lived here for 50 years.

County Attorney Pro Tem Kaye Messer said she was personally offended by the cross burnings. She hopes the maximum sentence will send a message.

“I would have loved to have pushed [the sentence] up, but that’s the most I could do, and I wouldn’t budge it lower at all,” she said

Disorderly conduct is usually a Class C misdemeanor, but records say the location of the incident was  selected because of the defendants’ “bias and prejudice against minorities.” The charge was therefore enhanced to a Class B misdemeanor under state statute.

A Clarendon High School student who brought a gun to school was cleared of any wrong doing last week.

District Attorney Stuart Messer said a Grand Jury no billed CHS senior G.J. Martindale last Tuesday.

“The case is over with,” Messer said. “[Martindale] will have no criminal record from this.”

Martindale’s shotgun was found in his vehicle October 3, 2000, during a random search by drug dogs. The young man had become ill while hunting the night before and had forgotten the gun was in the vehicle when he went to school.

A one-vehicle rollover left one person dead and 11 others injured Sunday morning near Hedley.

Serigo Gonzales of Houston was driving a van northbound on US 287 at the Hedley city limits when he lost control and slid off the road at approximately 12:45 a.m., according to DPS Trooper Chris Ward.

Gonzales’ van slid into the right bar ditch and tumbled over an embankment, dropping about 25 feet to the railroad below and landing on its nose. Gonzales and passenger Ovidio Molina, also of Houston, were ejected in the wreck. Ward said the van then fell over on its side and came to rest on top of Molina, killing him.

The 11 survivors were transported for treatment, the trooper said. Another passenger, who fled the scene, was picked up later by the Donley County Sheriff’s Department and turned over to the INS.

No citations or charges had been filed in the case as of Monday afternoon. The incident is still under investigation.

COLLEGE STATION – The Texas Panhandle is deceiving.  Although its vast open plains appear void of animal life, regional variations provide habitats suitable for more than four hundred species of birds.  Their occurrence and habits are described in detail in Birds of the Texas Panhandle: Their Status, Distribution, and History by Kenneth D. Seyffert, past vice president of the Texas Ornithological Society and past president of the Texas Panhandle Audubon Society.

“The purpose of this book is to make known this increase in knowledge and to provide an enlarged as well as a more detailed view of the richness of bird life that exists in the 26 counties of the Texas Panhandle, an area larger than West Virginia,” Seyffert writes.  “Barren…as the High Plains may appear, of the 606 species of birds confirmed in Texas (1998), 67 percent have been confirmed in the Texas Panhandle.”

The Panhandle is composed of two ecological areas: the Rolling Plains and the High Plains.  The Rolling Plains is composed primarily of mesquite shrub and mixed grassland and attracts species such as the red-headed woodpecker and Carolina chickadee.  The High Plains, which consists of gently rolling terrain and scattered rainwater lakes, provides a winter habitat for a variety of migrating waterfowl.  Many of these, such as the stately great blue heron, are common, while others, such as the red-throated loon, have been sighted only once.

For each of the species found in this region, Seyffert provides information on the bird’s status, occurrence, and nesting habits, which allow amateur and professional birders alike to scope out even the rarest species.  Additionally, Seyffert describes his own birding experiences in the Panhandle.  Ten elegant line drawings accompany the text.

Birds of the Panhandle is a must for those already familiar with the avifauna of the Panhandle and an eye-opener for those skeptical of the abundance of bird life in the region.  Residents of the Panhandle will find this a hand reference to places they can view their winged neighbors.

The book is available at stores or direct from Texas A&M University Press (800-826-8911 or www.tamu.edu/press).