October 30, 2009

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‘Trick or Treat’ nears


 

 

SANDERSON – The annual fun fest known as Halloween, or “Fall Fest ‘09” as this year’s planners are referring to it, will be tomorrow, Oct. 31, at Fair Hall and the Terrell County Courthouse.

It all starts with a costume judging contest at Fair Hall starting at 1 p.m. Judges will pick the scariest, funniest, most original costumes in several age groups.

It ends with the annual “trick or treat” by the littlest spooks going door to door seeking goodies.

Sheriff Clint McDonald said those taking part in that activity should start at the Sheriff’s office where kids can get reflective bags and “starter candy.”

The reflective tape on the bags should make them more visible to motorists but McDonald also cautioned drivers to be extra alert.

“Look out for the kids because they won’t be watching out for you,” he said.

Costumes will be judged for children between infant and three years old, Pre-Kindergarten through first grade, second through fifth, sixth through eight and high school and a relatively new adult category.

Some adults in recent years have dressed up with as much enthusiasm and originality as their children.

After the judging, which organizers promise will be quick, the ghosts, goblins, pirates and other assorted characters will line up for a parade to the Courthouse Square for the other activities.

Vendors will be able to set up at the Courthouse or the Fair Hall for activities both places.

The Chamber of Commerce will offer a picture booth at Fair Hall offering a color 3X5 portrait for $5.

The Chamber also judged a coloring contest, selecting winners from each grade.

Winners of the contest will be displayed at the Fair Hall the day of the festival.

There will a Haunted House at the hall and there will be a “Spook Hop,” an alcohol free dance with DJ James Poe from 9 p.m. till 1 a.m.

Admission will be $3 per spook – $4 if parents join their progeny.

Chances will be sold for a fall door prize. Tickets will be sold for the games and are also good for the dance.

Other games at both venues include a ring toss for Project Graduation, a duck pond, a jail and one “lucky” contestant will kiss a goat.

Jars have been placed in the office of all three school campuses and people can vote for one of five they would most like to see pucker up.

Rosella Bilano, Tami Carrasco, Mark Dominguez, Superintendent Gary Hamilton and County Judge Leo Smith will compete to raise the most money and the “winner” will get to kiss the goat of choice with proceeds benefiting the sophomore class.

Anyone wanting to set up a booth should be at the courthouse between 11 a.m. and 12 noon tomorrow. Look up either Mike Sanchez or Kim Rapp.

Eagles run top races at Balmorhea

BALMORHEA – The Sanderson Cross Country team continued to show everyone else how it’s done Wednesday, taking first place for both high school boys and girls teams and bringing home individual first place medals in three of the four categories.

Travis Roberts paced his high school boys team to first place among 32 contestants by crossing the line first at Balmorhea State Park.

Brother William was right behind in second place and Shawn Stegall came in third.

Chris Marquez placed sixth, Joseph Hopkins was 11th and Darren Seidel placed 16th.

Noemi Nuńez placed second among 37 high school girls to pace her team to first place. Jessica Garza was fourth, Vicky Busch placed eighth, Danielle Fisher was ninth, Brianna Johnson placed 14th and Angelina Hopkins came in 23rd.

Abby Carrasco racked up a first place among 33 junior high school girls. Grace Jahn was second, Cassie Woosley came in 13th, Mikayla Baker was 25th, Brianna Lozano came in 26th and Megan Seidel was 33rd.

Luis Garza came in first among 26 junior high school boys and Joey Carrasco was 13th.

All high school cross country runners will advance to the Regional meet Nov. 7.

It will be at Mae West Park in Lubbock.

Bud Powers dies

ODESSA – Bud Powers, 88, of Alpine, one of the most iconic drivers at the annual Big Bend Open Road Race, died Friday, Oct. 23, at the Odessa Memorial Hospital from complications after heart surgery.

Powers was the oldest racer in the annual road race. The number on his 1970 yellow Chevrolet El Camino always displayed his age.

A memorial service was being planned but no date had been set at press time.

The News Leader will make every effort to have a full obituary in the Nov. 6 edition.

‘Broadband’ grant eyed

SANDERSON – A company in a far-away city provides an entry-level employee in Terrell County with training and a computer and a new job is created.

Sanderson and the county have struggled for years to get a dose of “economic development,” something to lift the local economy out of the doldrums.

Officials here are looking at a grant to provide a new “broadband” connection to the outside world that could result in new jobs for area residents.

Terrell County and the Terrell County Independent School District are considering a grant application that would bring a new broadband network that would substantially increase the speed and capacity of existing Internet connections.

The Terrell County TeleCommunity grant of 2000 provided a new broadband connection with “T-1” lines and computers in the schools, Courthouse, library, Community Building and the Adult Education Center.

But Gregg Fessler of the Strategic Planning Team for the Frontier program, said the system envisioned by the grant would offer many orders of magnitude over the T-1 line.

“If a T-1 line is like a garden hose, we are talking about a 24-inch water main,” he said.

Big Bend Telephone offers digital subscriber line, known as DSL, to subscribers and the company plans to upgrade that service.

But Fessler said what is envisioned would be much faster.

“If you blink, the picture will be up,” he said. “It’s that fast.”

The new line would not be in competition with Big Bend, he said. It would be part of the plan and could be a user of the line for its customers.

Fessler said the purpose of the grant is to provide service to the “underserved and the un- served.” It is part of the federal economic recovery program and is designed to create jobs in the community.

With high-speed internet, he said, a company could locate people in Sanderson to provide services on the Internet such as taking on-line orders for products.

Bill Smith, who served as technology director for Terrell County ISD during the TeleCommunity era, said the biggest problem was that the grant provided equipment but did not sustain it.

“We got hung out to dry,” he said. “The TCTC is still in place but there is no funding to keep it going.”

Fessler said “self-sustainability” is a key in the grant program.

“We can create a funding stream under this, a kind of reseller piece,” he said. “It can bring industry into the county and create jobs.”

He cited an old Chinese proverb that you can provide someone with a fish and feed him for a day. Or you can teach him to fish and feed him for life.

“The point is to get us out of a welfare state,” he said. “This can create work-at-home jobs.”

Fessler said a high-speed broadband connection could also help in other areas including law enforcement and medicine.

For example, he said, a doctor in Terrell County could hook a patient up to a CAT Scan and a doctor in a hospital across the state – or across the country – could monitor what’s going on in the patient’s body in real time.

“The potential is astronomical,” County Judge Leo Smith said.

Barney Welch, director of homeland security for the Permian Basin Regional Planning Commission, said no dollar amount has been determined for the grant, which would be administered through the Region 18 Education Service Center.

It would be part of a $7.2 billion federal program through the Departments of Agriculture and Commerce.

No Oops!

It’s been decreed by Congress in its infinite wisdom. Daylight Savings Time ends at 2 a.m. Sunday Morning, Nov. 1. You get back that hour you lost last spring after “trick or treating” Saturday night. Set your clock back one hour. At 2 a.m., it will really be 1 a.m. Got it?

World eyes rock art in area

DEL RIO – Rock art in the Lower Pecos River and Rio Grande Canyonlands is “one of the great bodies of rock art in the world,” a leading French archeologist said here last Friday.

Dr. Jean Clottes of Paris, France, spoke at a meeting of the Texas Archeological Society in a public forum at the Del Rio Civic Center.

Clottes is editor of the International Newsletter on Rock Art and director of collections at Éditions du SeuilIs and la maison des roches, both in Paris.

Some rock art goes back more than 10,000 years but that is not the most important aspect, he said.

“Is being old important?” he asked. Dutch impressionist Vincent Van Gogh “is not more important than a modern artist at all,” he said. “It is the quality of the art that matters.”

Clottes said the Lower Pecos rock art is important because of four issues.

They include the number of sites, they exhibit artistic expertise, are “reasonably-well preserved” and researchers can reconstruct a story from them.

“The fossil record shows bones but rock art preserves the bones and the flesh,” he said. “The art here is very good and you have a good story.”

He showed samples of rock art around the world but he said, compared to Lower Pecos rock art, most lacked any kind of story.

Also speaking was Dr. Carolyn Boyd of Comstock, executive director of SHUMLA, an archeological research and educational non profit based in Comstock.

SHUMLA stands for Studying Human Use of Materials Land & Art.

“In 1996, while I was studying the White Shaman site, I learned it was far from graffiti,” she said. “It documents the birth the sun, the worth of peyote and the establishment of the seasons.”

She said people of the early Lower Pecos were hunter-gatherers and nomads.

Use of peyote goes back about 5,000 years. It is a hallucinogenic cactus and was used in native American rituals for hundreds of years.

Pecos River art goes back 4,000 years and covers about 1,500 years of the history of the indigenous people, she said. The art appears at several sites in Val Verde, Terrell and surrounding counties.

Boyd spoke specifically about a panel in White Shaman, a site near the confluence of the Pecos River and Rio Grande south of the US Highway 90 bridge.

“How was it preserved for so long?” Boyd asked. “That is something Sherwin Williams would like to know.”

She said the paint used a lot of minerals but it also used animal fat.

“Why would they use an important food source for their rock art?” she asked.

She said either they were “really dumb” or the rock art was important to them.

She interpreted a panel in White Shaman and related it to the beliefs of the Huichol tribe of Central Mexico.

The Huichol were in no way related to the natives in the Lower Pecos but there is great similarity in their belief systems, she said.

The panel seems to tell of an annual pilgrimage from their ancestral home in the “west” to the east and Sun Mountain where they could attain immortality.

At Sun Mountain in a mound on the left side of the painting, the pilgrims moving in single file find a deer that the Huichol belief says volunteers to be slaughtered and turned into peyote, the hallucinogenic cactus that played a significant role in their theology.

There are five “anthropomorphs” – representatives of the human form – moving in single file and uniformly spaced on the panel, she said.

The single file and the number five are both important to the Huichol theology.

“All of this is exciting when you start to put it together,” Boyd said “The story was important because it saved the only man in the flood and saved humanity. Right below on of the figures in the painting is a man in a canoe.”

The paining, then, is a creation story, she said. The art is a communal sacrifice so the children could survive.

That could indicate how important the rock art was to the artists who created it.

‘Red Ribbon’ balloons flown

SANDERSON – The skies over Sanderson Elementary school were filled with red balloons Monday. Eighty of them, in fact.

It was all part of Red Ribbon Week, a time to call attention to drug and alcohol awareness for kids.

Students wrote their names on red paper attached to a balloon that also contained a phone number that could be called to track the location of the balloon when it came to Earth, who knows when or where.

The students went out to the back of the school and lined up.

The balloons were to indicate the start of red ribbon week and the need for kids to be drug free.

The students were asked how many of them were drug free and all raised their hands.

The students then raised their balloons and counted, “One, two, three” and released them.

Not all of the pesky red balloons wanted their freedom, however. Some of them only wanted to rest on the ground.

The teachers then instructed their students to go out into the playground so the wind could carry them off.

Laughter ensued and the children finally got all the balloons into the air.

Away the wind carried their tagged balloons to far away places.

If a balloon floats into your yard call the number on the tag so that little child knows where it landed.

Holiday season close at hand

SANDERSON – If this is Halloween, it must mean the Christmas Holiday season is at hand.

Trick or treaters will be out in force tomorrow night after a day of activities on the Courthouse Lawn and at Fair Hall.

Next comes Veteran’s Day on Nov. 11, which commemorates the end of World War I, the “war to end all wars.”

Terrell County ISD always presents a Veteran’s Day program in the High School Auditorium.

Plans were not finalized for the program at press time but Superintendent Gary Hamilton said the school plans “something different this year.”

Next up is the Christmas Bazaar and Bake Sale from 9 a.m. to 4 p.m. Saturday, Nov. 21, at the Community Building.

“Vendors are encouraged to reserve a booth space early,” Culture Club spokesman Christine Hinkle said. “Rental fees are $10 and $15 for a corner. Tables are provided and space is limited.”

Call Hinkle at 432/345-2977 or Nancy Henderson at 432/ 345-2268 or cell 830/719-1881 to reserve a booth space.

Thanksgiving is the next week and the ISD is back with its annual observance in the High School Cafeteria, honoring the senior citizens of the community on Monday, Nov. 23.

The Thanksgiving meal for students is the Friday before, Nov. 20, and Hamilton said parents are “encouraged to come eat with your kids.”

Then comes the annual “Lighting of the Windmill” at Bicentennial Park, tentatively set for sundown on Nov. 30, the Monday after Thanksgiving.

The Chamber of Commerce plans to provide hot chocolate, cider and cookies and guests will sing Christmas Carols at the Pavilion.

The windmill behind the Pavilion will be decorated with Christmas lights, which will be illuminated for the first time, officially kicking off holiday season.

The next weekend will have two events, the Christmas on Main Street business open house and the Hunter’s Feast.

The Chamber has decided to schedule the Christmas on Main Street on Hunter’s Feast weekend to give hunters another opportunity to party and to provide more customers for businesses in town.

Businesses will be open from 7 to 9 p.m. Friday, Dec. 4, offering refreshments, music and other greetings of the season.

Santa Claus will start the event with a parade down Main Street, courtesy of the Terrell County Volunteer Fire Department.

He will then set up shop at Sanderson Bank, finding out who’s been naughty and nice.

There will be one large drawing the morning after the open house. People can visit whichever businesses they like and fill out a form at each.

The more businesses they visit, the more chances they will have to win the prize, which has not yet been determined.

Each business is responsible for its own promotion, offering its choice of attractions.

The Hunter’s Feast is normally at the St. James Hall and typically feeds more than 350 hunters and other guests.

Raffle tickets are offered and prizes run from hunting gear, guns and other paraphernalia to a grand prize, typically a trailer, ATV or other big dollar prize.

Christmas will be on Friday this year. Between now and then, anyone who can’t find something to do just isn’t paying attention.    

Obama honors Cibolo owner

By MARK GLOVER

Contributing Editor

WASHINGTON, DC – “Alpha Troops, you are not anonymous anymore,” President Barack Obama said last week at the White House as he presented the Presidential Unit Citation to a group of US soldiers who fought with “extraordinary heroism” in the Viet Nam War 39 years ago.

Known as the “Anonymous Battle,” it was fought near the Cambodian border and brought to the President’s attention by a book of the same name written three years ago by Cibolo Creek Ranch owner and Houston Industrialist, John Poindexter.

Poindexter was also the 25- year-old captain of Alpha Troop that led his men into battle on that fateful March day in 1970.

“It was spring moving into the rainy season. Hot – jungle so thick you could hardly see through it,” Poindexter recalled. “The radio crackled. Bits and pieces from Charlie Company.”

 But Poindexter’s mind was elsewhere. The night before three of his men died when a mortar round exploded in the mortar tube at their night defense position. The accident also injured six others.

But the radio message got through. Charley Company was in trouble.

Stumbling on a huge underground Viet Cong bunker complex and outnumbered four to one with ammunition running low, it was Poindexter who gave the command to risk the lives of his Alpha Troop to save the lives of Charley Company.

“These men sacrificed,” President Obama said.

Gunships flew overhead. Machine guns and rifles smoked the sweltering morning air in close combat.

The gunships could do little through the thick jungle canopy. It was ground warfare.

Poindexter’s troops of 225 men, six Sheridan Tanks and 14 armored assault vehicles thrashed across three miles of jungle, smashing through bamboo and underbrush to assist their comrades.

“Coming into the combat zone, I remember the acrid taste of gunfire, the clouds of smoke, discharging ordinances and the smell of crushed jungle vegetation,” Poindexter said, recalling the tang of battle.

His command vehicle was hit by a grenade. He blacked out and came to about an hour later.

With a neck pierced with shrapnel and a shattered left hand, he went on to lead young men with only a few weeks in the jungle to stained veterans hardened by the smack of combat, through a long day of war horror.

“Why sacrifice?” Obama  asked. “Because we have a sacred obligation.”

By dusk, Poindexter ordered a withdrawal. Helicopters landed in the clearings surrounding the battlefield and picked up the dead and bleeding as the Viet Cong continued to fire.

“This is not the story of a battle that changed the course of war, never had a name like Tet or Wei or Kason. It never made the papers back home, but like countless battles known and unknown it’s a proud chapter in the story of the American soldier,” Obama said. “It’s the story, as one Charlie Company member called, ‘a miracle.’”

The toll that day on both sides of the battleground totaled more than 150 casualties.

After the battle, Poindexter solicited the Army brass for metals of honor for his men. But their service was overlooked until last week at the White House.

There, at the invitation of President Obama, more than 100 men from the Black Horse Regiment of the US Army, 11th Armored Combat Calvary, 1st Squadron, Troop Alpha were finally recognized.

 “We stand in the stead of a whole generation who would’ve on another day, in another place, confronted with the same challenge, done the same as we did,” Poindexter said.

The Presidential Unit Citation is the highest honor the nation can bestow on a military unit. It has been awarded 127 times since 1940.

For more information see http://www.nytimes.com/2009/10/01/us/01vietnam.html, http://www.c-span.org/Watch/Media/2009/10/20/HP/A/24506/Pres+Obama+Honors+Presidential+Unit+Citation+Recipients.aspx or pick up a copy of John Poindexter’s book, “The Anonymous Battle.”

Chamber endorses depot plan

SANDERSON – The Chamber of Commerce Tuesday voted to endorse plans for an “exploratory committee” to study possible restoration of the Sanderson Depot, to use the chamber’s non-profit bank account for tax-free donations and to name Sharon Wolfe as official spokes-person for the project.

Wolfe can name other members of the committee, whether or not they are members of the chamber.

She said so many people have been involved in the depot project, the railroad told her it needs “one person” to deal with.

The Friends of the Historical Society earlier endorsed the plan.

The chamber motion noted the “historical significance” of the depot and that Sanderson would not be here but for the railroad that came through the area in the 1880s.

The depot, one of the first structures in town, was built in 1882.

Wolfe said the group will investigate what it will take to move the depot and restore it, perhaps as a railroad museum. It could also be used for offices for the chamber and other activities.

She stressed the project will be funded by private interests, perhaps including the Great American Stations foundation and Preservation Texas among others.

She said she has received “verbal commitments” for land near the depot to move it to and a Union Pacific Railroad official said the company has agreed not to demolish the structure until next year if restoration efforts fail.

The Sanderson Economic Development Association got a $478,000 grant from the Texas Department of Transportation that would have restored the depot but it was turned down by Commissioners Court in 2003 because the grant left the county responsible for all cost overruns in a project commissioners feared would cost much more than the money in the grant.

Wolfe said she was assured the railroad would not require the restoration committee to remediate any contaminants in the ground but a basement would have to be leveled when the building is removed.

Any environmental hazards in the building would have to be remediated, she said.

Wolfe said getting the building onto another site would be the first step and renovation could take place over time.

Upgrades for airport mulled

DRYDEN – A perimeter fence eight feet high with two feet of barbed wire on top could be one of the first improvements to come at the Terrell County Airport, members of the Airport Board heard last week.

Megan Caffall and Kari Campbell from the Aviation Division of the Texas Department of Transportation met with the board and County Judge Leo Smith last Thursday at the airport here.

The county has completed a project to get the airport into “compliance” with rules of the Federal Aviation Administration and TxDOT and is now looking at improvements.

The board had recommended a six-foot fence with two strands of barbed wire to keep deer and other animals out but Caffall said she has seen “smaller” deer in central Texas “sail right over” a six-foot fence.

She recommended an eight-foot fence with two feet of barbed wire on top.

Animals on a runway can pose a safety hazard to aircraft.

Caffall laid out projects in an “immediate” need period – zero to five years – that could be funded by an annual 50 percent Routine Airport Improvement Grant.

The county qualifies for a maximum of $50,000 per year and Smith said he is committed to the county matching that with $50,000 of county funds every year “as long as I’m here.”

The fencing project will probably take two years to complete.

Caffall said item one for RAMP funding is pavement preservation, which should be done every five years or so.

Terrell County became a test case for the new “gripflex” pavement three years ago and the airport is the “poster child” for that technology, she said.

Airport Manager C.D. Curry said the surface is still in good shape and resurfacing will probably not be necessary for several years more.

Caffall said RAMP money can also be used for auto parking, medium intensity lighting and “cosmetic” improvements for the terminal building.

Smith said he had just received a report from architect Justin Gilmore of Southwest Architects, Inc., of Fort Worth suggesting upgrades to the terminal building, among others. Southwest was hired to do a survey of the needs of all county facilities.

Campbell, who handles the RAMP program, said money can be used for improvements to terminal buildings.

“We don’t buy light bulbs but it includes basically everything except consumables,” she said.

“Something we would like to see happen as soon as possible is an expansion of the apron pavement so we can accommodate some new hangars,” Board Chairman Jim Street said. “We have had several people tell us they would base their airplane at Terrell County Airport if we only had a hangar so they could protect their aircraft from the weather.” 

 Malone Mitchell indicated an interest in providing a hangar. He and Scott Mitchell were welcomed as the newest members of the board, an advisory body that makes recommendations to county commissioners on aviation-related issues.

Malone Mitchell also asked about the possibility of an instrument landing system.

Caffall said it usually takes a minimum of $200,000 to prepare for an ILS but “we’ll look into it. Everyone is going GPS [global positioning system] now.”

She said medium-intensity lighting is a prerequisite to an ILS and Terrell County needs a lighting upgrade. Current lighting wiring is “very old” and needs to be redone, Caffall said.

An ILS could cost about $500,000, she said.

 “A runway extension is probably not in the cards because of competition for resources elsewhere,” she said.

The airport’s long-range priority list includes an extension of Runway 13-31 to handle heavier corporate jet aircraft.

Caffall said the rotating beacons has to be on all-night because a pilot in trouble needs to be able to locate the airport at night.

Curry said he had gotten dispensation earlier to turn it off except when an aircraft is approaching and can turn it on with his airplane radio.

But Caffall said rules now require it to be on from “dusk till dawn” every night.

And rancher Steve Forest, a member of the board, said apron and fueling facility lighting would be helpful for landing helicopters. He operates a Robinson R-44 helicopter in his ranching operations and the US Border Patrol uses the airport to refuel its fleet of helicopters.

Smith said when the Texas Forest Service was here for a range fire on Forest’s ranch, the airport “worked wonderfully.”

Smith said he would like to see about burying a water line so the county doesn’t have to string 3,000 feet of fire hose to the aerial tankers.

But he said the Forest Services saved 1.15 hours each way by not having to go back to Kerrville to refill their water tanks. He said the service told him they will use Terrell County Airport for any fire within an 800-mile radius.

Burglaries continue

SANDERSON – A series of break-ins at county ranches continued this week as the nature of illegal aliens changes.

Nine Mexican nationals were arrested in August and remain in Terrell County jail charged with burglaries in the area of Ranch Roads 2400 and 2886 but other ranches as far north as Independence Creek have reported break-ins.

Sheriff Clint McDonald said border enforcement has resulted in a change in the nature of people coming across the border from Mexico.

“The border has been manipulated for years by the drug cartels,” he said. “Now the border is tightening up.”

The tighter enforcement results in a “funnel” effect, sending a lot of the criminal activity to less-populated areas like Terrell County.

Many of the burglaries have been in hunter’s cabins and the number of burglaries reported recently may be because hunters are returning for hunting season.

“The migrant workers would walk across the county,” McDonald said. “Ranchers would leave food and water out for them and many of them cleaned up.

“They would walk back and forth every year and many people knew them,” he said. “That is changing.”

The criminal element smuggling drugs will take a shipment to a highway and then walk back, burglarizing and trashing places as they go, McDonald said.

They steal more than food and water, he said. They will take items they can sell when they get back to Mexico.

“If we could tell the hunters one thing, it’s don’t leave weapons in the camp,” he said. “We might find that a resident has gotten shot.”

He said no one has been reported shot by the burglars but it’s always a possibility.

“There is no reason for a person to leave a rifle or any firearm,” he said.

McDonald said “no part” of the county has been unaffected by burglars.

“With 2,300 square miles, it’s like finding a needle in a hay stack,” he said.

Bach’s Lunch today

ALPINE – The Sul Ross State University Music Department will present a Bach’s Lunch recital at noon today, Oct. 30, in the Studio Theater in the Francois Fine Arts Building.

The program will feature faculty performing classical chamber pieces along with the the new Sul Ross Mariachi Ensemble “Lobos Del Desierto.”

The audience is invited to bring box lunches to enjoy during the free recital.

For more information, contact Erin Lippard at 432/837-8222 or elippard@sulross.edu.

Election day to be Tuesday

It’s all over but the voting. Next Tuesday, Nov. 3, voters will go to the polls around the state to voice their opinions on 11 amendments to the state Constitution.

Enacted in 1876, the Texas State Constitution has been amended more than 400 times. 

Terrell County votes will also be asked to approve issuance of $1.6 million in bonds for Terrell County Independent School District. 

Proposed amendments to the Constitution must pass by a two-thirds vote in both houses of the state legislature to be considered on the ballot. 

There are 11 amendments approved for consideration by the 81st Legislature and require a majority vote to amend the constitution.

The official ballot language for the Nov. 3 election includes Proposition 1, which would authorize “the financing, including through tax increment financing, of the acquisition by municipalities and counties of buffer areas or open spaces adjacent to a military installation for the prevention of encroachment or for the construction of roadways, utilities, or other infrastructure to protect or promote the mission of the military installation.”

Proposition 2 would allow the legislature to “provide for the ad valorem taxation of a residence homestead solely on the basis of the property’s value as a residence homestead.”

Proposition 3 would provide for “uniform standards and procedures for the appraisal of property for ad valorem tax purposes.”

Proposition 4 would establish the “national research university fund to enable emerging research universities in this state to achieve national prominence as major research universities and transferring the balance of the higher education fund to the national research university fund.”

Proposition 5 would allow the legislature “to authorize a single board of equalization for two or more adjoining appraisal entities that elect to provide for consolidated equalizations.”

Proposition 6 would authorize the “Veterans' Land Board to issue general obligation bonds in amounts equal to or less than amounts previously authorized.”

Proposition 7 is an amendment that would “allow an officer or enlisted member of the Texas State Guard or other state militia or military force to hold other civil offices.”

Proposition 8 would authorize the state “contribute money, property, and other resources for the establishment, maintenance and operation of veterans hospitals in this state.”

Proposition 9 would “protect the right of the public, individually and collectively, to access and use the public beaches bordering the seaward shore of the Gulf of Mexico.”

Proposition 10 would “provide that elected members of the governing boards of emergency services districts may serve terms not to exceed four years.”

And Proposition 11 would “prohibit the taking, damaging, or destroying of private property for public use unless the action is for the ownership, use, and enjoyment of the property by the State, a political subdivision of the State, the public at large, or entities granted the power of eminent domain under law or for the elimination of urban blight on a particular parcel of property, but not for certain economic development or enhancement of tax revenue purposes, and to limit the legislature’s authority to grant the power of eminent domain to an entity.”

The bond issue is simply to allow TCISD to keep more of your tax dollars at home.

Under the state’s so-called “Robin Hood” finance scheme, we have to send about 82 cents of every  tax dollar collected for “maintenance and operations” to another school district.

But buying some items with “voter approved bonds” exempts that money from the provision, allowing a tax dollar to be used for a dollar’s worth of whatever the district needs to buy.

Polls will be open Tuesday from 7 a.m. to 7 p.m. in the lobby of the Terrell County Courthouse.

All four county precincts will vote in the same place in an election “consolidated” by the county commissioners because there are no district-specific issues on the ballot.

BP agents seize pot in raids

MARATHON – US Border Patrol agents seized more than 1,700 pounds of marijuana in two separate seizures late last week near here.

About 2:30 Friday morning, a Border Patrol agent traveling back to Alpine noticed vehicle lights on a ranch road 13 miles west of here.

They pulled over a vehicle on Highway 90 and found it contained 1,581 pounds of marijuana with a street value of $1,265,336.

The F-350 pickup was driven by a US Citizen from Sunray in the Texas panhandle.

The bust followed one Thursday morning in which a US Customs and Border Protection helicopter from the Alpine Air and Marine Branch found four men trying to hide in a field about four miles northeast of here.

Border Patrol agents assisted by a Border Patrol K-9 team arrested the four, all citizens of Mexico.

A search of the area where the four were hiding resulted in the discovery of three sugar sacks with 133 pounds of pot with a street value of more than $107,000.

The smugglers, the drugs and the vehicle were turned over to the Drug Enforcement Administration in both cases.

Basketball to start

SANDERSON – The Eagle football season is coming to an end with its final regular season game scheduled next week, Nov. 6 here.

Attention turns next to basketball and Eagle schedule for this year has been release.

High school varsity basketball games begin Nov. 11 when the Lady Eagles host Comstock at 5:30 p.m. The ladies will then play Big Bend at Marathon at 10:30 p.m. Nov. 14.

The varsity boys will face their first challenge when both boys and girls varsity play the Fort Davis Indians with first tipoff at 6:30 p.m. November 17.

There is another 6:30 p.m. game for the varsity high school boys and girls Nov. 20 in McCamey.

Fort Davis is looking for another game in Sanderson with our varsity teams at 5 p.m. Nov. 24.

Sanderson junior varsity basketball games kick off in Comstock against the Comstock girls at 4 p.m. on Nov. 10.

The Fort Davis Indians girls and boys teams play the Eagles in Fort Davis at 4 p.m. on Nov. 17.

Junior high action gets under way with the Buena Vista Tournament Nov. 12 and 14 for boys and girls. Tip off times will be announced.

A full schedule will be published in the News Leader as soon as space permits.