August 1, 2008
|
By DANIEL EATON Marathon Fire Chief MARATHON
– As the worst fire season in recent years blends into the rainy season in
the Big Bend region, the Marathon Volunteer Fire Department is preparing for
the “dry” times ahead. Thanks
to several donations, the MVFD has just ordered a new Ford F-550 brush truck
from Rowe Industries of Hope, AR. Funds
have come from a “kickoff” donation of $12,000 from the J.P. and Mary Jon
Bryan Foundation, successful fundraising from the Chili Appreciation Society
International for the past three years, three years of intermittent fundraisers,
the sale of a photograph from Joe Forks Photography, Paisano Cattle Company
and a large donation from the Fort Chadbourn Cattle company. Rowe
Industries is a leader in compressed air foam systems and trains firefighters
from around the world at Texas A&M each summer in the use of foam systems
for fire fighting. Rowe
has furnished systems to the MVFD in the past and has an excellent history of
service even after the warranty is over.
In
addition, many local fire departments have purchased systems from Rowe and
realize the trustworthiness of the com-pany.
The
chassis will be ordered from a dealership in San Antonio after having
received bids from several dealerships. The
members are proud that the first new brush truck in Marathon since 1973 has
been raised without a single cent of tax money. The
new truck will be equipped with a 400-gallon CAFS that allows maximum
firefighting ability with a minimum of water. Introduction
of a balanced blend of water, air and environmentally friendly soap solutions
into the firefighting stream allows the cooling qualities of the water to surround
the fire source as well as to soak into it, saving on water. The
foam solution is vegetable based. However a foam solution that is designed to
fight fires on petrochemical, acid-based fires and hazardous materials spills
can be introduced in seconds. The
truck will also feature two personnel “wells” that are enclosed and house
short fire hoses that allow firefighters to stand behind the cab of the
truck, where they can communicate with the driver and passenger, and be
safely enclosed in a fence, fighting fire from the truck while moving along
the fire line. The
new truck will replace one that belongs to the Texas Fire Service. It is a
military surplus truck in which the department has invested thousands of
dollars, only to have to leave the firefighters stran-ded in a fire. This
new truck is not something we want, it’s something we need. The
members of the MVFD have been working on raising the funds since April of
2005 and have sold burritos, tickets to win donated items, catered weddings
and other events and sold T-shirts with our logo, donated by local artist Dan
Picasso. Yes, they are still available.
The
Marathon Cowboy Chili Cook-off with CASI, started by Elton and Norma Homesley
and supported by the many CASI members, has been instrumental in keeping our
operating budget going during the fundraising. MARATHON
– Vacation Bible School will be next week at the Marathon Baptist Church
here. The
non-denominational program will be from 8 a.m. to noon Monday, Aug. 4,
through Saturday, Aug. 9. Elementary
children will be taught about the love of Christ through games crafts and
Bible stories. Thursday
night, Aug. 7, parents and friends are invited to come see what the little
ones have been doing all week. This
year’s theme is Avalanche Ranch, a Western theme. Breakfast
will be provided as well as a snack. There will also be a swimming party
Friday at the home of Don and Jacquelin Boyd. For
more information, contact the church at 432/386-4396. Stonegarden gets $4.13 million SAN
ANTONIO – US Rep. Ciro D. Rodriguez this week announced a total of $4.13 million
in Operation Stonegarden grants had been awarded to Brewster and four other
Southwest Texas counties. The
Brewster County Sheriff’s Department received $800,000 and the Presidio
County Sheriff’s Department received $410,000 from the Department of Homeland
Security. The
money comes from the 2008 Appropriations Bill due to language inserted in the
bill by Rodriguez. “As
a member of the Appropriations Committee, I have the unique ability to gain
funding for projects in Brewster and Presidio Counties, Alpine and the other
communities in my district,” said Rodriguez. “The money that our sheriffs
will receive will help to protect our families and communities in our border
counties.” Stonegarden
began as a pilot program in 2005 that involved 14 border states. The
initiative provides federal dollars to reimburse local law enforcement for
costs incurred while working in coordination with federal law enforcement
agencies at US borders. These
costs can include overtime pay, fuel and vehicle maintenance that would otherwise
come out of local budgets. Book
Festival update By ARLENE GRIFFIS Library Friend MARATHON
– This week marks the sixth in a series featuring the authors who will be appearing
at the Alpine Rotary Club’s Way Out West Texas Book Festival, which is a benefit
for the Alpine Public Library and its Marathon branch. The
first two authors highlighted this week will appear on the poetry panel. Benjamin
Alire Sáenz was born in 1954 in his grandmother’s house in Old Picacho, a
small farming village on the outskirts of Las Cruces, NM. He
was the fourth of seven children and was raised on a small farm near Mesilla.
He
graduated from Las Cruces High School in 1972. That fall, he entered St.
Thomas Seminary in Denver, Colorado where he received a BA degree in
humanities and philosophy in 1977. He
returned to school in 1985 at the University of Texas at El Paso where he
earned an MA in creative writing. After
earning his Ph.D at the University of Iowa, he was awarded a Wallace E.
Stegner fellowship in poetry at Stanford University where he completed his
first book of poems, “Calendar of Dust,” which won an American Book Award in
1992. After
two years as a Stegner Fellow, he entered the Ph.D program at Stanford and continued
his studies for two more years. Before
completing his Ph.D, he moved back to the border and began teaching at UTEP
in the bilingual MFA program. That
same year, Broken Moon Press published his first collection of short stories,
“Flowers for the Broken.” Sáenz
is also the author several novels as well as of two highly successful bilingual
children’s books. His
latest offering is a book of poems from Copper Canyon Press entitled “Dreaming
the End of War.” In
this, his fourth book of poems, he examines themes of male identity as it is
related to violence, war and nationalism.
Several
of his works are available in Spanish language versions. Larry
Thomas, the 2008 Texas poet laureate, loves the Big Bend area and was one of
the first authors to contact us after learning about the WOW festival. He
is one of those people who look forward to any excuse to come to our area. Born and reared in
West Texas, Thomas has resided in Houston since 1967. He moved from West
Texas to Houston at the age of 20 to complete his college education and
graduated from the University of Houston in 1970 with a BA degree in English
literature. In 1998, he retired
from a career in adult criminal justice, the last 15 years of which he served
as a branch director for the Harris County Adult Pro-bation Department in Hous-ton. Since his
retirement, he has been employed as a full-time poet. Thomas started
writing poetry seriously in the early 1970s during his four-year tour of duty
in the US Navy. He wrote
consistently on weekends during his 31-year career in social service and
adult criminal justice and was quite successful during that period of time in
placing his poems in numerous respected national literary journals. His first
collection of poetry, “The Lighthouse Keeper”, was published by Timberline
Press in late 2000, approximately three years after his retirement, and was
selected by the Small Press Review as a “pick-of-the-issue” for May/June,
2001. Since that time,
he has pub-lished six additional collections of poems which have received
several prestigious prizes and awards. Sáenz
and Thomas will appear on the poetry panel along with Bobby Byrd of El Paso
who, along with his wife Lee Merrill Byrd, was featured in a previous
column. On
Saturday, August 9, at 3 p.m., children, parents, teachers and those who are
young at heart are invited to a special children’s program featuring
children’s author and singer/ songwriter Tim McKenzie of Shallowater. Tim’s
books “Baxter Barret Brown’s Bass Fiddle” and “Baxter Barret Brown’s Cowboy
Band” are the first two in a seven-part series about a young boy who plays a
big bass fiddle and uses it for all sorts of funny and imaginative
purposes. These
are two of the most creative and entertaining books for children that I have
seen in a long time. Both
books are in a “read along” format with accompanying CDs included with the
book. This
format is ideal for beginning readers as well as for learners of
English. Both
books will be for sale at the festival and McKenzie will be available after
the program to autograph them. For information about these and other authors appearing at
Alpine Rotary’s Way Out West Book Festival, visit the website, www.wowtxbookfestival.com. All
author sessions will be on Saturday, Aug. 9, at the Sul Ross State University
Espino Conference Center and are free to the public. A
copy of the complete program is posted on the site. Also available on the
website is ticket information for the Friday night chuck wagon barbecue
dinner at Kokernot Lodge with music by Mike Blakely, as well as for the
Saturday night gala dinner at the Espino Center, which will feature honorary
festival chairperson, Texas’s own Kinky Friedman, who will sing and tell
stories in his own unique style. Happy
Reading. Arlene
Griffis is president of Friends of the Marathon Public Library, which is a
branch of Alpine Public Library. She is also a member of the Rotary Club of
Alpine. |
It
is impossible to list the many businesses in the entire region that has
supported our efforts but we extend our sincerest gratitude to you for allowing
us the pleasure of this announcement. As
with any volunteer organization, we still need funds, but more importantly we
need you. Marathon
Volunteer Firefighters include Daniel Eaton as chief, Assistant Chief Tim
Thayer, Geoff Lemmer is captain, secretary and treasurer. Other
members are Lt. David Menard and his wife Christina, Lance Ramirez, Hal Henthorne,
Butch Bergmann and J.D. Anful. Prospective
members include Rauls Williams, Anthony Guzman, David Wagner and Larry Vela. Action
in oilfields gets close SANDERSON
– With the price of oil and gas still high, although mitigated somewhat in
recent weeks, Terrell County and others in far southwest Texas find
themselves in the path of progress. SandRidge Energy of Oklahoma City announced last month it has entered into an agreement with Occidental Petroleum to build and operate a $1.1 billion carbon dioxide extraction plant, to be known as the Century Plant, somewhere in Pecos County. The
exact location of the plant and associated compression and transportation
lines, was not announced. The
announcement said the plant, combined with existing SandRidge CO2
facilities, will allow treatment of approximately 1 billion cubic feet of gas
by the end of 2011. The
company and its Lariat subsidiary are drilling primarily in Pecos County,
including in the Piñon field north of Marathon. SandRidge
sold some facilities in East Texas earlier this year to devote more resources
to West Texas. The
Baker-Hughes Rig Count report says SandRidge Energy and affiliates Lariat Petroleum
have 31 gas rigs working in the Marathon Thrust Belt, mainly on the
Longfellow and West Ranches. These
vertical drilling rigs are exploratory and most of them have been started
this year. Meanwhile,
reports that seismic exploring crews from Dawson Geophysical will leave the
area this month are true but only to make way for the fall deer hunting
season. Company
spokesman Mike Dawson of Sanderson said the company
is temporarily shutting down before the deer season but will be back in early
2009. “We
are not done by any means,” he said. Dawson
provides seismic exploration searching for possible oil and gas deposits. “It
is based on sound,” he said. “Vibrators send waves into the ground. They
bounce off rock formations and we get a reading. “It
is just a general reading,” he said. “It doesn’t say ‘drill here.’ It just
gives you underground faults and traps and the likelihood hydrocarbons might
be found is high.” He
said the method is expensive but it is “certainly better than poking holes in
the ground.” The
website for Dawson, which was founded in 1952, says it provides data acquisition
and data processing services including the analysis of 2-D, 3-D, and 4-D
seismic data to assess potential underground oil and gas deposits. Dawson
Geophysical’s customers, both major and independent oil and gas operators,
use the data in exploration and development activities. The
company’s 15 3-D seismic data acquisition crews work in the lower 48 states of
the US and data processing is performed by geophysicists at the firm’s
computer center in Midland. Another
seismic explorer, Global Geophysical of Houston, plans to be in
Terrell and Pecos Counties until deer season starts. “We
have a crew working in area but due to hotel availability, they are staying
in Sonora and Ozona and working in Terrell and Pecos Counties,” Corporate
Communications Director Carla Hundl said. She
said one crew should finish its work this month but another crew will work
until hunting season begins in November. “That project will
be wrapped up then but they may get other programs,” she said. MARFA – Ten featured participants in the Way Out West Book
Festival in Alpine next week will be interviewed next week on Talk at Ten on
Marfa Public Radio, KRTS, 93.5 FM. The Trans-Pecos talk show is broadcast weekdays at 10 AM. The
interviews are replayed weekday evenings at 6:30 PM. Today, Aug. 1, representatives of the Sierra Grande Chapter of
the Texas Master Naturalists. On Monday, Aug. 4, through Thursday, Aug. 7, the show will
include Sarah Bird, Larry Thomas, Roy Morey, Kinky Friedman, William MacLeod,
Sharon Spinks, Benjamin Saenz, Bobby and Lee Bird, and others connected to
the WOW Festival. For more information, contact Drew Stuart at 432-729-4578. MARATHON
– With registration next week, summer is just about over. Students
will begin signing up for classes Monday, August 4, for pre-K and
kindergarten from 9 a.m. until noon in the high school library. Parents
will need to have birth certificates, shot records and other required
documents. Meanwhile,
the Parent Tea-cher Organization has elected a new president. Judy
Briones will hand the gavel off to Lance Garlick. The first meeting of the
new school year will be August 27. The
first day of school will be August 25. ALPINE – State Rep. Pete P. Gallego of Alpine will deliver the
Sul Ross State University summer commencement address, Saturday, Aug. 9. Commencement exercises will be at 10 a.m. in the Pete P. Gallego
Center on the Alpine campus. Gallego, a Sul Ross graduate, has served the 74th District of
the State House of Representatives since 1991. Texas’ largest House district includes Brewster, Culberson,
Edwards, Hudspeth, Jeff Davis, Loving, Pecos, Presidio, Reeves, Terrell,
Uvalde, Val Verde and Ward counties. The 74th House district is also the largest Texas district on
the US-Mexico border, stretching nearly 39,000 square miles and containing
over half of the Texas/Mexico border. Elected in 1990, Gallego is the first Hispanic to represent this
district. In 1991, he became the first freshman member and the first
ethnic minority member ever elected as chair of the House Democratic Caucus,
a post he held until January, 2001. In January 2001, Gallego was unanimously elected by his
colleagues to serve as chair of the Mexican-American Legislative Caucus, a
group of 43 House members who are of Mexican-American descent or who serve a
significant Mexican-American constituency.
He was re-elected as chair of MALC for the fourth time in 2006. Now in his ninth term, Gallego’s career has included
chairmanships of the General Investigating Committee and several select and
subcommittees. He has also served as a member of the Sunset Commission and the
Committees on Appropriations, Calendars, Criminal Jurisprudence, Higher
Education, Elections, Government Reform and Natural Resources. Gallego graduated from Sul Ross in 1982 with a bachelor’s degree
in political science. In 1985, he earned a Doctor of Jurisprudence from The University
of Texas School of Law. He is a member of the Sul Ross State University Athletic Hall of
Honor as an outstanding booster and has been named a Distinguished Alumnus by
the Sul Ross Ex-Student Association. In the Legislature, Gallego is an expert in appropriations, law
enforcement, criminal justice, campaign finance and victims’ rights. He
served on the joint House/Senate conference committee on the state budget for
five consecutive sessions from 1993 to 2001 and has received numerous awards,
including the Advocate for Justice award from a coalition of Texas victims’
groups and the Star of Texas public service award by Common Cause of
Texas. After the 1999 session, he was selected as one of Texas
Monthly’s Ten Best legislators. Most recently, he received the prestigious OHTLI Award from the
Mexican Ministry of Foreign Affairs for his contributions to the betterment
of the Mexican community in Texas. He and his wife, Maria Elena, have one son, Nicholas. Daniel
Boling FORT
STOCKTON – Singer, songwriter and musician Daniel Boling will perform for the
first time here next week. Boling
will perform at the “Summer Off the Patio” series at the Annie Riggs Memorial
Museum Thursday, August 7. The
free, outdoor concert is sponsored by Wallace Lumber Company and hosted by
Fort Stockton Historical Society. The
concert begins at 8 p.m. and all are welcome. For more
information, call 432/336-2167 or log on to www.danielboling.com |
If
you are interested in being part of our organization, either as a full member
or for a specific need, please come to our meetings on Sunday evenings at 7
p.m. at the Marathon Fire Station next to the Marathon Community Center on NE
2nd Street. For
more information, questions or comments, email us at marathonvfd@yahoo.com or call
432/386-4400 ‘Living
with Nature’ By MARK GLOVER Marathon Bureau MARATHON
– Tonight’s 7 p.m. cocktail reception at Eve’s Garden Bed and Breakfast here
kicks off Marathon’s 4th Annual “Living with Nature” festival. The
three-day event is drawing a growing list of speakers from around the country
to highlight this year’s theme of sustainable living and green building
techniques. Zack Rabon, president of Mason Greenstar,
will speak about “Building Green” tomorrow. His
presentation will focus on minimizing environmental impact by sourcing
building materials from recycled waste. Aimee Michelle Roberson, a conservation biologist, yoga teacher and wellness coach, will
present “Creating Vibrant Food.” She
will discuss preparing local, organic, plant-based food as well as offering
Yoga sessions during the festival. David
C. Lynch
of Cummins Westport, Inc., a joint venture between Cummins, Inc., and
Westport Innovations Inc., will speak on “Alternative Fuels.” His presentation
will focus on the use of natural gas as a vehicle fuel source.
Cummins delivers
high-performance alternative fuel engines for the global market and last year
introduced the cleanest heavy-duty production engine ever built. Lynch, a veteran of 42
years in the diesel and natural gas engine business with Cummins, will be
visiting from Cummins headquarters in Columbus, IN. Dr. Richard Erdlac,
director of Energy Technologies Research and Commercialization for
Energy America Inc., will speak on Geothermal Energy for home heating and
cooling and community energy generation. Erdlac is co-founder
of the Earth Resources Institute in Midland, a non-profit organization that
conducts regional energy studies in the Trans-Pecos region. Kenneth
L. Starcher, director of the Alternative Energy Institute, will speak on wind energy for the home and community. Since
1977, AEI has collected and analyzed data on wind characteristics and turbine
performance and has designed a number of renewable energy systems. Filling
out tomorrow’s list of guest speakers, William Wren, special assistant
to the superintendent of the University of Texas at Austin McDonald
Observatory, will
speak about “Outdoor Lighting Control.” The presentation
will focus on the cost efficiency of different outdoor lighting
practices and the value of preserving the heritage of the dark night sky and
the subsequent ability of McDonald Observatory to do astronomical research. The
green products and services trade show will be set up at St. Mary’s Church
Parish Hall across from Eve’s Garden. Presentations
will be at the church Parish Hall and the nearby Community Building. Living
with Nature President Bennett Jones said the trade show will have vendors
from around the country offering “everything from do-it-yourself solar oven
kits to wind turbines and rain water harvesting devices. “All
things sustainable, including organic gardening, green building, solar power,
alternative transportation, health and wellness, free-cycling, composting
toilets, sustainable city planning, local currencies and green collar
employment are all part of this year’s festival,” Jones said. Live
music, food and games for children will be offered tomorrow. Sunday
will be dedicated to touring the region with stops planned at a local buffalo
ranch and the Big Bend National Park. All
proceeds from the festival will benefit construction of the new Brewster
County Library in Alpine. Ticket
prices are $10 at the door for tomorrow, or $15 for the entire weekend. Some
vendor booths are still available. For more information contact Bennett Jones
at 432/837-3008. ALPINE
– The Alpine Rotary Club’s Way-Out-West Texas Book Festival will be next
weekend at Sul Ross State University here. The
literary event, which benefits the Alpine Public Library and its Marathon
branch, will include two meals with celebrity entertainment, a day full of
author presentations and a special silent auction featuring many collectible
books, among other items. The
event will get under way with a Chuckwagon Supper Songfest on the grounds of
Kokernot Lodge Friday, Aug. 8. Host
Kinky Friedman will introduce the guests, including award-winning author, songwriter
and performer Mike Blakely, who will sing and play the guitar. This
ticketed event requires reservations. Free
daytime programs Saturday, Aug. 9, at Sul Ross’s Espino Conference Center
will feature a wide range of accomplished novelists and nonfiction writers
from throughout Texas. Keynote
speaker at 9 a.m. Saturday will be writer and performer Denise Chavez, whose
novel “Face of an Angel” won an American Book Award in 1995. All
day Saturday, authors, book-dealers and publishers will rent vendor space in
the reception area of the conference center to sell books to the visiting
public Others
who will be available to autograph their works include Elmer Kelton, Joe Nick
Patoski, Sarah Bird, Joaquin Jackson, James Evans, Mike Cox, Larry Thomas,
David Carlton, Sharon Spinks, Lee Merrill Byrd, Bobby Byrd, Roy Morey, Ben
Saenz, Bob Kinford, William MacLeod and Tim McKenzie. The
Silent Auction will be during the day adjacent to the sales and program
areas. On
Saturday evening, the festival will culminate in a Grand Finale Banquet,
where Friedman will hold forth. This banquet requires reservations. The
auction ends just as the banquet begins and winning bidders will claim their
auction items before they leave. A
signed limited edition of Larry McMurtry’s “In a Narrow Grave,” an inscribed
book of poems by Edna St. Vincent Millay and other collectible books will be
auctioned. Paintings
by Carol Fairlie and James A. Mangum, a French-style grandfather clock, a
traditional pine hutch, a complete set of Franciscan tableware and many other
pieces will be up for bids. Committee
members Wanda Morgan, Lou Pauls, Arlene Griffis and Jean Hardy round out the
Rotary planning group. The
official event website, www.wowtxbookfestival.com,
includes the program schedule, meal ticket purchasing information, celebrity
profiles, contact information and more. Chuckwagon
Supper & Songfest tickets are $25 each. Saturday night Grand Finale
Banquet tickets are $50. Auction
admission comes with the purchase of one of these tickets. To reserve meal tickets,
go to www.wowtxbookfestival.com/10.html ALPINE
– Area middle school students enrolled in the Alpine TexPREP were to have
been honored at a closing day ceremony yesterday, July 31, at Sul Ross State
University. Students
in the PreFreshman Engineering Program were to demonstrate their engineering
project yesterday morning at the Museum of the Big Bend. TexPREP
targets high-performing math and science middle school students and provides
them with an intellectually stimulating, mathematics-based science,
technology, engineering and mathematics summer education experience. The
seven-week program, directed by Susan Fox Forrester, began June 11. “It
has been a good learning experience,” said Aurora Nugent, a Fort Davis Middle
School student. “My favorite area has been logic.” Nugent,
along with Alpine students Jessica Rivas, Abel Silvas and Victor and Tomas
Vega, have participated in a number of projects, including building their own
speakers. They
also have taken field trips and listened to motivational speakers. Classes
were taught by Sul Ross faculty member Dr. Kris Jorgensen and Dr. Ron Hartberger,
who taught at Sul Ross in 2005 and 06 and now teaches at the University of
St. Thomas at Houston. “I
enjoy students of all ages,” said Hartberger, who also teaches graduate students
at the University of St. Thomas. He
praised the students’ dedication. “There
are times when I have to tell them to go home at 4 p.m. because they are so involved
in problem-solving,” he said. “We are trying to establish a firm basis in the
fundamentals but also add a dimension of fun. We try to show them work can be
fun if you choose the right job.” Alpine
TexPREP is funded through a grant from the U.S. Department of Agriculture. It
is an initiative resulting from collaboration between Sul Ross, University of
Texas at San Antonio, Victoria College and the Dallas County Community
College District. “The
program started in San Antonio about 30 years ago and has had very positive results,”
Forrester said. She
quoted statistics indicating 99.9
percent of the students who have completed at least one summer of PREP have
graduated from high school and more than 80 percent are college graduates. “This
is a very intensive program but it is very rewarding,” she said. “It is a
very good program for students who like mathematics and science. It teaches
them what they can do.” The
Alpine PREP program is open to residents of Brewster, Presidio, Jeff Davis,
Hudspeth and Pecos counties. The
program includes classes, motivational speakers and field trips. Students
must re-apply to be accepted in the program each summer. Students
may participate for three years, with one high school credit awarded for successful
completion of each session. This
summer’s curriculum included the study of logic and mathematical applications,
as well as an introduction to engineering. Year
two will feature algebraic structures and an introduction to physics. The
third year curriculum includes introduction to probability and statistics,
computer science and technical writing TexPREP's
overall mission is to reinforce student success in math, science, engineering
and technology. While
the program serves all students who meet the requirements, TexPREP seeks
students who are members of minority groups who have traditionally been
underrepresented in the engineering, mathematics and science professions. “We
plan to expand our recruiting efforts for next year,” Forrester said. “We are
seeking at least 20 students in the class. “This
is a program that requires commitment but the results for improved academic
success at both the secondary and collegiate levels are well documented,” she
said. |