Friday's Internet Edition, July 04, 2008.
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| Councilmen take oath.... Van Horn City Mayor Okey Lucas (right) is pictured administering the oaths of office to newly elected city aldermen during Tuesday evenings council meeting. The new and returning councilmen are (L to R) Matthew Molinar, Dennis McBride and Nuny Morriss. |
After being administered their oaths of office, the new councilmen took their seats and proceeded to elect Councilmen Rudy Hinojos to be Mayor Pro Tem for the next year. He basically fills in for the mayor whenever he is out of pocket.
Then council members looked at various designations for the coming year. Council decided on what city departments that they will have some oversight responsibility and what the responsibility entails.
After authorizing Mayor Lucas, Mayor Pro-Tem Rudy Hinojos, and City Administrator Becky Brewster to be signatories on city checks, they also appointed City Finance Manager Jody Corrales to sign on grant checks.
Utilities Superintendent Raquel Mendez came before council to explain that last Sunday’s power outage caused some electrical problems with a city well at the airport. Mendez reported that the well is running all the time for the present, but that the electrical control panel box needs to either be repaired or replaced.
Council opted for replacement rather than repair since repair has little or no warranty.
While council was discussing utility department matters, they talked about problems at the Little League Baseball Field, in particular the sad state of repair of the restroooms and the poor cleanup around the playing field.
Mendez told council that she would work on the cleanup and council noted that they needed to talk to the Van Horn Youth Association board members about the problems.
Council also talked about the problem of loose dogs running wild all over town. While dog owners are required by City Ordinance to keep their dogs penned or on a leash at all times, in reality no one is doing that.
Council noted that all we need is for a dog to attack a child or an adult and the publicity for the town would not be good.
Mendez noted that when her office is called, they do attempt to trap loose dogs and impound them. One problem is that the city does not have a certified dog catcher at this time.
If citizens have dog problems, call her office.
Council members had thought about reactivating the Motel Tax/CCVB Committee as it had been requested to consider doing this by motel owners.
However, no motel owners were present nor had they submitted any names to be on the committee so council opted to table the matter until the June 19th meeting.
After approving an agreement whereby the Mountain View Golf Course will be part of the American Cancer Society’s Golf Pass program, council members received an update on various grant programs which are ongoing in the city.
Before adjourning the session, council went behind closed doors for an executive session.
Old Van Horn photos get wide exposure on the internet
By Beth Nobles, Regional Coordinator, Texas Mountain Trail
Selections from the Clark Hotel Historical Museum’s photograph collection will receive wider exposure on the internet due to a new cooperative agreement with the museum, the Texas Mountain Trail and Shorpy.com, “The 100-Year-Old Photo Blog, a popular online website for historical photographs, at www.shorpy.com/texasmountaintrail
“We knew we had a wonderful set of photos in the collection, which has been online for some time at the University of North Texas Libraries Portal to Texas History archives, but we wanted to get greater exposure for Van Horn’s history and increase awareness of Far West Texas. If more people know about us, they’ll be more likely to consider taking a trip out here,” said Beth Nobles, Regional Coordinator of the Texas Mountain Trail, based in Van Horn. “I have been a fan of the Shorpy.com website for some time, and they have wonderful photographs, many of them from WPA photographers who documented our country during the Depression.”
Nobles secured approval from Robert Stuckey, Director of the Clark Hotel Museum; Jeff McCoy, President of the Texas Mountain Trail Board of Directors; and Dreanna Belden of UNT’s Portal to Texas History to share the photos with the online audience.
Shorpy.com responded enthusiastically, even setting up a special West Texas link on their navigation menu to help web visitors find the photographs, and a special “Texas Mountain Trail” page to house all of the photos coming from Van Horn and eventually other communities in Far West Texas. Three images from the Clark Hotel Museum’s collection are online at Shorpy.com, “R.P. Bean Ranch, c. 1910:” “Fred Clark’s Cactus Garden, c. 1940;” and a commercial postcard from 1928, called “The Cactus Twins.” Each has a link back to the Portal of Texas History, so viewers can learn more and access the entire 500 photograph collection from the Clark Hotel Museum.
“The response to our photos was fantastic,” said Nobles. “In less than an hour, one of our photographs had more than 60 “hits” or web visitors viewing the image. As of Wednesday morning, five days after the initial posting, one of the photographs has been seen more than 800 times by people all over the world.”
Shorpy.com allows web visitors to make comments and ask questions about the photographs. When one reader from Philadelphia wondered what the R.P. Bean Ranch looked like today, Nobles was able to post a recent photo of the land taken from the public roadside north of Van Horn on Hwy 54. The man responded with his thanks, and commented, “I am from Philadelphia and we would call that God’s country because of its beauty.” Web visitors can see the online conversation about each photograph by visiting: www.shorpy.com/texasmountaintrail and clicking on each image posted there.
“This is exactly the kind of reaction we want to achieve,” said Nobles, “We want to increase awareness of the beauty and history of Van Horn and Far West Texas. We’ll continue to send Shorpy.com digital copies of our photographs to post online.”
The photograph project began late in 2005, when the Texas Mountain Trail wrote a grant proposal for the Clark Hotel Museum’s initial involvement with the Portal to Texas History online archive at the University of North Texas Library. The grant, funded by the Summerlee Foundation, allowed 500 photographs from the Museum’s collection to be digitized. To prepare the collection for the project, many Van Horn residents identified people and places depicted in the photographs, filling in the missing details for the historical record. Robert Stuckey organized the photographs, which were sent to Denton to be scanned and put online. The photographs can all be viewed on the Portal at: http://texashistory.unt.edu/browse/contributor/CHM/ The UNT Library’s ‘Portals to Texas History’ project allows anyone with internet access-researchers, teachers, school children, genealogists, and history enthusiasts-to see historical photographs from collections across the state.
“Van Horn has been particularly supportive of the Trail program,” said Beth Nobles, the Texas Mountain Trail Regional Coordinator. “This is one way we can support the community of Van Horn, and make our unique history available to tourists before they arrive in Culberson.
Area Oil & Gas Update
By Paul Blankenburg, Blue Quail Oil & Gas Consulting & Leasing Services
There continues to be a lot of activity in the west Texas area with Culberson County experiencing the most drilling activity.
Last week I saw a load of pipeline pipe turning north, so somebody is probably building a pipeline and that is good news!
Culberson County:
C.O.G. Operating is back in the hunt as they have filed for a permit to drill a 12,000 foot vertical well on the Raymond 19 lease.
Quicksilver Resources Inc. has opted to file for a permit to reenter a 7,700 foot well on the Fasken 22 lease. And, they must be finding some good pay zones because they have filed for a permit to drill a new 9,000 foot vertical well on the Hughs Kent Ranch lease.
Chesapeake Operating, Inc. is about to move into the county as they have filed for a permit to drill a 14,000 foot vertical well on the DF Ranch State 63-2 lease. Chesapeake is a well known company and when they get into the fray, you know it must be good!
Atlantic Operating, Inc. has filed to drill a new 2,700 foot vertical well on the Hill-Ramsey 32 lease.
Hudspeth County:
Trail Mountain, Inc. is very active in the county. They haver filed for a permit to reenter a 6,000 foot vertical well in the University Felina D 27 lease. They have also filed for a permit to drill a new 6,000 foot vertical well in the University Running Gun H 2 lease. And, they have filed for a permit to drill a new 10,000 foot vertical well in the University Oasis M 25 lease. Lots of activity for Trail Mountain. Go get um!
Jeff Davis County:
Quicksilver Resources, Inc. has filed for a permit to reenter a 9,500 foot well in the Raw Hide lease. This time, they plan to go horizontal with it.
Presidio County:
Giant Petroleum, Inc. has filed for a permit to drill a new 11,000 foot vertical well in the Giant-Lykes DPW lease. They are calling this well the 1B.
Oil and gas activity is definitely happening this our part of West Texas and Van Horn is surely shaping up to become the hub. When you’re in town, drop by the Blue Quail Coffee Shop and let’s talk oil and gas! We’ll help you get located here.