Thursday's Internet Edition, September 09, 2010.
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- Trustees of Culberson County-Allamoore Independent School District have met twice in the past week. Once last Thursday, at noon, and again on Monday evening.
At the meeting last Thursday, trustees only tended to personnel matters.
Trustees, upon the recommendation of Superintendent Guillermo Mancha, Jr., accepted the appointment of Debbie Engle as the assistant principal at Van Horn Junior High where she will be assisting Principal John Fabela who is now at the High School.
Engle has an emergency certification as a principal and her contract was amended from 10 months to 11 months to reflect her new duties and responsibilities.
The other teacher having her contract amended from 10 months to 11 months was Yolanda Ortega. She will become the counselor for the elementary and junior high campuses. She does not have an emergency certification as a counselor yet, but the district is working on getting it for her.
The other personnel matters acted upon by trustees involved acceptance of two resignations. The two were Janet Sparks and Kathy Nemeth.
On Monday evening, trustees heard an hour long presentation from a representative of Wells Fargo Insurance on the benefits of self funding of employee health programs, which the district does, and also to present an overview of what the district will be looking at this year as far as expense.
Trustees also were asked to approve the Student Code of Conduct which was presented. Following discussion, however, trustees by a vote of 4 to 2 (Clark, Morales, Ramirez and Cottrell for, Gonzales and Ortega against), voted to not only not approve of it, but sent it back to the administration to be revamped.
Superintendent Mancha then asked trustees to provide him some direction in revamping the document but nothing definitive was given during the session.
Superintendent Mancha told trustees that the County was slightly over $15,000 short in their bid for paving work within the city under a grant from the Texas Department of Transportation’s Border Colonia’s initiative.
Mancha reported that one of the streets being planned for paving under this grant was 9th Street which leads to the cemetery and runs right beside the new baseball field.
Mancha told trustees that County Judge Molinar had asked him to see if trustees would consider donating $15,000 from school district funds so that this project can be completed with all the paving being done. Following discussion, trustees reluctantly approved the $15,000 expenditure.
Trustees also accepted various bids for goods and services for the coming school year. Gandy’s was awarded the milk products bid; Monarch was awarded the student athlete insurance bid; Windstream was awarded the internet service provider bid; and the general liability insurance bid went to the same provider as last year.
Before concluding the session, trustee Robert Morales put forth some questions regarding the format and content of the board meetings agendas and the amount of detail shown in the board approved copies of the minutes. He also suggested consideration be given to hiring some additional help in business manger Julie Uranga’s office.
Column One
By Dawn Simpson
It’s that time when the High School cheerleaders are having to raise money (and lots) in order to pay for camp, uniforms, etc. If you are a golfer you can help them out this weekend while having a good time on our local golf course. A benefit tournament is planned and they are hoping that many will participate. Won’t you help them out?
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The following was copied from the May 8, 1969 issue of the Advocate in Gene Dow’s weekly column “Van Horn Vagabond’. I loved it and thought you might also.
In The ‘Good Ole Days’
Harry Marsh, a graduate of Van Horn High School, now with the Department of Journalism at Baylor University after a tour with the New York Herald-Tribune, wrote the following article for the April 27, 1969 issue of the Waco Tribune-Herald:
“We, the members of the Van Horn High School class of 1945 (all five of us), wish to take issue with yor Saturday article deploring Daylight Saving Time.
“Ah, 1945. Those were the days, my dear. It was wartime, and we had War Time - year-round Daylight Saving Time, along with red stamps for meat, blue stamps for scarce foods, sugar rationing, gasoline rationing, tire rationing, coffee rationing, cigarette shortages and a nationwide 35-mile-an hour speed limit. Actually the slow speed limit kept people from taking unnecessary long trips, preserving vital rubber and gasoline. Motor vehicles operated more economically at lower speeds, again conserving vital resources.
“War time was a conservation measure, too. People went to bed soon after sunset and still didn’t get up until it was light outside. Electrical consumption went down.
“We lived in our own world at Van Horn during War Time. What else could we do at 35 miles an hour? War Time was something special in Van Horn, which is the westernmost city (pop: 1,200 in 1945) in the Central Time Zone.......Sunset in June came after 10 PM. Sunrise in December came shortly before 9 AM, the tardy bell rang at 10 AM outside our school building, which housed grades one through 12. The Rotary Club met every Tuesday at 1 PM. We had movies every Tuesday, Friday and Saturday night beginning at 9.
“We all went out and got popcorn while they were changing the reels on the theatre’s only projector. Smokers had time to roll their own cigarettes too. (No shortage of Bull Durham makings.) “There was something delicious about not going to school until 10, although the sun was barely peeping over the Texas and Pacific watering tank at that hour, and we felt excitingly abandoned walking home through the greasewood from the movie at midnight.
“An element of frustration would come at the first cooling of a summer Saturday afternoon - about 8 p.m. What to do? Go hunting jackrabbits (with the .22 shells hoarded from the supply a brother in the Air Corps had sent) or sit by the living room radio and listen to Frank Sinatra sing “You’d Be So Nice to Come Home To” on the Lucky Strike Hit Parade.
“If the Hit Parade wasn’t on, or it wasn’t a movie night, we could walk over to the railroad tracks, where the steam locomotives took on water, and fuel, and talk to the soldiers on the troop trains. The transcontinental trainloads of servicemen made about 35 miles an hour took and by the time a serviceman had traversed half the country, and arrived in Van Horn, at, say a couple of hours before sunset, his questions were: 1. Are we still in the United States? An affirmative answer always brought a doubting facial expression. 2. What time is it? An answer of 8 p.m. with the sun still high convinced the servicemen that all Van Horn was mad.
“In the summer we swam in the windmill tanks. In the winter, we climbed the barren mountains, counted pronghorn antelope and explored abandoned mine shafts. And eventually we graduated.
“The Baccalaureate sermon was in the ‘morning’ at 12:30 p.m., graduation exercises were at night. We got our diplomas at 8:30 p.m. with a sunset silhouetting the mountains through the school auditorium windows.
“And our brothers and dads won the war. War Time treated us well. It’s still nice to sleep late and then enjoy the freshness of a new day, and why not stay out in the sun late during Daylight Saving Time. There’s nothing on television but re-runs anyway.
Harry Marsh, Class President
COMMUNITY CALENDAR
July 23rd - Members of Americaan Legion Post 508 are slated to meet this evening at 6:30 p.m. at the Clark Hotel Historical Museum.
July 24th - Nothing scheduled at press time.
July 25th - Nothing scheduled at press time.
July 26th - Attend the church of your choice.
July 27th - Members of the Van Horn Lions Club are scheduled to meet this evening at 7 p.m. at the Sands Restaurant.
July 28th - Members of the Van Horn Rotary Club are slated to meet today at noon at Chuy’s Restaurant.
July 29th - Nothing scheduled at press time.