Wednesday's Internet Edition, September 08, 2010.
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| Valedictorian Alexis Navarrette and Salutatorian JoVanna Hinojos |
These graduates have completed 12 years of schooling and are now ready to move forward, leaving behind all the memories of school in Van Horn.
The seniors will be led by Valedictorian Alexis Navarrette. She completes her high school training with an overall grade point average of 3.6474 and 21 college hours.
This year’s Salutatorian, 2nd ranking in the class, is JoVanna Hinojos. She completes her schooling with an overall grade point average of 3.5745 and some 15 college hours.
The class’s 3rd ranking member is Eric Enriquez, who takes with him some 21 college hours.
In the 4th spot in the class is Jacklynn Stanford. She finishes her schooling with 18 college hours.
And, in the 5th spot of the graduating class is Crystal Gonzales. She completes her schooling with some 24 college hours.
Rounding out the top ten students in the class of 2009 are the following: 6th - Holly Hillin; 7th - Brandon Onate; 8th - Marcial Gonzalez; 9th - Emily Balcazar; and 10th - Mario Rey.
The graduation ceremony is set to start tomorrow at 7 p.m. You will certainly want to arrive early so that you can see these seniors as they march down the aisle for the last time as students of Culberson County-Allamoore Independent School District.
Graduation speaker’s roots are deep here
This year’s graduates will be treated to a graduation speaker with deep roots to Van Horn High School. He is John Clough, a graduate of the Class of 1958.
Mr. John Clough is a professional structural engineer registered in ten states and has over forty years experience designing metal buildings and structures. He is currently semi-retired, and provides consulting design services on large structures fabricated by metal building manufacturers.
Mr. Clough participated in the Van Horn Volunteer Fire Department while in high school, and later served for 13 years with the Cy-Fair Volunteer Fire Department. That fire department has 12 fire stations and over 250 members, and provides fire protection and emergency medical services for a 187 square mile district with over 500,000 population in the suburbs northwest of Houston. He served on the first board of commissioners for an emergency services district which provides tax funding for the Cy-Fair VFD, and was president of that board for four years. Mr. Clough was a member of the Cy-Fair Rotary Club for seven years. He has been an active participant in the Cypress United Methodist Church for 22 years, serving in various positions of the church administration and in prison ministry. He has been married to his wife, Peggy, for 46 years, and they have three married children living in the Houston area.
Mr. Clough’s family moved to Van Horn in 1945, and he attended the Van Horn schools for 12 years, graduating from VHHS in 1958. After a year attending Odessa Junior College, he transferred to Texas Tech and graduated in 1964 with a BS degree in Civil Engineering. Mr. Clough designed highway bridges for a consulting engineering firm in Kansas City for two years, then moved to Dallas where he began designing metal buildings for Delta Steel Buildings Company. In 1971, Mr. Clough moved to Houston and served five years as Engineering Manager for A & S Steel Buildings Company, a larger manufacturing firm with sales nation-wide. He then opened his own consulting and contracting firm, designing and providing special use metal buildings for the next sixteen years.
In 1991, Mr. Clough returned to work directly for a metal building manufacturer, designing larger and more complicated buildings for steel mills, churches, manufacturing plants, and large airplane hangars. With his last full-time employer, NCI Buildings, Mr. Clough designed the structures for two minor league baseball stadiums in the Boston area, an indoor practice facility for the New York Jets, and a 2,000 student high school near Houston.
City will now begin to recoup for water losses to HCWCID#1
The Van Horn City Council, Tuesday evening, approved a special audit report of the water system selling water to Hudspeth County Water Control and Improvement District #1 (HCWCID#1).
The special audit, paid for by the Town and HCWCID#!, revealed that, indeed, the town has been selling water to HCWCID#1 for much less than it was costing us.
In fact, according to Mayor Ben Flanagan, we’ve been selling them water for around 33 cents per thousand gallons of water. This audit report reveals that we should actually be selling them water for $1.55 per thousand gallons. And, we’ll start with the reading we took last week.
Flanagan noted that the report had been delivered to HCWCID#1 last week and they have agreed to the new rate. Flanagan noted that it will make a big difference in the town’s bottom line since we’re selling them over 4,000,000 gallons a month.
And, council learned that the agreement with HCWCID#1 will allow this audit report every six months so we won’t get very far behind. The audit cost $2,700 of which the town paid $1,350.
Council members considered whether to get paying travel money to former mayor Okey Lucas so that he could attend Rio Grande Council of Government’s and Area Agency on Aging meetings in El Paso.
Council decided to no longer pay Lucas’ travel to the meeting since council is already sending councilman Molinar to attend these meetings.
Council members also learned, Tuesday evening, that a representative from Paradigm Golf Consultants had been in town to look at the golf course and begin making their recommendations.
According to councilwoman Gilda Morales, their full report will be forthcoming within a couple of weeks. She noted that the representative was pleased with what he saw at the golf course.
With regard to other agenda items which council deliberated on, the following actions were taken:
* Council members approved a golf tournament to be held on June 20th as a benefit tournament for Delia Ornelas. In so doing, council waived the green fees and any usage fees.
* Mayor Flanagan reported that the HOME grant application for this year’s funding cycle did not make it and he asked council to approve re-submitting the application for the next funding cycle. Council members approved the resolution.
* The Mountain View Golf Association appeared before council to ask them to approve the rental of 10 golf carts for the forthcoming August tournament. Council approved the rentals and asked if they were already promoting the event.
Association president Walter Syffert remarked, “We are!”
* Mayor Flanagan asked council to approve of a resolution seeking another Justice Assistance Grant in the amount of $44,898. The funding will be utilized by the Rural West Texas Boys and Girls Clubs for crime prevention, deterrent, and juvenile delinquency prevention activities.
* Council members voted to lease, rather than purchase, a trailer to be used for the collection of old tires. The town will pay $1,250 each time State Rubber and Environmental Solutions picks up a load of tires. The city envisions four loads per year.
* Council members tabled any action on a proposal to conduct building inspections here and to see how they could enforce putting building numbers (house numbers) on places in town as required by 9-1-1 regulations.
* After discussing how to get the community clean up effort as an ongoing proposition, council members approved bills, which included one for $3,600 to the golf association to cover loses at their last tournament.
* And, before adjourning the session, council members went behind closed doors for an executive session.