Monday's Internet Edition, October 13, 2008.
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| Sculpture arrives.... The commissioned sculpture for Van Horn’s new U.S. Border Patrol Station arrived Tuesday afternoon. The sculpture was commissioned in early January and the artist and the facility designer/owner watch as workmen prepare to place the new sculpture on the base in front of the Station. The artist is a UTEP art student in EL Paso. |
- The Annual Van Horn Community Cleanup Event has been scheduled for April 28, 2007 and all local clubs are being asked to pitch in to make this year’s cleanup more effective than any in the past. As always, the event is being divided into two categories of cleanup.
The first part is the competitive portion of the event. Local clubs and organizations are allowed to enter this competition with the winning prize money going to the club or organization that brings in the most weight in junk. Second and third prizes will also be awarded.
This competitive portion of the event is designed to eliminate the town of junk that has gathered in alleys, yards, empty lots and so forth. Old refrigerators are always a popular portion of this event, but anything that is junking up the town is eligible for the contest except for old tires. A separate event is being planned for tires and will be announced at a later date.
For the competitive portion of the event, roll-off garbage containers will be placed at the county’s scales across from G&M Video. Vehicles bringing in junk will be weighed coming in full, will empty their junk into the roll-off containers and then will be weighed again going out empty. Those who amass the most junk between the hours of 9 am and noon on April 28th, will be the winners.
The winning junk collection team will receive a $400 prize. Second and third place teams will receive $200 and $100 respectively.
The second part of the Community Cleanup Event is the Community Service portion where local clubs and organizations as well as individuals and businesses are invited to participate in a general cleanup of the community as a service to the community. For this portion of the event, local volunteers who organize the event will issue assigned areas for each club or business to cleanup. Each group is asked to accomplish their cleanup by the end of May.
Volunteers who lead the local cleanup effort each year have stated that this cleanup effort always results in a very significant impact on the appearance of the community. “Tons and tons of junk (last year it was over 10 tons of junk) is always disposed of and the community looks much better as a result of everyone’s effort to cleanup,” said Paul Blankenburg, a local volunteer and a leader in community improvement efforts. Grace Marta, the city’s utility department liaison to the volunteer committee, said that the event always makes a lot of progress toward making the town look better and that she’s proud that the city, the community, and The Texas Department of Transportation always come together for this event each year. Blankenburg and Marta agreed, however, that the greatest impact is seen in the cleaner streets, alleys and empty lots that are carefully cleaned by the local groups.
The Texas Department of Transportation participates in the local cleanup effort by providing trash bags and safety vests for the cleanup groups through their Texas Trash Off litter program.
As is the tradition of the event, hotdogs and sodas will be served at 12:30 or so following the 9 to 12 competitive collection event.
Column One
By Dawn Simpson
I hope - and pray- that our students have had a good week as they have been taking TAKS tests. That’s a lot of pressure on students, as well as teachers and parents. One of my Sunday School students asked me to pray for them this week because they would be taking TAKS. If that doesn’t speak for how critical they know this is, then nothing does. I sometimes wonder if that pressure they are put under is really the best, or if there isn’t a better way of determining their progress, or lack of.
I read something in last Sunday’s paper about the legislature looking at options to this. I, for one, hope they come up with something better, and less stressful for all involved.
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Life is so unpredictable! Tragic events like the one at Virginia Tech this week certainly prove that to be true. It has caused me to really think about something I heard last week from one of my favorite radio talk personalities, Glenn Beck. He asked a simple question - if you knew you only had a certain amount of time to live, how would it change your actions? What would you do different in your life?
But the next question was the one that I can’t seem to get out of my mind - Since we don’t know that, why not make those changes as if we did? I wonder how things would change in our society if we all did that? What would you do different if you knew you only had a certain number of days left? And why not make those changes now?
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I got this off the internet this morning and I don’t know why it wasn’t in the news. At least I didn’t hear about it. Possibly because it was good and positive - instead of bad news.
It was built with 24 tons of scrap steel from the World Trade Center.
It is the fifth in a new class of warship - designed for missions that include special operations against terrorists. It will carry a crew of 360 sailors and 700 combat-ready Marines to be delivered ashore by helicopters and assault craft.
Steel from the World Trade Center was melted down in a foundry in Amite, LA to cast the ship’s bow section. When it was poured into the molds on Sept. 9, 2003, “those big rough steelworkers treated it with total reverence,” recalled Navy Capt. Kevin Wensing, who was there. “It was a spiritual moment for everybody there.
Junior Chavers, foundry operations manager, said that when the trade center steel first arrived, he touched it with his hand and the “hair on my neck stood up.”
“It had a big meaning to it for all of us,” he said. “They knocked us down. They can’t keep us down. We’re going to be back.”
The ship’s motto? “Never Forget”
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Thought for the Week:
“In The Light and the Glory, Peter Marshall tells of God’s superintending hand upon the life of Christopher Columbus. This adventurer discovered the “New World” by accident, but not by accident. God had His hand upon the wheel of the ship and brought it here, even though Columbus himself did not know what was happening. George Washington summarized this thought when he said, “No people can be bound to acknowledge and adore the invisible hand which conducts the affairs of man more than those of the United States.”
COMMUNITY CALENDAR
April 19th - Members of the Van Horn Volunteer Fire Department are slated to meet this evening at 7 p.m. at the firehouse.
April 20th - Van Horn Eagle JV baseball team plays Kermit tonight in Kermit beginning at 5 p.m. The Van Horn Eagle varsity baseball team plays Ozona here tonight beginning at 7 p.m.
April 21st - Nothing scheduled at press time.
April 22nd - Attend the church of your choice.
April 23rd - The Van orn Eagle JV baseball team plays Crane this evening beginning at 5 p.m. in Crane. Members of the Van Horn Lions Club are slated to meet this evening at the Sands Restaurant at 7 p.m.
April 24th - Members of the Van Horn Rotary Club are slated to meet today at noon at Chuy’s. The Van Horn Eagle varsity baseball team plays Crane here this evening beginning at 7 p.m.
April 25th - Nothing scheduled at press time.