Saturday's Internet Edition, July 31, 2010.
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| Members of the local Girl Scout troop, and two of their sponsors, bringing in another load of debris to be weighted. The Girl Scouts finished in 3rd place overall with 10,760 pound of trash, tires and debris collected. |
- Last Saturday, you may have noticed vehicles and people scouring our community in search of trash, tires and debris.
They were participating in the City’s annual Clean-Up Campaign. When Grace Marta, a city utilities employee, stopped the tally shortly after 1 p.m., various groups had collected some 26.5 tons (53,000 pounds) of trash, tires and debris from our community. That is a lot of trash and debris removed from our town.
Just so you’ll know how good this figure is, it is 12,910 pounds more than was collected last year.
According to Marta’s talley sheet, here is how participating local groups fared:
1st Place - 4-H Club who collected 26,140 pounds.
2nd Place - Lions Club who collected 10,800 pounds.
3rd Place - Girl Scouts who collected 10,760 pounds.
4th Place - American Legion who collected 2,960 pounds.
5th Place - Van Horn Volunteer Fire Department who collected 1,660 pounds.
6th Place - Our Lady of Fatima Catholic Church who collected 680 pounds.
Next year, the City hopes that even more clubs and organizations will get behind the Clean-Up effort and try to best this years total collections.
Column One
By Dawn Simpson
Many of you will remember Leatrice Dodson, a dear lady who lived in Van Horn for many years and now resides in San Angelo. She called yesterday with some good news about her son, Darryl Jones. He was inducted into the Texas Rodeo Cowboy Hall of Fame last Friday in Belton, Texas.
Darryl “Bronc” Jones lives in Archer City now but is a Chillicothe native. He began breaking colts at a young age and competing in high school, college and professional rodeos in the saddle bronc event. He qualified for the Texas Circuit Finals in two separate decades. The Texas Rodeo Cowboy Hall of Fame is dedicated to rodeo and the recognition of Texans’ contributions to the sport.
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We recently printed a letter from John Clough about the scholarship fund by ex-students and teachers, which was established in memory of Dr. Wayne Hurt. We have had some calls inquiring where to send donations for the scholarship and a contact. Here it is: John Clough, 12726 Shady Knoll, Cypress TX 77429. John’s phone number is 281-373-1368.
Seventeen families contributed between $50 and $200 for last year’s scholarship, which was awarded in the amount of $2,000. Those donors have made unbinding commitments to fund that scholarship for ten years.
It is very generous of these ex-students to have an interest in the students growing up in Van Horn today. It is their way of showing appreciation for the opportunities they experienced from growing up in this town and the love they still have for this place.
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A couple of special events are going on at the Eagle Elementary this week. The Annual Book Fair has been on all week and tonight is Parents Night from 5-7pm, in the elementary library.
Also, if you have a child who will be entering Pre-Kindergarten this fall, you will want to take note that the Pre-K Roundup is being held tomorrow, April 16th. To register your child, go by the office at Eagle Elementary from 9 to 11 am and 1 to 3 pm. You must bring a birth certificate, Social Security card, immunization record and a utility bill showing your residential address.
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If there is one thing that I don’t being awakened by during the night it is rolling thunder. Wasn’t that nice last night! The rain we received Monday night was .93 inches and last night was .17, bringing our total for the year to 4.44 inches. The ground will be nice and soft for a couple of days, so get out and get those weeds cut! April showers may bring May flowers, but they bring on those weeds really well too. If only those ‘mustard weeds’ were edible none of us would go hungry for sure!
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Everyone knows how much our local businesses need all the support they can get, as it gets harder and harder to compete with big discount stores and ordering online, etc. Here’s a great idea that is a grassroots movement sweeping our nation. The fundamentals of this movement are to save our small businesses and it’s called the 3/50 Project.
Pick 3 local businesses you would miss if they were no longer there. Then go shopping! If half the employed population spent $50.00 in these local businesses it would generate more than 42 billion dollars! Pick 3. Spend 50. Save your local economy. For more information visit their website at www.the350project.net.
This would be a great project for our newly-formed Chamber of Commerce or the Van Horn Economic Development Corp. to become involved in. Thanks to Linda Rodriguez at Ann’s Flower Shop for passing this idea along to us, which she saw in a floral publication they receive. What an encouragement to local businesses if this could catch on here.
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Thought for the Week… When we lose our golf ball in the weeds, we go looking for it. When we lose our soul in the weeds, God comes looking for us.
COMMUNITY CALENDAR
April 15th - Building Bridges Art Show continues at the Convention Center. Van Horn Eagle track qualifiers will run at the Area Meet today in Wink. Members of the Van Horn Volunteer Fire Department are slated to meet at the Firehouse this evening at 7 p.m.
April 16th - Building Bridges Art Show continues at the Convention Center. The Van Horn Eagle baseball team will play Ft. Hancock in a district game at 5 p.m. (CDT) in Ft. Hancock. The Van Horn Lady Eagle softball team is scheduled to play Ft. Stockton today in Ft. Stockton beginning at 5 p.m.
April 17th - Junior/Senior Prom is this evening at the Convention Center.
April 18th - Attend the church of your choice today.
April 19th - Trustees of CCAISD are slated to meet this evening at 6 p.m. at the District Administration Building.
April 20th - The Van Horn Rotary Club will meet today at noon at Chuy’s Restaurant. The Van Horn Eagle baseball team will play McCamey here in their district closeout game beginning at 5 p.m. Members of the Van Horn City Council are scheduled to meet this evening at 7 p.m. at City Hall. The Van Horn Lady Eagle softball team is slated to closeout their 2010 season today as they host McCamey here beginning at 5 p.m.
April 21st - Nothing scheduled at press time.