|
Daily Newspaper and Travel Guide
for Pecos Country of West Texas
Top Stories
Thursday, September 21, 2000
Youth football program back after 19 years
By LEIA HOLLAND
Staff Writer
PECOS, September 21, 2000 - Opening Day for the Pecos Eagle PeeWee Football
program will be on Saturday, and a parade has been scheduled to mark the
return of the youth football program to Pecos.
The parade is set to begin at 9 a.m., Saturday morning in front of La
Tienda grocery.
Eagle PeeWee Football Board Treasurer, Michael Benavides said the parade
is part of the opening day celebration.
"It's just a come, meet and support the kids kind of parade," Benavides
said.
Eagle PeeWee Football Board President Randy Baeza said the parade is
to get the kids recognized and excited about their season.
"We're just trying to get the kids rallied up," Baeza said.
The parade will have floats in each team color and will wind its way
along Eddy, Washington and Iowa streets to the Crockett Middle School football
field.
Benavides said everyone is welcome to see the parade, and if anyone
would like to be in the parade just show up at 9 a.m., in front of La Tienda.
"The more people we get, the better it will be," he said.
The first PeeWee football games will begin at 10 a.m. on Saturday after
the parade, with the Colts vs. the Chiefs and the Vikings vs. the Packers.
After those games, two more games will begin with the Bears vs. the Dolphins
and the Redskins vs. the Cowboys.
Benavides explained that the fields would be 80 yards long as opposed
to the 100-yard field in Eagle Stadium. Because of the shorter yardage,
they are able to have two fields for two simultaneous games.
The Pecos Lions Club is planning on cooking hamburgers with all proceeds
going back to the PeeWee program. There will also be a concession stand.
The PeeWee program will put the young players in pads and helmets, and
was last available in Pecos 19 years ago. It has brought out 150-160 kids
to make up eight teams, including one team from Balmorhea.
The teams are broken up into four teams in the third and fourth grade
division and four teams for fifth and sixth grades.
Other towns in the area such as Monahans and Andrews have always had
the full-contact youth football program. Baeza said he and some other community
members had been working on bringing the PeeWee program to Pecos since
October 1999.
The PeeWee program is working side-by-side with the Reeves County Recreation
Department and has the Board members. The Board members include Baeza and
Benavides, Vice-President Gary Grubbs, Secretary Paul Deishler, Raul Palomino,
Alvaro Herrera and John Salcido.
Baeza said the purpose of the PeeWee program is to teach the kids the
fundamentals of football so they could go into seventh grade football easier.
"It's not about competition, it's about community development, the fundamentals
of football and getting pride back to Pecos," he said. "We're not just
showing them the football but things they need in life like discipline
and maturity."
Baeza said the Board is keeping track of the kids' grades and if their
grades suffer they discuss with the parents and child the possibility of
stepping away from the field until grades improve.
He said they would not implement the No Pass No Play policy but would
encourage the kids to keep their grades up.
"This is preparing them for seventh grade where they have no pass no
play," Baeza said.
Baeza said that Pecos needs this program and they are hoping to get
more pride back to students here, along with getting them excited about
football and motivating them to continue playing all the way through Varsity
in high school.
He said the Board wants the kids to know the experience of playing in
Eagle Stadium so all the games on October 7, the week the varsity football
team is idle, would be held there.
Benavides said the PeeWee program might have some impact on high school
football in the future and said the football staff at PHS supports the
PeeWee program.
"They are supporting us 100 percent," he said.
Benavides said the varsity coaching staff even conducted a clinic for
the kids and coaches this summer.
Baeza said the PeeWee program would not be here without the support
of the City and County and invites all community members to see the parade
and watch the games.
RCDC water line project almost complete
By ROSIE FLORES
Staff Writer
PECOS, September 21, 2000 - Seal coating on several streets in Pecos
is set to begin next week, while work on the city's new water line will
be completed this week.
"We should be through by Friday with the water line," said Town of Pecos
City Utilities Director Octavio Garcia about the 1½-mile long line,
which runs from Eddy and Lincoln streets west to the Reeves County Detention
Center.
The line is needed to supply adequate water to the new 1,000-bed addition
scheduled to open later this month at the RCDC. The extension, runs along
the Lincoln Street drainage canal from Eddy Street to the Balmorhea Highway,
and from there south to Locker Road and the RCDC.
City employees are installing 16 inch, C-900 PVC Pipe along the highway
and the pipe will carry water to the storage tanks at the RCDC.
About 7,000 feet of pipe is being installed as part of the project.
Employees lack about 100 more feet of the pipe to be installed, according
to Garcia. "They're trying to install the 12-inch valve to connect the
16-inch line," said Garcia. "It will probably be connected tomorrow."
"We've been working on it daily and have been working late hours to
try to finish up this project," said street and water foreman Ray Orona.
"We're making real good progress."
City crews began the project in early summer and will be working late
again today, to tie in the 12-inch line, according to Orona.
"We're planning to be through with this project by tomorrow and water
will be flowing through the lines by the afternoon," said Orona.
The line will be in service by Friday afternoon, and will connect to
an elevated storage tank and a ground storage tank at the RCDC.
The project was begun under a March agreement between the city and county
to provide water for the new 1,000-bed addition to the RCDC, which will
double the current capacity to 2,000 inmates.
The city and county worked out the plan earlier this year, after going
through mediation in Austin over a dispute centering on payments by the
county to the city for water use at the prison. The county is helping provide
funds for the city to use towards getting grants to develop the new South
Worsham Water Field, under terms of the agreement.
Right after the water line is completed, the city plans to begin work
on the annual seal-coating projects. Repaving will begin next week, with
several Pecos streets targeted for the `facelift.'
"They'll start on that project either Monday or Tuesday of next week,"
said Garcia.
Crews from Jones Brothers Construction of Odessa will handle the work,
with the first street targeted being 12th Street, from Cedar
Street to Martinez Street on the east side of town. Crews will also be
working on Second Street, from Cedar to Alamo streets, and two sections
of Fourth Street, on the east side from Cedar to Pine streets and on the
west side from Eddy Street to the Balmorhea Highway.
"Then they'll do 14th, Ash and Pecan, Walnut between 14th
and 15th, from Walnut and Pecan," said Orona, running down the
other streets involved in the seal-coating job.
Orona stated that they have 15 working days to complete this particular
project. "They'll finish up at Bois D'Arc," he said. "They'll complete
it there and finish the seal-coating and clean-up."
Drivers are advised to avoid those streets while the seal-coating work
is underway, and to slow down while driving on them over the next few weeks,
in order to avoid windshield damage from flying rocks.
Richardson plans WIPP announcement Friday
PECOS, September 21, 2000 - U.S. Energy Secretary Bill Richardson will
be at the Waste Isolation Pilot Plant near Carlsbad, N.M. on Friday to
make an announcement about operations at the facility, the Department of
Energy announced this morning.
Richardson and other officials are scheduled to make the announcement
at the WIPP site, located 75 miles north of Pecos, at 3 p.m. CDT on Friday.
The DOE offered no further information about Richardson's visit, but
local officials were told back in May that the first radioactive waste
shipments to WIPP that will travel through Pecos were scheduled to begin
in September.
WIPP is the project begun over 20 years ago by the DOE to bury low-level
radioactive waste in salt caverns, located 2,150 feet underground east
of the Pecos River, in Eddy County, N.M. Legal action, both by environmental
groups and by the State of New Mexico, against the government slowed final
approval of the site, and the first shipments did not arrive at WIPP until
March of 1999.
Five government-operated sites in the Western United States where low-level
radioactive waste is stored are scheduled to ship that waste to the WIPP
site over the next 30 years, while five other sites in the Eastern United
States will also sent radioactive materials there for burial. Trucks hauling
waste from those locations are scheduled to travel through Texas along
Interstate 20, exiting at Pecos and then traveling north through town along
U.S. 285 to Loving, N.M.
No waste has been sent to the WIPP site as of yet from any of the five
eastern locations, but local emergency management crews have been training
for the past several years for when the first trucks begin traveling through
Pecos.
Mike Rutherford, Emergency Planner for the Texas Department of Health,
said in May that the DOE chose that area for many reasons.
"That area has been geologically stable for millions of years," Rutherford
said.
The stability of the area, bedded salt, depth, absence of water and
the remote region all factored into the current site being chosen.
Rutherford said there has been a great deal of precaution in the transportation
of this radioactive material.
The material will be stored in type
School changes spring calendar sales company
PECOS, September 21, 2000 - Pecos-Barstow-Toyah school officials want local
businesses to know that Calendar Girl Sports Productions is the only company
authorized by the school district to sell ads for its spring athletic sports
calendar.
Pecos High School student Nicole Payne is assisting Debbie Honeycutt
of Calendar Girl Sports Productions in selling the ads for the spring sports
poster. Honeycutt said $1,000 from ad sales will go towards a scholarship
for a Pecos High School Student.
Calendar Girl does the poster-sized calendars for other school districts
across Texas, including the Ector County ISD. Previous calendar sales for
P-B-T had been through Athletes World.
Obituary
Anabel Matta
Services are incomplete for Anabel Matta, 37, of Pecos, who died Wednesday,
Sept. 20, 2000.
Pecos Funeral Home is in charge of arrangements.
Weather
PECOS, September 21, 2000 - High Wednesday 92. Low this morning 58. Forecast
for tonight: Partly cloudy. Low around 60. South wind 5-15 mph. Friday:
Partly cloudy, warm and breezy. High 90-95. South wind 15-25 mph and gusty.
Friday night: Mostly clear. Lows 60-65. Saturday: Partly cloudy. Highs
in the mid 80s to lower 90s. Sunday: Partly cloudy: Breezy: And much cooler.
Lows in the 50s. Highs 65-75.
Pecos Enterprise
York M. "Smokey" Briggs, Publisher
Division of Buckner News Alliance, Inc.
324 S. Cedar St., Pecos, TX 79772
Phone 915-445-5475, FAX 915-445-4321
e-mail news@pecos.net
Associated Press text, photo, graphic, audio and/or video material shall not be published, broadcast, rewritten for broadcast or publication or redistributed directly or indirectly in any medium.
Copyright 2000 by Pecos Enterprise
|
