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Newspaper and Travel Guide
for Pecos Country of West Texas
Tuesday, September 9, 2008
Menudo cookoff event added to 16th of September Fiestas
A new event has been added to this year’s 16th of September Fiestas, which will take place at the Santa Rosa Catholic Church parking lot this coming weekend.
This year’s events will include a Menudo cookoff and the festivities are scheduled to begin on Friday and run through Sunday. Entry fee for the cookoff is $20 and individuals can register at the church office.
Trophies will be awarded to first, second and third places.
Menudo cooks are urged to register early in order to secure a space at the fiestas. Several individuals have already signed up to participate, according to organizers of the event.
Entry deadline is at 5 p.m. this Wednesday, Sept. 10.
Contact person is Anita Baeza who can be reached at 448-6158. or go to the church office, 620 E. Fourth St., or call 445-2309.
A group from San Antonio, Juan Ramos y Puro Principe, will be on hand all three days to perform for the fiesta goers.
Other booths will be selling gorditas, burritos, corn on the cob, funnel cakes and many more items. Toy and novelty booths will also be set up around the parking lot.
Danza Folklorica will be performing on the cordoned off dance floor, along with Mariachis.
A raffle is also being held in conjunction with the Fiestas.
Tickets are being sold for $5 a ticket for a chance to win a 2008 Chevrolet Silverado. Second place is a 42-inch plasma television and a $500 gift card will be given to the seller of the first place winning ticket.
Court orders review of suit on water rates
A recent ruling by a state Appeals Court in Austin allow Reeves County to have its water rate fight against the Town of Pecos City heard by the Texas Commission on Environmental Quality.
The Third Court of Appeals reversed a ruling by a district court judge in Austin, who ruled that the TECQ did not have to review t he request due to irregularities in the county’s petition. However, the Aug. 28 ruling does not affect the current financial status of the three-year-old suit between the county and city, pending the new review by the TECQ.
County Commissioner Precinct 1 Roy Alvarado said that the suit was filed over the city’s decision in December of 2005 to sharply raise water rates to its customers, both inside and outside the city limits.
“When the new rates went in to effect it caused a huge negative impact on your county’s budget. In order to keep from having to petition TCEQ, we first attempted to review the rate study ourselves,” said Alvarado, one of two commissioners currently serving when the original suit was filed. “During this 90 day period on Dec. 12, 2005, we hired our own Water Rate Analyst (Barada Sarma) to review the city’s water rate study which is what the new water and wastewater rates were based on.”
Alvarado said that Sarma requested data from the city to conduct his analysis and was unable to finalize his review and provide a full report with the data he was provided. His findings were the excessive fund transfers out of the utilities budget and that the study did not justify a fair allocation of class.
“Based on his findings and an incomplete study, we felt that it merited a full review, so before the 90 day period expired, several of the out-of-city residents and Reeves County petitioned TCEQ to review the city’s rate study,” Alvarado said.
“After we submitted our petition, requesting a review, TCEQ later responded with a letter of deficiency, noting that our petition was incomplete and could not be accepted for filing. They allowed us to resubmit and determined that the petition request was still incomplete and would not be reviewed. This is when we filed suit against TCEQ in Travis County’s 345th Judicial District’s Court in order to get them to review the rate study,” said Alvarado.
At Austin, Travis County District Judge Darlene Byrne ruled in favor of TCEQ. Alvarado said after consulting with the county’s attorneys, he county chose to file the appeal to the Austin’s Court of Appeals.
“Our case was heard on May 28, 2008. On Aug. 28, 2008, a judgment was rendered, ruling in favor of Reeves County. The courts opinion orders ‘that TCEQ’s decision and the Travis court’s judgment be reversed,’” said Alvarado. “Unless this decision is appealed, TCEQ is to honor our petition and review the city’s rate study. The appellee (TOPC and TCEQ), have the option to file a motion for rehearing or petition the Texas Supreme Court for rehearing.”
“As one of your county’s budget officers, I felt that it is our obligation to have this rate study reviewed,” Alvarado said. “Our efforts have always been, to seek justification of the rates. This unfortunately resulted in he city’s reluctance to proceed with several joint projects until we abandoned our efforts in pursuing the rate study review. We will continue working together with Pecos city, our county’s two other cities, agencies, organizations and the other taxing entities.”
Town of Pecos City Manager Joseph Torres said that the 26-page appeals court opinion only deals with the county’s right to have their appeal heard by TECQ, and doesn’t reverse the other parts of Judge Byrne’s ruling in favor of the city on their rate hike.
“Basically, it’s back in TECQ’s court to hear their appeal,” he said, adding that the issue involves the rates charged to the 10 percent of water users outside the city limits.
The city voted to increase water rates in 2005 in order to pay for state-mandated improvements to water and sewer lines in the city, and the construction of a new wastewater treatment plant on the east side of the city. The city also will assume payment of the final 10 years of the 20-year, $8 million loan by the Texas Water Development Board for the construction of the new South Worsham Water field.
Then- County Judge Jimmy Galindo said at the time that the deal was reached in 2001 in order to provide adequate water supplies to both city customers and to the Reeves County Detention Center, which accounts for17 percent of the city’s water use, but that the deal also limited transfer of water and sewer funds by the city to the general fund to only $500,000 per year. He said under the rate changes, $500,000 was transferred to the general fund from the water rate fund, while $670,000 was put in the city’s General Fund from the sewer rate revenues, which he said was a breach of the 2001 agreement..
“This is a breach of our agreement, and it’s an indirect tax of 55 cents to the whole community,” Galindo said. “Not only does this represent a breach, but they’ve been breaching the agreement for the last three years.”
Galindo said the water and sewer rate funds should be kept to fund the cost of the state-mandated infrastructure projects, and to build up a fund towards 2011, when Pecos will take over the annual $422,000 loan repayment for the South Worsham water field.
Extension plans outlined to commissioners
Getting more students interested in a variety of programs is the main goal of the new Reeves County Extension Agent.
Logan Lair, the new extension agent, was on hand at the regular Reeves County Commissioners Court meeting, held Monday at the courthouse.
Lair, who took over as the county extension agent in March, talked the group about both the FFA Program and 4-H.
“Statistics on the stock show indicate that they raised $153,000 last year, out of that only five percent is kept and the rest goes to the kids,” said Lair. The kids then use the money towards scholarships, buying animals or for the maintenance of them.
“They can use the money for anything that they want,” said Lair. “In 2007, they raised $103,000, an increase of about $50,000, which is due to the oil business, they love to give money to the kids.”
He said that his next order of business was to go the school board meetings and to other organizations to garner more interest in the many programs he plans to install and work on.
“I’m going to try to impact youth through a water program, that will focus on water conservation and relate it to livestock,” said Lair.
He said that he was going to try to recruit more individuals to join the programs and advertise more both in the newspaper and on the radio.
“I just found out that we have a community channel. I’d like to start putting things in there,” he said.
Lair said that he has been getting from two to three calls a day from individuals that want to be in the program.
“One of my big goals is to get interest back in the community, but I need to get organized first,” he said.
Lair said that this year instead of having a big club, they were going to break it up in to smaller groups.
“We’ll have different clubs and each one will have their own officers, their owns funds and agendas,” said Lair. “I think this way we can reach more kids, if they were broken up in to smaller groups.”
Lair said that he would also like to form an archery club.
“I’ve been in contact with a company that will provide free bows, we just have to buy the arrows for them,” he said. “I’ve had several individuals express an interest in archery,” he said.
Another club he plans to form is a horse club. “We’ll have regular clinics and play days, it’s going to be a lot of fun,” he said.
Lair said that things are taking off slow, especially since he doesn’t have a secretary, but that he plans to work really hard.
“We have about six applications for that position and need to start interviewing so that we can get the ball rolling,” said Lair.
“Eventually we’ll get on track,” he said.
In other action on Monday, commissioners listened to an update from attorney Mark Flowers, with Linebarger, the tax collection agency used by the different entities in Reeves County.
“We do our best to collect all the back taxes,” said Flowers, who talked to commissioners about resale property.
“You have your sales through the sheriff’s department, where they auction off property struck off to the county, city or hospital, but I was contacted by Mr. (Pecos-Barstow-Toyah ISD Superintendent Manny) Espino about possibly having a foreclosure sale and accepting minimum bids,” said Flowers.
He said that they try different methods of putting these properties back on the tax roll, including through individual sales such as the ones conducted by the sheriff’s department.
Flowers explained to the group how the minimum bid sales could be handled and stated that if the county wanted to join in the sales along with the city, hospital and school, they could offer a minimum bid as well.
“That way we could conduct a massive sale, but consider each property on an individual basis. There might be some property that you might want to allocate towards economic development,” he said.
“You don’t have to participate, but the city and the school have already have expressed an interest,” said Flowers.
City officials talked about the plan with Flowers in August, but said they wanted to try and recover some of the costs incurred by the city for building demolition and clean-up costs at the foreclosed property sites.
Flowers told commissioners that they could look at all the properties on the list individually and decide what minimum bid they want to accept.
“What is a number that the court would accept for such property,” said Flowers.
He said that they could summarize all the information for the group to consider and bring it back to the court for their approval.
Bradley reflecting on life after loss, injury
Velma Bradley hit the ground running when she came to Pecos in 1982, and she didn't stop until God knocked her down and broke her hip earlier this year.
"He said, 'That's as far as you are going,'" Bradley said.
The hip has mended, but Bradley is being still and listening to God speak through the Bible, through friends and family, and through life lessons she sees on television.
"This has been quite a year, all topsy-turvey," said Bradley.
First, her husband, Bobby, died of cancer in February. While she was still trying to wind up his affairs, she broke her hip. Recuperating slowly, she has sorted through all their papers, discarded unused furniture and made plans to refurbish her house.
Bradley purchased the former West Texas State School residence from her father, Foster Covington, Jr., whose wife's terminal illness brought her to Pecos. It was one of three officers' quarters moved in the 1950s to a location on Teague Street, near the Pecos Housing Authority administration building.
Bradley worked 13 years at WTSS, retiring in 1995 to work in daycare, then as a private-duty nurse and housekeeper. She is better known for her cooking and administrative skills in serving Thanksgiving and Christmas dinner through the Christian Home's ministry.
In the meantime, she and Bobby raised their grandson, Jarvis, who is now a college student in Midland.
With the house quiet and demands on her time few, Bradley spends hours each day watching television.
"I see all the things going on with people in the world; how people react in different situations. Some have mental problems; have deep problems that cause people to become murderers and do all kinds of crazy things because of things that happened in the past," she said. "I see how they overcome deep problems because they don't give up.
"I experience a lot of life," she said. "Television can teach you if you look at it through the eyes of the Holy Spirit. You can learn how to love and to forgive; how blessed you are when you observe what other people go through and have been through. You see how blessed you were all your life, and I am blessed."
Bradley has been through her own rough times as the daughter of a minister who moved from town to town and from small church to small church.
"Sometimes there was nobody there but the deacon and my brother and me."
She has been on her own since the age of 13, but she knew God was with her.
"God touched me one day when I was about 8 and I joined the church, but I really found Christ when I was in my 20s," she said.
She taught Sunday school, missions, sang in the choir, directed plays, wrote plays, did computing, made components for lights and bombs; "Did a little bit of everything. Worked in a restaurant, cooked, cleaned, raised kids. I have had an all-around, full life."
Her children are Frederick Covington, Richard Campbell and Elizabeth Lyttle. Bobby's children are Janet Bradley and Eric Bradley.
"You can tell by my children's names how many times I was married," said Bradley. "In my growing-up and traveling I have met many beautiful friends. To some I became Mom, so I have many daughters and sons whom I am blessed to love and them to love me.
"I have had good times, bad times, rough times, the whole malarkey," she said. "I thank God He walked me through and kept me as I came through."
She recalls the community dinners as her joy. Even after the Christian Home stopped serving the free meals as a "thank you" to supporters, Bradley and Petra Lofton organized a small group of volunteers last year to prepare the meal at the Christian Home and deliver it to Meals on Wheels clients.
"I really want to thank everybody for all the time they worked with me and helped me. It was a joyful time, and I will always remember it. It made my holidays.
"Where I'm going from here I don't know. I have no idea what God's plan is for my life, so I am being still and waiting to see what God wants the rest of my life for."
Bradley reflecting on life after loss, injury
Velma Bradley hit the ground running when she came to Pecos in 1982, and she didn't stop until God knocked her down and broke her hip earlier this year.
"He said, 'That's as far as you are going,'" Bradley said.
The hip has mended, but Bradley is being still and listening to God speak through the Bible, through friends and family, and through life lessons she sees on television.
"This has been quite a year, all topsy-turvey," said Bradley.
First, her husband, Bobby, died of cancer in February. While she was still trying to wind up his affairs, she broke her hip. Recuperating slowly, she has sorted through all their papers, discarded unused furniture and made plans to refurbish her house.
Bradley purchased the former West Texas State School residence from her father, Foster Covington, Jr., whose wife's terminal illness brought her to Pecos. It was one of three officers' quarters moved in the 1950s to a location on Teague Street, near the Pecos Housing Authority administration building.
Bradley worked 13 years at WTSS, retiring in 1995 to work in daycare, then as a private-duty nurse and housekeeper. She is better known for her cooking and administrative skills in serving Thanksgiving and Christmas dinner through the Christian Home's ministry.
In the meantime, she and Bobby raised their grandson, Jarvis, who is now a college student in Midland.
With the house quiet and demands on her time few, Bradley spends hours each day watching television.
"I see all the things going on with people in the world; how people react in different situations. Some have mental problems; have deep problems that cause people to become murderers and do all kinds of crazy things because of things that happened in the past," she said. "I see how they overcome deep problems because they don't give up.
"I experience a lot of life," she said. "Television can teach you if you look at it through the eyes of the Holy Spirit. You can learn how to love and to forgive; how blessed you are when you observe what other people go through and have been through. You see how blessed you were all your life, and I am blessed."
Bradley has been through her own rough times as the daughter of a minister who moved from town to town and from small church to small church.
"Sometimes there was nobody there but the deacon and my brother and me."
She has been on her own since the age of 13, but she knew God was with her.
"God touched me one day when I was about 8 and I joined the church, but I really found Christ when I was in my 20s," she said.
She taught Sunday school, missions, sang in the choir, directed plays, wrote plays, did computing, made components for lights and bombs; "Did a little bit of everything. Worked in a restaurant, cooked, cleaned, raised kids. I have had an all-around, full life."
Her children are Frederick Covington, Richard Campbell and Elizabeth Lyttle. Bobby's children are Janet Bradley and Eric Bradley.
"You can tell by my children's names how many times I was married," said Bradley. "In my growing-up and traveling I have met many beautiful friends. To some I became Mom, so I have many daughters and sons whom I am blessed to love and them to love me.
"I have had good times, bad times, rough times, the whole malarkey," she said. "I thank God He walked me through and kept me as I came through."
She recalls the community dinners as her joy. Even after the Christian Home stopped serving the free meals as a "thank you" to supporters, Bradley and Petra Lofton organized a small group of volunteers last year to prepare the meal at the Christian Home and deliver it to Meals on Wheels clients.
"I really want to thank everybody for all the time they worked with me and helped me. It was a joyful time, and I will always remember it. It made my holidays.
"Where I'm going from here I don't know. I have no idea what God's plan is for my life, so I am being still and waiting to see what God wants the rest of my life for."
Rangers’ gravesites receiving new memorials
Four former Texas Rangers and an honorary member of the group from the Trans-Pecos area were honored on Saturday, during a Texas Rangers Memorial Cross Ceremony held at the West of the Pecos Museum.
Several recently retired Rangers, and family members of the four Rangers being honored were in attendance for the ceremony, held in the museum’s courtyard. Those honored were R.S. Johnson, Joe Seay, “Sully” Ikard and Edd Hollebeck, along with honorary member John H. Wilson.
Wilson died in 1987, and was recognized for his work with the Rangers while living as a rancher in the Pyote area, where he kept a museum on his ranch that included several items of historic Texas Rangers memorabilia. He was named as an honorary member of the law enforcement group in 1985.
Ikard and Hollebeck served with the Rangers in 1918-1919, while Johnson and Seay were members of the group in the 1870s.
“This building was built by retired Texas Ranger R.S. Johnson,” said West of the Pecos Museum Director Debbie Thomas, who introduced the speakers at the ceremony. “He built the ’06 Saloon, which we enjoyed (during a reception Friday night), and then built this building, which was the former Orient Hotel.”
“I’ve learned so much about the Texas Rangers tradition in the last three months,” said Thomas, before going over the backgrounds of the four honorees.
She said family members of Seay and Ikard were unable to come to Pecos for the ceremony. Seay lived in the Toyah area and was involved in the capture of outlaw Sam Bass during his time in Company ‘E’ of the Rangers, in 1876-77. Ikard and Hollebeck both joined the force during World War I, where part of their duties included guarding the southern border with Mexico against any entry into the United States by German agents. Ikard would later work as a ranch hand in the Lower Toyah Creek area, while Hollebeck was brought to the U.S. from Belgium by his parents, and lived in San Antonio, Midland and in Gaines County, where he helped start the city of Seminole.
The ceremony opened with a proclamation read by Pecos Mayor Dick Alligood designating Saturday as Texas Rangers Day in Pecos, while Capt. Grady Sessums from the Texas Rangers Association explained to the audience during his address what the group’s goals are and how they plan to built an education facility in Kerrville that would have information about the Rangers’ 185-year history.
Sessums said the Association is made up of all former Texas Rangers and their lineal descendants. “The mission of the Texas Rangers Association is to locate and identify all Texas Rangers from 1823 to today, and locate the graves of the former Texas Rangers,” he said.
“We’ve done over 300 of them, along with one in California, one in New Mexico and one in Oklahoma” he said. “Wherever we find them, we furnish a cross, and we guarantee a Ranger or a former Texas Ranger will be at that ceremony.”
“After all the prayers have been said and the songs been sung, this is the only thing we can do to keep their memories alive,” Sessums added.
Two of the memorials have already been put in place at Fairview Cemetery, while the cross for Seay will be placed at the Cowboy Cemetery just outside of town.
Both Sessums and Al Mitchell, another former Ranger and Association member, talked about the cross and the horseshoes welded onto the markers, which are to be placed at the gravesites of all the former Rangers.
“We did that on purpose, when we honor a Ranger,” Mitchell said. “If he was a member of the horseback Rangers, two of the horseshoes are above ground. If he came in later, the horseshoes are beneath the ground.”
“It’s going to take a lot of efforts to pull it out of the ground and tear it up,” Sessums said. He added that the memorials originally cost $25 each, but the price has climbed to $100, with funds coming first from the Texas Historical Association, and later from a donation from the Texas Rangers Historical Society, when they group disbanded and their funds were turned over to the Texas Rangers Association.
Mitchell said he was based in Midland, and was friends with Joe Coleman, the last Texas Ranger to end his career assigned to the Pecos office, before the Texas Department of Public Safety moved the area’s Texas Ranger office to Fort Stockton in the early 1990s.
“Joe and I developed a very close personal relationship, and Joe Coleman developed a very close personal relationship with Johnny Wilson,” Mitchell said.
Sessums said the planned historical and education center in Kerrville would allow school classes across Texas to go online to learn about the history of the organization, which he said is unknown to many people in the state.
Along with the ceremony, Saturday’s event also included a book-signing event by Mike Cox, the agency’s former spokesman who is working on his second volume of a history of the Texas Rangers, and Joaquin Jackson, who served as a Ranger for many years, including his assignment to the Alpine area.
Jackson’s books, “One Ranger” and “One Ranger Returns,” are about his time with the law enforcement agency. The first volume of Cox’s history on the Rangers, covers 1820-1900. During Saturday’s ceremony, he explained that the Rangers were originally set up to protect settlers from hostile Indian tribes, and that the last Ranger killed by a Comanche occurred in Midland in 1878, while the last battle between the Rangers and the Apaches occurred in the Diablo Mountains to the West of Pecos in 1881.
“After that, they began the transition into a law enforcement agency,” Cox said.
Pecos Enterprise
York M. "Smokey" Briggs, Publisher
324 S. Cedar St., Pecos, TX 79772
Phone 432-445-5475, FAX 432-445-4321
e-mail news@pecos.net
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Copyright 2003-04 by Pecos Enterprise
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