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Archive 2004

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Newspaper and Travel Guide
for Pecos Country of West Texas

Tuesday, December 21, 2004

Local doctor adopting family for Christmas

By ROSIE FLORES
Staff Writer

One physician in the community is making a family’s Christmas just a little bit brighter.

Dr. Oladele Olusanya has “adopted” a family this Christmas, something he plans to do every year.

“This is the first year that he does this, but he wants to make it a tradition,” said office manager Lisa Perea.

She said that the family was chosen by their status and because they have been patients of Dr. Dele since he opened his practice in Pecos in 2002.

“We had looked at several patients who are low income and this was also a family who have been our patients since he opened the clinic,” said Perea.

Dr. Dele bought gifts for the entire family and they were handed out during the annual Christmas office party held Saturday at the doctor’s home.

“We had them make a ‘wish’ list and they received everything on that list,” said Perea. The family that was the recipient of such generosity was the Rivas family. The family includes parents Jesse and Delfa Rivas and their two children, Esmi Rodriguez and Zoe Rivas.

“I think he’s a great doctor, the best in town,” said Delfa Rivas.

Esmi Rodriguez said she enjoyed visiting the doctor and was very happy with all her gifts.

Dr. Dele said that Pecos was a very nice town to live and work in and that he has enjoyed being here.

“This inspired me to do something special this holiday season,” said Dr. Dele. “I have known some very good patients who inspire me, they are so loving and warm,” he said. Dr. Dele said that everybody in the community has been very helpful, friendly and supportive of him. “I just want to give a little back,” he said.

“Little Zoe loves to come see her doctor,” said Dr. Dele. “This makes me really happy,” he said.

Dr. Dele plans to stay in Pecos and plans to make his “adoption of a family during Christmas,” a yearly event and a tradition.

“I love all my patients and have some very good friends in the community,” said Dr. Dele.

Dr. Dele also credited his staff for his success. “I have a great staff and I owe to them as well,” said Dr. Dele. “Lisa is an excellent office manager and a good friend.”

Dr. Dele has two children, a daughter Yetsy and a son, Olaide.

Staff members include office manager, Lisa Perea, and employees, Darlene Barreno, Genice Perea and Diana Rodriguez.

Christian Home seeks food, help for holiday meal

Some local businesses will be getting an early start on Christmas at the end of this week, while the Pecos Christian Home is still in need of both food donations and volunteers on Saturday to help with preparation and delivery of meals to local residents on Christmas Day.

The Christian Home annual serves free dinners on Christmas and Thanksgiving at te Reeves County Civic Center, along with delivering food to Meals on Wheels residents, while that agency’s regular workers take the day off. And while the local economy has shown signs of improvement in recent months, the number of people taking advanatage of the free holday dinners on Thanksgiving was almost 600, about 50 percent higher than the previous year.

Local volunteer Velma Bradley said for Saturday’s Christmas dinner, “We need about 10 more turkeys and we need some desserts and some bread.”

As far as volunteers, she said, “We need some helpers to put the food out at 6 o’clock and to deliver the meals. They need to be there by 8 a.m. or by 8:30 at the latest.”

Bradley said the Meals on Wheels dinners would be prepared first, before 10 a.m., and after that meals will be available for take-out at the Civic Center, or to be eaten there. “Bascially, everybody just needs to bring their love,” Bradley said of the annual event, which fed over 350 people a year ago.

Aside from the Meals of Wheels deliveries taking Saturday off, several businesses and stores will be closed on Friday, Christmas Eve, or will leave early that day in anticipation of the holy holiday.

Trans Pecos Bank will close on Friday and be open from 9 a.m. until 3 p.m., Thursday. West Texas National Bank will open Friday, from 9 a.m. until noon.

Both grocery stores, Bob’s Thriftway and La Tienda will close on Saturday, Christmas Day. The stores will be open from 7 a.m. until 7 p.m., on Friday, for last-minute grocery shoppers.

The Pecos Enterprise will also be closed on Friday and no edition will be out on that day. The next Enterprise edition will be on Tuesday, Dec. 28.

TxDOT hoping to reopen lanes on I-20

Texas Department of Transportation officials are hoping they’ll have seven miles of reopened highway ready for local drivers by Christmas, though crews that stopped repaving Interstate 20 between Pecos and the Pecos River last month will have to deal with an approaching cold front that’s expected to bring snow and freezing rain to the area in the middle of this week.

The seven-mile stretch of highway just east of Pecos is part of a 30-mile reconstruction project on the interstate in Reeves and Ward counties that began in the late spring. Work has been underway on redoing the area of the interstate through Pecos since October, but rain and cold weather put a stop to the project just before Thanksgiving, as work was almost completed on the right lane of the highway in both directions.

Jones Bros. Dirt & Paving Contractors, Inc., of Odessa was awarded the contract to rehabilitate the aging highway, and Glen Larum, public information officer for TxDOT’s Odessa district, said work was scheduled to resume this week on the section between the Pecos River and the Country Club Drive exit in Pecos.

“They’ll be back on Monday to put the mix down,” Larum said, though any work will have to be done before colder temperatures return Tuesday night.

A cold front is expected to being snow and possibly sleet to the Trans-Pecos by Wednesday morning, making it too cold to do final resurfacing work. A cold front in early October of 1998 shut down the eastbound lanes of I-20 in western Reeves County for several days, when the cold caused the highway’s new asphalt surface to be pulled up by passing trucks and thrown at trailing vehicles.

Temperatures Wednesday night are expected to drop as low as 20 degrees, while daytime highs aren’t expected to get back to 50 degrees until Christmas Day.

Unemployment, area’s job totals both show rise

By JON FULBRIGHT
Staff Writer

Reeves County’s jobless rate for November rose by four-tenths of a percent, according to figures released last Thursday by the Texas Workforce Commission.

The increase in the jobless rate came despite the addition of 65 new jobs within the county since October, the TWC said. The total number of people employed within the county went up from 4,740 to 4,805, but that was offset by a rise in the workforce, from 5,048 to 5,138, which increase unemployment from 6.1 to 6.5 percent.

October’s rate was the lowest in Reeves County in over 20 years, but the total number of jobs and the workforce also were at longtime lows, due to the losses of several major employers during the past decade. Unemployment in November 2002 was at 17.5 percent in Reeves County, when the county had an additional 1,200 workers and 450 additional jobs.

In the Town of Pecos City, the jobless rate rose from 6.5 to 7 percent in November. Like the county, the city added jobs during the month, adding 50 more people to the workforce. But that was offset by an increase of 72 people in the labor force, according to the TWC statistics.

Pecos County lost jobs, but also saw its workforce decline, and as a result, unemployment there fell from 4.5 to 4 percent in October. Crane County’s rate fell from 3.2 to 2.9 percent, as a loss of workers there also outpaced a smaller decline in jobs.

Ector County saw a tenth of a percent drop in joblessness, as its workforce declined by nearly 500 while the number of jobs dropped by 400. Midland County, meanwhile, lost about 300 workers and 400 jobs, which jumped its jobless rate from 3.2 to 3.3 percent. Other counties to see both their number of jobs and their unemployment rate rise included Presidio County, which added 60 jobs but saw its rate rise from 15.9 to 16.2 percent; Brewster County, which added 50 workers and 40 jobs, and saw its rate climb by one-tenth of a percent, to a still-low 1.8 percent, and Culberson County, which went from 8.4 to 9.2 percent.

Ward County added both jobs and workers in November, but was able to maintain its 4.5 percent jobless rate from the previous month, while Andrews County stayed at 3.1 percent, as it lost both 10 jobs and 10 workers from its labor force. Winkler County saw a decline in its number of jobs outpace a drop in the labor force, which increased its jobless rate from 4.7 to 5 percent.

Women’s Division selects Christmas lighting winners

It was a hard choice to make with so many beautiful decorated homes in the community, but members of the Women’s Division of the Pecos Area Chamber of Commerce came up with a list of winners for the 10 sections of Pecos, Barstow and the Lindsay Addition judges last Wednesday.

Each winner will be presented with a $25 “Pecos Bucks Gift Certificate” that can be used toward a purchase at any local business that is a member of the Pecos Chamber of Commerce.

The homes were divided into sections and the women drove all over the city choosing the most decorated homes in the community.

In Section 1, North Side, the winners were Mr. and Mrs. Ramiro Lopez of 323 N. Walnut.

Section 2, East of Cedar Street, North of Eighth Street, to South of Second Street, the winners were Mr. and Mrs. Joe Gomez of 733 Martinez Street.

Section 3, East of Cedar St. South Eighth St., to Hwy 20, Mr. and Mrs. Sergio Delgado, 806 E. Ninth Street.

Section 4, East of Eddy St., South of Second St., West of Cedar St., to Walthall, Mr. and Mrs. Albert Mendoza, 1116 S. Hickory.

Section 5, East of Eddy St., Dr. South of Walthall, to Hwy 20, Mr. and Mrs. Vicente Natividad, 2220 Country Club.

Section 6, West of Eddy St., to Hwy. 17, to Second St., Mr. and Mrs. Larry Windham, 1700 Jefferson St.

Section 7, West of Eddy St., to North of Veterans Blvd., to South of Jackson St., to Hwy. 17, Mr. and Mrs. Ignacio Ybarra, 1617 Missouri.

Section 8, West of Eddy St., to Hwy 17, to South of Veterans Blvd., to Hwy 20 including Maxey Park, Mr. and Mrs. Hector Campos, 2236 Wyoming.

Section 9, Lindsay Addition, Mr. and Mrs. Orona, 2401 Sandia St.

Block Winner was the 1800 Jefferson St. Each home on the block will receive a special memorable ornament.

The business winner will receive a special memorial ornament. The business winner is Best Western/Swiss Clock Inn.

Bickley family keeps education in forefront

By PEGGY MCCRACKEN
Staff Writer

Bob and Billie Bickley have dedicated their lives to education, and their children are following in their footsteps.

Actually, the tradition started with Bob’s father, Joe Bickley, a teacher and principal of several country schools in early-day Texas. He and his wife spent their last years in Pecos.

Grandson David Lumpkin has joined the family tradition, putting his Sul Ross University degree and teacher certification to good use in the Sylvan Learning Center in Midland. David’s mother, Martee Stuart, operates the center, which was recently awarded the prestigious President’s Circle and an “outstanding award for excellent service” for its Prometric Testing Center. The testing service for persons taking examinations in the medical, dental, legal and accounting professions ranks in the top 10 nationwide.

Sheila J. Pittman, center director, was also named Center Director of the Year at Sylvan’s 25th Anniversary Conference in Las Vegas. She was chosen from among more than 1,000 center directors in the United States, Canada, Korea, Hong Kong, Puerto Rico and Guam. Ms. Stuart and Lumpkin nominated Pittman for “her penchant for details and her drive to make the implementation of our programs perfect.”

The Bickleys have another daughter, Linda Bickley Hayes, who teaches at Socorro High School in El Paso. She sent them one of her poems last week, titled “A visit from the school board (“Twas the Night Before Christmas Break.”)

Billie Bickley remembers what school was like before the Christmas holidays. She tells about an especially hectic Christmas party when a parent brought a piñata with no candy inside to her sixth-grade classroom. She received the “dedicated service to children” award in 1981.

Bob Bickley, a graduate of McMurry University, managed the cottonoil mill from the late 1940s until it closed in 1982. He has since served the Trans Pecos Cotton Growers Association as executive director and also served as Town of Pecos City Mayor in the early 1980s.

He and Stuart are partners in the Sylvan Learning Center franchise. They were on their way to Midland in 1985 to sign the lease contract when both were injured in a wreck that left him crippled and Stuart with a broken clavicle and shoulder.

“When the furniture started coming in, she took the brace off her arm and started putting furniture together to get this thing started,” Bickley said. “She’s done well.”

Not only has she done well in teaching, but also in her professional relationship with her son, he said.

“She told him that the kids can come in sweaty from basketball practice, or even muddy, but employees can’t. So he went out and bought a white shirt and necktie,” he said.

Children from pre-school through college who need special tutoring come to the center after classes. They are tested to determine what areas they need remedial studies in, said Billie Bickley.

Each teacher has space for only three children at her semi-circle desk, so she gives them individual attention.

“They have a little store where they can spend vouchers given for good work,” she said. “We have no discipline problems. When parents pay a pretty good price, they are going to tell the kids, ‘You’d better learn something,’” she said.

Bob Bickley said they have never had any complaints about the product. “It is well accepted,” he said. Public school teachers who work at the center after hours like it so well they don’t want to go back to their classrooms, he said.

So successful is the franchised program that Stuart is taking in more space for the third time, Bickley said.

Stuart, a graduate of Pecos High School and UTEP, said the center’s mission is to “provide our students with a nurturing educational environment that will promote a life-long love for learning. Our instruction in basic skills and high level thinking skills will create self-disciplined, independent and confident learners.”

Marriages

Marriages for October 2004, as filed with the Reeves County Clerk’s Office.

Jack Richard Ramsey and Nelda Phillips Nagel.

Christopher Matthew Barreno and Amy Marie Vela.

Daniel Lee Orosco and April Buentello.

Javier Jose Ortiz and Paula O. Sanchez.

Reynaldo Serrano, Jr. and Jennifer Marie Fuentes.

Oscar Rubio and Mary Esther Huerta.

Marriages for November 2004, as filed with the Reeves County Clerk’s Office.

Manuel Santillanes Morales and Yolanda Arragon.

Robert M. Cade and Jackie Lynn Thompson.

Martin Gonzales Chabarria and Soylareyna Hinojos Adame.

Ruben Rodriguez Montano and Vianca Monette Dutchover.

Jesus E. Franco and Ruby Rodriguez Carrasco.

Divorces

Divorces for November 2004, as filed with the Reeves County District’s Clerk’s Office.

Connie Carrasco and Guadalupe Urias.

Dora V. Quiette and Reginald Dean Quiett.

Yris R. Martinez and David L. Smith.

Robin Michelle LeBeouff and Gilbert LeBeouf, Jr.



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Pecos Enterprise
York M. "Smokey" Briggs, Publisher
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Phone 432-445-5475, FAX 432-445-4321
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