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Malakoff Students Nominated for National Scholarship Program

Malakoff ISD press release

Two Malakoff High School seniors and members of the Malakoff High School National Honor Society, Fernando Garcia and Tori Barker, have been nominated to compete in the National Honor Society scholarship program for this school year.

Martin Brumit, principal of Malakoff High School today announced the nominations. This year, the program will award more than $200,000 in college scholarships. Special recognition and additional awards will be presented to state and regional winners. One national recipient will receive a $13,000 award.

“Fernando is a great student and leader at MHS. We are proud of Fernando’s accomplishments, and we know he will continue to be successful in college,” said Mr. Brumit. “And Tori is a wonderful student and leader of MHS. She has been a great asset to our school and community. She will accomplish great things in the future.”

High school National Honor Society chapters from across the country were eligible to nominate a limited number of senior NHS members to compete. Nominees are selected on the basis of their leadership skills, participation in service organizations and clubs, achievements in the arts and sciences, and general academic record.

“Students nominated for the NHS scholarship not only demonstrate academic excellence, but also excel in the areas of service, leadership, and character,” said NHS Associate Director David Cordts. “In recognizing leadership in co-curricular activities as well as academic performance, the NHS Scholarship program highlights the importance of a well-rounded education.”

The NHS Scholarship program, in existence since 1946, annually recognizes 200 of the nation’s top high school seniors who are members of NHS.

While at Malakoff High School, Garcia has served as a class officer all four years, he currently serves as President of the National Honor Society, his grades keep him on the “A” honor roll, and he is ranked number one in his graduating class. He has also been involved in numerous community service projects, participates in UIL academics, and he has been able to keep a part-time job in the community. He plans to attend The University of Texas at Austin to study Business Administration.

Barker has been involved in several clubs and activities including the MHS band, track and powerlifting, a class officer, a student council officer, a member of the Spanish Club and FCCLA, as well as the National Honor Society, and she participates in UIL academics. She plans to attend The University of Texas at Tyler to study business management.

NHS is a program of NASSP, the nation’s preeminent school leadership organization. NASSP serves as the national voice for middle level and highs school principals, assistant principals, and aspiring school leaders. NASSP promotes the intellectual growth, academic achievement, character development, leadership development, and physical well-being of youth through its programs and student leadership services. NASSP administers the National Honor Society, and the National Association of Student Councils. For more information, visit www.nasssp.org or www.nhs.us.

Letter from Athens Mayor Jerry Don Vaught

((EDITOR’S NOTE: For background on this issue and a list of links to previous stories, click here.))

Dear Athens Residents,

I want to set the record straight concerning the City of Athens’ relationship with the Athens Municipal Water Authority (“AMWA”). You may have heard things or read articles or even advertisements paid for by AMWA’s own attorneys recently. Here are the facts:

Eliminating AMWA eliminates a tax. AMWA is a taxing entity. It collects property taxes separate and independent from the City of Athens. Eliminating AMWA will eliminate an unnecessary taxing entity and streamline our local government in the most efficient manner possible for the taxpayers and residents of Athens.
The City determined that the services and functions provided by AMWA can be more efficiently provided by the City staff. The City staff currently operates, maintains, and supervises repairs at the Lake Athens dam and reservoir, the water treatment plant, and other facilities necessary to provide water to the residents of Athens.
The City is dedicated to providing all services to Athens in the most efficient manner possible. After re-evaluating the City’s relationship with AMWA the Council determined that the tax revenues levied and collected by AMWA are an unnecessary tax burden on Athens residents since the City performs all operations and maintenance of the AMWA facilities.
As stated in the dissolution ordinance, the City Council determined that the dissolution of the Athens Municipal Water Authority would be in the best interests of Athens and its residents. This was for many reasons, some of which are expressed here. The vote to dissolve AMWA was done with a heavy and collective heart, but knowing it was best for our great town.
AMWA currently maintains approximately $4,800,000.00 in bank accounts and certificates of deposit, in addition to owning several pieces of property, including the dam at Lake Athens. AMWA itself has stated its assets exceed $8,000,000.00.
If AMWA is dissolved, all of these assets vest to the City. AMWA has stated that this money would be placed in the general operating fund of the City to fund City government and/or to construct additional City buildings. This is wrong on all levels. If AMWA is dissolved, its assets would be placed in the City’s utility fund for the sole purpose of preserving and protecting the City’s water supply for future generations in Athens.
The City will continue to study future water needs and will continue development of the water well farm and bring wells on line when needed to serve Athens. AMWA has not told you what they really want to do is sell water from the wells developed with public funds to customers other than the residents of Athens and then charge Athens additional fees for any water needed from these wells. Eliminating AMWA eliminates this threat and preserves our water for generations to come.
The City is in excellent fiscal condition. Our finances are audited each year by an independent accounting firm and they have repeatedly rated the City’s finances as excellent, including last year and routinely commend our City Staff for their outstanding management of public finances.
AMWA was created to sell bonds so the City could construct Lake Athens and the water treatment plant, along with other functions. Those bonds matured long ago and AMWA currently has no debt. AMWA has served its purpose. It appears AMWA intends to utilize facilities paid for by the residents of Athens to sell our most precious asset (water) to other customers other than Athens and still impose higher fees for Athenians. That isn’t right for Athens.
This is all public money and that’s a shame. AMWA’s Executive Director has stated that no taxpayer funds are being used in the lawsuit but he did not state that AMWA is utilizing public funds for legal counsel and the related expenses with this lawsuit. AMWA has two sources of income, ad valorem taxes and revenue Continue reading “Letter from Athens Mayor Jerry Don Vaught”

DAR Member Truly Patriotic

The Sarah Maples Chapter of the Daughters of the American Revolution are lucky to have as a member Susan Cothran. She and her husband, Dan, are the most patriotic couple we know. They belong to the Patriot Guard Riders and just recently participated in the “Snowball Express.” The Patriot Guard is a patriotic organization nationwide that honors, respects and stands for fallen veterans. Both Dan and Susan “stand tall” escorting soldiers both young and old at funerals in the East Texas area. They escort their bodies from airports to the funeral homes and attend veterans/patriotic ceremonies where people request a flag line, or a motorcycle escort. Dan retired from the Army after 25 years of service and Susan served her country for 33 years by working with military and state department children living overseas. One of the jobs of the Snowball Express is to look after more than 1,700 children of our fallen Military Heroes. This year they managed to give each child a leather vest so they could be like the adults who ride motorcycles. They also collected service patches so the kids could decorate the vests with them.

Susan’s other projects are tending to the Veterans Memorial in Mabank. She combines conservation, patriotism and crafting into something useful. This year she designed and made various wreaths for the Memorial to honor our great country’s heritage through art. She finds wreaths of different types in church and garage sales, then takes them apart and recycles what she can. She then adds her own touch of symbolic items and ribbons to make the wreaths special. She has wreaths for Christmas, Memorial Day, Independence Day, Veterans Day and Thanksgiving.

Susan believes our patriotic heritage is symbolized and honored by the use of the wreath. A wreath is the shape of a circle showing unity and completeness. Our patriots gave all for the unity of our country. It also shows no beginning or end. The various medium of vines, evergreens and foam signify the earth, traditions, order, truth and recycling. The colors used in the ribbons depend on the season but red, white, and blue promote the symbolism of our flag, our history and development of our country. Our flag and a POW/MIA flag are included. The seasonal colors of white for purity of sacrifice; gold for power, strength and trust, green for the environment, earth and renewal; red for the passion, love and energy of our country; brown for comfort and stability; blue for the heavens and peace.

By adding service patches, anchors, planes etc., and also flowers, berries, angels and other objects it shows respect, the cycles of life and God Above.

The Sarah Maples Chapter has a conservation project to keep the memorial gardens growing and beautiful with new plantings each year. Money for the project comes from collecting aluminum cans at each meeting and taking them to the recycle plant each month.

Around Malakoff: Play Highlights Life of Famous Artist

By Loretta Humble/Around the Town

I finally have something fun to tell you about. It’s about time. My friend John Walker finally came back from the wilds of Washington state where he has been visiting his daughter Susie. So I looked for something entertaining to lure him back to Malakoff. What I found was a notice of a one-woman show at the Jean Browne Theater at Tyler Junior College, called “O’Keeffe!”

Knowing how much my buddy Jo Ann Surls loves Georgia O’Keeffe, I called to see if she would go with us. Up till now she had refused to go anywhere with John and me, saying she didn’t want to be a fifth wheel, but when she heard who it was, she said she’d go with us anywhere for that.

Jo Ann served us mimosas at her house, then John drove us to Tyler in style in his mature Jaguar, where we had a really nice lunch, and then we started our search for the Jean Browne Theater. Now we knew it was at Tyler Junior College. But that didn’t keep us from spending 30 minutes driving around the campus, asking folks for directions before we finally found the theater. If there is a sign on the building, or one pointing towards it, we never saw either. Anyhow, we had allowed plenty of time, so we did find it. We had to walk quite a ways, but that didn’t hurt us. But I would suggest, if you head there for a show, get good directions before you go. You wouldn’t want to be late.

Once inside we were greeted by a friendly man named Dennis West, who introduced himself as producer, though we later found that he is also the husband of Carolyn Wickwire, the lady we came to see play Georgia O’Keeffe. A very recent husband, in fact, as he told us later they’ve only been married about five months. The reason this is interesting is that she is 77 years old. He is a few years younger, but he says she is far spryer than he is.

`She was magnificent! She couldn’t have been better. She was Georgia O’Keeffe on that stage. I’m not good as a reviewer, so I’m going to steal some lines from another reviewer from another town:

“O’Keeffe is surprisingly fresh and dynamic.

“The play reveals the often conflicted inner life and feelings of the world-famous artist Georgia O’Keeffe and leaves her well-known body of work well enough alone. Not one Kinko’s-enlarged, blurred print nor one clumsily painted attempt at reproduction sullies the performance.

“It’s an austere production, minimalist in setting, lights and props, allowing the ideas, dreams and perspectives of O’Keeffe, the woman, to flow through Wickwire’s nimble expressions as a masterful, versatile performance artist. Drawing from her voluminous correspondence, interviews and biographies, (the playwright) McDermott introduces O’Keeffe as a ghost, returned to speak directly to an audience.”

I just loved it. We got to visit them afterwards, and learned that this is just sort of their retirement pastime. They have another one planned where he gets to act a bit. It’s called “About Time,” featuring an old couple, just talking about everything as they face their mortality. It sounds humorous, sad, and wise. I would love to get them to bring it here. Cedar Lake might just be willing to underwrite it.

TVCC Employee to Appear on Television After Big Catch

TVCC administrative computing employee Jason Hanson (left) took Fox 4 reporter and Lone Star Adventures host Richard Ray out in his boat on Lake Athens this week. Hanson recently caught a 13.78-pound largemouth bass on Lake Athens, missing the lake record by less than one pound.

By Jayson Larson/TVCC Public Information

Jason Hanson is pretty good at catching fish – big fish. One of his recent catches is gaining him some big attention.

Hanson, who works in Administrative Computing as an i5 Server Administrator at Trinity Valley Community College, will be featured on an upcoming episode of KDFW’s (Fox 4 Dallas) “Lone Star Adventures.” The weekly television segment features unique but close-to-home gems of the Lone Star State.

Hanson was visited by Fox 4 reporter and Lone Star Adventures host Richard Ray on Wednesday. Ray talked to Hanson about his recent catch – a 13.76-pound largemouth bass reeled in on a near-freezing morning on Lake Athens on Dec. 28, 2013. Hanson submitted his catch to the Toyota ShareLunker program, headquartered at the Texas Freshwater Fisheries Center in Athens. Anglers can submit a largemouth bass to the program if it weighs 13 pounds or more. The Texas Parks and Wildlife Department then uses the fish for spawning purposes.

Hanson’s catch – which was 27.75 inches long with a girth of 20.25 – remains the only ShareLunker submitted by a Texas angler so far this season (two are from Oklahoma, one is from Louisiana). The season lasts from October 1 through April 30). It’s also almost two inches longer than any of the other three current ShareLunker entries and the first submitted from Lake Athens since 1987. His fish missed the lake record by less than a half-pound. Only two other largemouth bass caught in Lake Athens were larger (the lake record is 14.19 pounds).

Hanson said he was a little nervous when he was first approached by Fox 4 about doing an interview for television.

“But he was a really cool guy,” Hanson said. “It was a really neat experience.”

Hanson said he has been told the segment will most likely air during the Fox 4 newscast either this Sunday night, Jan. 26, or next Sunday night, Feb. 2. If you miss it, you can find the Lone Star Adventures archives here.

Check out one of Jason’s recent hauls on YouTube.