Category: Athens

The 83rd Annual Old Fiddlers Reunion will be held the weekend of May 31.

On Friday, May 30, a Jam Session will take place on the courthouse lawn at 7 p.m. There will be concession stands along the sidewalks, and a carnival will be set up just off the Courthouse Square.

The Fiddlers Contest will take over on Saturday, May 31. The contest is broken down into 5 divisions, Senior Ages 66 & over, Adult Ages 30-65, Young Adult Ages 19-29, Youth Ages 18 & Under and the Open Division which is All Ages. There will be a playoff between the 1st place winners of each of the five divisions. This will be the Grand Champion and this person will get a Grand Prize of $600, in addition to the $200 which he or she has already won by being the 1st place winner of his/her division.

At 6 p.m., there will be an Acoustic Guitar Picking Competition for all ages. The Fiddlers Contest will begin at 9 a.m. on Saturday morning, May 31st and will run throughout the day. Beginning at 8 p.m., there will be a country western band with professional musicians playing until Midnight for the famous Street Dance.

Schedule: Saturday, May 31

9 a.m. Invocation, Welcome Address, Western Swing Band

10 a.m. Seniors 66 and Over Contest

11 a.m. Adult Ages 30-65 Contest

12 noon Western Swing Band

1:30 p.m. Adult Ages 30-65 Contest Continued

2 p.m. Young Adult Ages 19-29 Contest

3 p.m. Youth Ages 18 & Under Contest

4 p.m. Open Division, All Ages Contest

5 p.m. Grand Champion Playoff

6 p.m. Acoustic Guitar Picking Contest

8 p.m.-12 Midnight Street Dance

By Michael V. Hannigan

It turns out that the Athens City Council election isn’t over just quite yet.

While all the incumbents were defeated Saturday (results here), incumbent Aubrey Jones was beaten by Charles Elliott by the narrowest of margins. Just seven votes separated the two men.

There were also seven provisional ballots cast in the Jones-Elliott race, votes that were not counted in the unofficial totals released Saturday night.

So there are seven uncounted votes in a race that was decided by seven votes.

You can see the problem.

Henderson County Election Administrator Denise Hernandez told me that provisional ballots were used when there is a question about a voter’s eligibility. She said they allow the person to vote provisionally because “we don’t want to deprive anyone of their right to vote.”

After the election, the local ballot board decides whether the provisional vote should be counted or not. You can learn more about provisional voting in Texas on votetexas.gov.

The practical effect on this year’s Athens City Council race is that the election vote cannot be canvassed until the provisional votes are sorted out, and that might not happen until the end of the week. After that, there is a good chance Jones will ask for a recount.

So even though a council meeting was scheduled for tomorrow night to canvas the vote, that will likely get pushed back to next week.

By Michael V. Hannigan

The Athens Municipal Water Authority (AMWA) walked away from Saturday’s elections the clear winner over the City of Athens. You can see the unofficial results here, but believe me, when you take 4.5 out of 5 races you get to be called the winner.

Here are three leftovers from Saturday night after going through my notebook.

1. I got the chance to talk to Wylie Pirkle that night. The AMWA executive director was understandably thrilled with the results of the election.

“The voters put their trust in us to go and make this a better place,” he said. “We have a responsibility to react to the voters and I definitely think that’s what the voters said.”

“The voters heard us about how important water is to the future of the community.”

2. I also spoke with Mayor Jerry Don Vaught Saturday night. He was not as jubilant as the AMWA folks, but he was talking about moving foward.

“The citizens got to voice their vote and that’s what we wanted,” the mayor said. “That’s what was important.”

“The lawsuit is still there and the $4 million (demand) is still there despite what they say. They took it out of part of (the lawsuit) but they didn’t take it out of all of it. I am sure we will start talking more mediation. Hopefully they will want to go mediate and work this out. One of their board members just told me that he’s ready to sit down and work this out and I said, well that’s what we need to do. We don’t need to let more taxpayers’ money be spent on all this.”

3. The name to remember when it comes to moving forward on the water issue is Tres Winn, who beat Elaine Jenkins Saturday night.

After the election, the make up of the Athens City Council includes two men who voted to abolish AMWA (Jerry Don Vaught, Monte Montgomery) and two former AMWA board members who voted to sue the city (Joe Whatley and Charles Elliott).

In my mind, that makes Winn a pretty important swing vote on the council when it comes to decisions about the AMWA lawsuit and mediation.

Particularly since he is the only one who never took a public position on the water controversy.