De Leon Free Press (De Leon, Tex.), Vol. 109, No. 46, Ed. 1 Thursday, May 13, 1999 Page: 1 of 10
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enthusiasm. The new members this
Si
NO SCHOOL
ON FRIDAY.
MAY 14!
1.22
0.00
3.54
2.05
6.81
Ave.
1.50
2.10
2.24
2.94
8.78
, a spaghetti luncheon prepared by
the DeLeon Study Club for the riders
Diff.
(0.28)
(2.10)
1.30
(0.89)
(1.97)
|
Month 1999
Jan.
Fteb.
Mar.
Apr.
Cum.
However, some terrific new mem-
bers have brought with them new
ideas and a tremendous amount of meet this year’s goal of 750 riders.
-------------------------(Cont’d. to Page 7)
renovations.
The Melon Patch Tour has
It is always sad to lose grown tremendously since its first
hardworking, creative members of a year, when 220 riders participated in
committee, and they will be missed, the fledgling event. Last years’s tour
brought out approximately 650bicy-
clists, and the committee expects to
Band Rated Excellent at
South Padre Island
On Thursday April 29, through Saturday May 1, the DeLeon High School Band went to South Padre Inland to
compete in the Gulf Coast Music Festival. The festival had 37 performing groups which performed over a two day
period, the band was judged on a UIL scoring system. A rating of I meaning Superior, a rating of II meaning Excellent;
a rating of III meaning Average, a rating of IV meaning Below Average, and a rating of V meaning Poor. The band
received a rating of II or Excellent Scoring an excellent rating put them in the running for outstanding band for class
AA. Those results are not yet available.
The band performed at 10:00AM on Friday morning after a nine hour bus trip. We did well considering we were
all tired. However just being in south Texas kept us going. After the performance, which was held in Brownsville,
MELON PATCH TOUR COMMITTEE <C“’4 “** ’>
. HARD AT WORK
Although the Melon Patch 1 our year are: Marilyn Alvarado, Kelly
is three months away, the MPT Com- Dickey, Becky Escamilla, Gayion
Fleming, and Joe Locke.
In keeping with its commitment
rnittee has been hard at work for
several months now, preparing for
the best bike tour yet. With Teisha to benefit the community, the tour
Sherrard at the helm, great progress has opened up a new fund-raiser for
has already been made toward mak- one ofour local churches. In the past
ing this, the sixth annual Melon Patch
Tour, a huge success.
Several resignations were re- and local residents has proved to be
ceived with regret. Janna Morris and one of the club’s primary fund-rais-
Deral Brown, memberspf the found- ers. This year a pancake breakfast
ing committee, decided they needed has been added, and will help pro-
more time in the summer, as did vide funds for the First United Meth-
Tamra Wells, Christine Steed, Rosa odist Church of DeLeon’s planned
Cisneros, Jennifer Cisneros, Mike
Hare, Murray Stroud, and Benny
Morris.
DISASTER
DRILL
PLANNED
FM 2247 TO BE RESTRICTED
The Emergency Medical Ser-
vice teams at DeLeon Hospital and
other area emergency response agen-
cies are planning their annual mock
disaster drill to be conducted on
Thursday, May 13 at 5:15 p.m. The
site of the exercise will be approxi-
mately six miles west of DeLeon on
FM 2247 two miles south of the FM
587 intersection. The highway will
either be closed or traffic restricted
for the duration erf the exercise.
The planned disaster will in-
volve a school bus wreck with many
casualties. Participants in the exer-
cise will include numerous volunteer
“victims”, EMS units from DeLeon
and Comanche Hospitals, Volunteer
Fire Departments from DeLeon, Co-
manche, Sipe Springs and Gorman '
(Cont’d. to Page 2)
AREA
RAINFALL
BELOW
AVERAGE
Any seasoned weather observer
knows already that we are in a dry
spell, despite the occasional spring
rains that we have been fortunate to
receive. The Corps of Engineers
keeps rainfall records at Proctor dat-
ing from 1964. Using the average
rainfalls by month from that 35 year
period and comparing them to the
current year we find that 1999 is
almost two inches behind the norm.
Although May ha* gotten off to
a good start in rainfall, it should be so.
May is normally our heaviest rainfell
month with an average 4.87 inches
accumulaied. Even though we got a
good rata Sunday night and Mooifey
morning, we are not necessarily get-
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canned goods. When the contributed
money was spent and everything was
purchased the combined quantity
amounted to a pickup load. Bottled
water, paper towels, peanut butter,
baby food and canned goods of all
varieties were gathered and pur-
chased.
From DeLeon the canned goods
were delivered to a collection point
in Comanche, a joint enterprise oper-
ated by Wanda's Country Kitchen
and Farmland industries, where con-
tributions were received to be deliv-
ered to the disaster area!
homa. Mr. Willis, DHS
drove the collected goods to
1
ST
DELEON SCHOOLS CONDUCT
CANNED FOOD DRIVE FOR
OKLAHOMA STORM VICTIMS
Students at DeLeon High School
conducted a canned food drive for
the victims of the Oklahoma tornado
storms this week. The High School
Student Council took the lead in so-
liciting the DeLeon area business
community for donations after word
of the cooperative food drive was
received late Friday afternoon They
collected canned goods and money
on Monday.
Jennifer Brown, Student Coun-
cil President and Amy Stephens,
Senior Class Representative, made
the rounds collecting the contribu-
tions and shopping for canned goods
and food and household items.
Llwrtace Brothers IGA also helped
out by contributing several cases of
■
■
ADDITIONAL
BENEFICIAL
FUNDS
ESTABLISHED
FOR VINEYARD
AND CHUPP
Beneficial funds have also been
established at Fust National Bank of
DeLeon for those wishing to make
contributions for the medical and
associated costs incurred by the fami-
lies of Steve Vineyard and Tooter
Chupp.
Steve Vineyard is reported to be
still in DeLeon Hospital recovering
from the prior weeks surgery. He is
expected to be released soon. Vine-
yard is then scheduled to go to MB.
Anderson Cancer Research Center
in Houston on May 25.
Two Steve Vineyard benefit
softball games have been scheduled
between the Comanche County
Trustees and the DeLeon Senior
League. The game in DeLeon will
be on Thursday, May 27 at 5:30 p.m.
at the Festival Grounds ball field.
Tooter Chupp had surgery last
Tuesday on his right eye and had
some additional skin grafting. Since
the surgery he has been transferred to
a rehabilitation facility. If you wish
to visit or contact Tooter and Joyce
you may do so at Healthsouth Reha-
bilitation Hospital, 6701 Oakmont
Blvd., Fort Worth, Texas 76132.
Their phone number is 817-370-
in*"' .
DELEON mGff
SCHOOL TO
CLOSE EARLY
THURSDAY
High School Principal Danny
Willis announced that DeLeon High
will close at 1:40 p.m. Thursday May
13 tp give students and teachers time
to travel to the baseball playoff game
against Honey Grove at The Colony
High School. The early closure does
not affect either Perkins Middle
School or DeLeon Elementary so the
buses will run at their normal times.
High School bus riders may remain
in the Library until bus time. School
doors will be locked at 2:00 and those
students not waiting in the Library
for the bus will need to have vacated
the building. There will be teacher
supervision in the library.
BEARCATS
ENTER
BASEBALL
PLAYOFFS
District Champion DeLeon
Bearcats begin their post season
championship playoffs 5:00 p.m.
Thursday afternoon as they meet
Honey Grove at The Colony High
School. Coach Fox invites all fans
that can make the trip to be there as
well. For those of you than cannot,
the game is planned to be broadcast
on KCUB-FM 98.3 and called by our
own Bodie Weaver.
The Colony High School is lo-
cated on Blair Oaks Drive which
intersects the north side of State High-
way 121 less than one half mile east
of Main Street in The Colony. The
Colony High School is said to be
easily visible from Highway 121.
One way to get there is to take I-
20 East to Loop 820 west of Fort
Worth, to take Loop 820 north and
eastward until the Texas 121 North
exit in the Richland Hills/Hurst area.
From there you will stay on 121 as it
turns northbound inJBedi'ord and runs
northeastward past Grapevine and
Lewisville. The Colony is about 6
miles east of Lewisville. There ba
traffic Hgbt for the Main Street inter-
section and shortly thereafter theBlair
Oaks left turnoff to the High School
will be encountered.
We wish the Bearcats success to
their playoff game and encourages
everyone that c« to see the game
as?
MORGAN WINS TWO STATE
U.I.L. COMPETITIONS
competition, first in Computer Sci-
ence and second in Mathematics.
Arlington. Injl979 when the com-
pany was in the process of being sold
A CONVERSATION WITH TONEY
PRATHER
he looked around for opportunities
and found one here in DeLeon with
CCTC where he was hired as an
Engineer charged with designing
telephone equipment installations.
Starting in 1982 Prather was
heavily involved in the effort to con-
vert CCTC from analog to digital
technology. That process was fi-
nally completed in 1988. It was in
1985 when DeLeon was switched
over tp digital equipment that we had
to start dialing 7 digits for the first
time for local calls.
Another major project that
Prather managed was the installation
of local billing for services in
DeLeon. This was a development
that paved the way for much of the
company’s growth to local hiring.
) In 1985 Prather was promoted
(Cont’d. to Page 7) ,
pen or pencil for writing down the
answer to the problem. The com-
puter science competition is a 40
question multiple choice test cover-
ing knowledge of C++ programming
We were fortunate to get Toney
Prather, President of Comanche
County Telephone Company to slow
down long enough tp tell us a little bit
about his career with the CCTC and
afew of the significant developments *
in the company along the way.
Toney was bom and raised out-
side Rio Vista, population 300, the
son of Ray and Betty Prather who
still live thare. In 1978 he married
Terrie Cooper in Rio Vista. They
have two children, Jennifer, 14, and
Michael, 10.
Prather started working for Great
Southwest Telephone in nearby
Grandview drawing maps when be
was only 15. He continued working
for the company after graduation
Robby Morgan, DeLeon High
School senior, had a great weekend
in Austin this week. In the U.I.L.
State Academic Meet Friday and
Saturday he placed first among all
2 A students in the Number Sense language And general programming
skills. Mathematics is a 60 question
test over various mathematical top-
Morgan was coached by Lori Cox. ics including algebra, geometry,
His middle school coach, Sherri trigonometry and calculus. In this
Brown, was also at the competition test contestants are allowed to use
as an interested observer. While in scientific calculators.
middle school Robby placed first in The spelling competition is a
four statewide competitions spon- two part test, the first part testing
sored by the Texas Math and Science vocabulary in a multiple choice test
Coaches Association. and the second part testing spelling
Beau Bellenfant, also a senior at skills in an orally administered exam
DHS, competed in the Spelling com- similar to a spelling bee.
petition and placed 7th among 2A MorganandBellenfantenjoyed
school contestants. He was coached their time not competing by observ-
by Addie Ratliff. ing some of the one act play compe-
For Morgan, this was his third tition and in touring the campus of
state U.I.L. competition. It was the University of Texas.
Bellenfant’s first State U.I.L. contestants are eli-
The number sense competition gible to apply for a large number of
is an 80 question mathematics test scholarships that are dedicated to the
* with only 10 minutes to complete, competitors attending college in
Contestants must use only mental Texas.
calculations. They can only use a
Scenes around our town - Page 6
500
Volume 109,No.46
De Leon, TX 76444
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DeLeon
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Thursday
May 13,1999
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Morgan, Jerry. De Leon Free Press (De Leon, Tex.), Vol. 109, No. 46, Ed. 1 Thursday, May 13, 1999, newspaper, May 13, 1999; De Leon, Texas. (https://texashistory.unt.edu/ark:/67531/metapth1244421/m1/1/: accessed July 17, 2024), University of North Texas Libraries, The Portal to Texas History, https://texashistory.unt.edu.; crediting Comanche Public Library.