The Hopkins County Echo (Sulphur Springs, Tex.), Vol. 105, No. 46, Ed. 1 Friday, November 14, 1980 Page: 1 of 4
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VOl. 105-NO.4*.
EDALMX i 12-31-99 00
(ABSORBED THE GAZETTE CIRCULATION BY PURCHASE MAY 12. 1928)
SULPHUR SPRINGS, TEXAS, FRIDAY, NOVEMBER 14,1910. 4 PAGES -15 CENTS PUBLISHED EVERY FRIDAY
**!< gg v»
Holiday
project
revived
Project Christmas Card will be revived
in Sulphur Springs this year and the
sponsors, Xi Nu Iota chapter of Beta
Sigma Phi, look for another successful
promotion.
Briefly, the promotion is to encourage
local people to make deposits to Project
Christmas Card, with the funds derived to
be given to a local worthy project.
Sponsors say they are encouraging
residents to send their cards out of town
but to deposit to Project Christmas Card in
place of, or along with, sending them
locally.
People wishing to join the movement
may go to any local bank, inside or at
drive-in windows, to make their deposits
through Dec. 19.
Greetings to city and county friends will
appear in the Christmas Edition of The
News-Telegram. The donation is a tax
deduction and any amount may be given.
“Actually, this is a convenient way to
wish all your local friends a Happy
Holiday season and at the same time
support a very worthwhile project for our
city and county youth,” a chapter *
spokeman said.
In 1973, the first year the project was
sponsored, the chapter was able to raise
$1,789 to donate toward purchasing
monitoring equipment for ICU at
Memorial Hospital.
In 1974, the $1,172.50 raised was given for
the purchase of cardiac difibillator at the
hospital.
Veterans remembered
Members of Co. B., 3rd Battalion, 144th Inf., Texas Army
National Guard, under the direction of First Sergeant Morris
Abercrombie, raised the flag slowly Tuesday morning as part of
the Hopkins County Veterans Day memorial service at the VFW
post (top). After the flag was raised, commanders of the various
American Legion Posts and Veterans of Foreign Wars placed
wreaths around the momument commemorating American
soldiers of all wars who died serving their country (lower
photo). Over 300 school children, veterans and other local
residents attended the service.
-Staff Photos
Shipment due soon on
arena bleacher units
Hopkins County's bleacher seating for
the Civic Center livestock arena should be
on the way across the ocean to Texas soon.
“We’ve raised $16,000 so far and secured
a loan to bring the bleachers from Hawaii
to Sulphur Springs,” Lowell Cable an-
nounced Saturday.
Cable said his son, Chad, and wife Leslie
are already on their way to Honolulu to
make a final check of the bleachers before,
they are loaded into shipping cartons and
shipped to Texas.
The bleachers will be used in the arena
at the Civic Center and are being pur-
chased through donations from interested
citizens in the county.
Cable began negotiations for the units
several months ago and was able to buy
the bleachers for $40,000.
He signed a personal bank note Friday
afternoon for the balance of the money
needed to pay for the bleachers and said
that the units would cost in the neigh-
borhood of $120,000 if bought new. He said
that the exclusive private school in Hawaii
is replacing them with larger units.
Cable has been raising the cash through
donations from the county residents and
said, “We really appreciate the people that
have donated money so far. However, we
do need some more, in fact a great deal of
money as we’re only about half-way there,
but the bleachers are on the way.”
Cable said that he felt fortunate in that
his daughter-in-law worked for an airline
and Hopkins County residents could be
sure of getting their money’s worth by
sending Chad Cable to take a look at the
bleachers before they are shipped.
“It’s only costing Chad and Leslie a very
little bit of money out of their own pockets
because she works for the airlines,” he
said.
For persons still "wishing to contribute
toward the purchase of the seating,
donations can be mailed to Cable at Star
Route, Sulphur Springs.
“Please make the checks out to the Civic
Center Board and that way we won’t have
to have a separate bank account," Cable
said.
The bleachers are almost identical to
those in the Sulphur Springs High School
gymnasium, according to Cable, and
County farms okayed
for heritage ranking
AUSTIN - Three Hopkins County farms
and ranches will be honored in the Texas
Department of Agriculture’s Family Land
Heritage Program this year, Agriculture
Commissioner Reagan V. Brown has
announced.
They include, the Henderson Ranch
established in 1878, currently owned by
Rickey Eugene Henderson, Sulphur
Springs; the Long Ranch, established in
1879, currently owned by Mr. and Mrs. J;C.
Long, Cumby, and the Weldon Watkins
Dairy Farm, established in 1875, and
currently owned by Mr. and Mrs. Weldon
Watkins, Pickton.
All owners of the 98 properties which
qualified this year have been invited to an
awards ceremony in their honor Nov. 14 at
1 p.m. in the Texas Capital Rotunda. Lt.
Gov. William P. Hobby and Land Com-
missioner Bob Armstrong will be on hand
to welcome participants. Dr. Dorman
Winfrey, director of the State Archives and
Library, will also speak.
Commissioner Brown will present
certificates of honor affirming that the
properties have been in agricultural
production for at least 109 years by
members of the same family.
County judges and county historial
commission chairmen have also been
invited. “These people have been very
helpful to the department in locating the
families whose land qualified,” Brown
said. Since the program began in 1974,
1,392 honorees have been enrolled.
The McAllen Ranch of Hidalgo County,
the oldest property ever enrolled in the
program, will be among those honored at
the ceremonies. The 36,000-acre ranch was
founded in 1797 by Don Jose Manuel
Gomez of Coahuila, Mexico.
In addition to a certificate, each family
will receive copies of the Texas Family
Land Heritage Registry, Vol. VI, which
will contain background information on
each of the properties honored this year.
Cooper Lake project
status 'optimistic'
"He's fair...mean to everybody.
Cooper Lake’s current status and plans
to advance its future construction were
discussed in two separate meetings by
members of the Sulphur River Municipal
Water District representatives and others
during the week.
Walter Helm, president of SRMWD, said
his group first met with out-of-town
lawyers to consider the best course to
chart in the hearing on the Environmental
Impact Statement when it comes before
the federal court again in Tyler.
Helm said that the district is still
negotiating with the attorneys but there
have been positive steps taken toward
their employment to assist in the legal
maters.
The second meeting of the week on
Friday in Wylie was attended by directors
of the North Texas Municipal Water
District, the City of Irving and their at-
torneys and the Sulphur River Municipal
Water District.
Helm said that there was a free ex-
change of ideas and constructive steps
taken at this meeting.
“I feel like we’re moving ahead,” Helm
said Saturday. “I feel optimistic that we’ll
get Cooper Lake.”
He added that the water district’s
member cities will be called on to provide
the necessary legal fees to prepare the
best case to assure favorable action in
federal court.
Helm said he planned to rent a room and
stay “on top of the thing” when the hearing
is held in Tyler.
Ex-area teacher looks back on career
(Editor’s note: The following is a reprint
from the Houston Chronicle of a story
concerning a native citizen of the county.)
ANGLETON - When William T. Hughes
began teaching in East Texas more than a
half-century ago, he was expected to
preside over several classes in one room,
pull teeth and administer other first aid if
need be, and lay a strap to any of the big
farm boys who challenged his authority.
One time, the 77-year-old recently
retired teacher recalls, a large student
stood up in class and defied Hughes to whip
him with a belt. That’s when he laid down
the law with a belt buckle instead of the
belt.
“You had to stand your ground in those
days,” Hughes said. “I’d much rather not
have had to administer corporal punish-
ment, but I had some of those boys who
were nearly as big as me and damn near
as old. I had to prove that I was a man to
some of these 17-and 18-year-olds.”
Hughes, an Angelton resident who has
witnessed a number of changes in
education during the 57 years he held
teaching-related jobs, is believed to have
the longest record of education service in
Texas.
The Windham School District of the
Texas Department of Corrections, where
Hughes taught for 10 years before retiring
last month, decided — after researching
the issue - that Hughes’ 57 years in
education had earned him the title.
‘’I wasn’t shooting for a record,’’ he said.
“I just worked.”
Although parents were more likely to
approve of stiff disciplinary action when
Hughes first began teaching - “in fact,
some fathers had a rule that if kids got a
licking at school, they’d get worse at
home,” he said — Hughes lived to see a
time when using such measures could
possibly draw a lawsuit.
Hughes proudly says his no-nonsense
approach toward education has also drawn
such comments from students as: “He’s
mean, but he’s fair, because he’s mean to
everybody.”
Hughes’ first teaching job in a “one-
room, shotgun-type building” in Hopkins
County was an effort to temporarily help
out another teacher there. He said that
until then he had planned to go into
banking, accounting or some other
business-related job.
Finding that he liked education, Hughes
spent the next 30 years as principal and
school superintendent in several Texas
school districts.
He moved to Angleton in 1953 to resume
teaching after the Titus County school
district in northeast Texas, where he had
been principal, decided that he and his
wife, a teacher, shouldn’t work in the same
district. Hughes taught Spanish in the
Angleton Independent School for 15 years
and retired in 1968 at age 65.
But shortly after leaving the Angleton
school district, he became one of the first
teachers in the newly established Texas
prison school system. He most recently
taught at Ramsey I, a maximum security
unit in Brazoria County.
“You’ve got some desperate characters
in there,” Hughes said. “You have
problems once in a while, but if they are
serious enough the prison will take over.
Some of the inmates are a little bit
rebellious, but you don’t have mamas
coming over and complaining about report
cards.”
Last year, Hughes was named
“Academic Teacher of the Year” in the
Windham system.
Teaching in prison, he said, isn’t as
tough as the education process was during
the Roaring Twenties when teachers were
responsible for a wide variety of duties,
ranging from pulling teeth and patching
wounds to arriving early to build a wood
fire.
The teeth pulling was primarily limited
to 5-and 6-year-olds who had loose baby
teeth that needed to come out. And the
wound patching consisted of applying a
sugar-and-turpentine disinfectant, “an
old-time remedy that worked pretty
good,” mostly to cuts and bruises received
on the playground.
But then, he adds, the work was more
rewarding because the students were
more receptive to learning than their
counterparts are today.
“It may sound a little stuffy, but those
kids were taught by their parents to look
up to their teachers," Hughes said. “More
children actually wanted to learn and were
striving to learn. And if they complained
about a teacher, they wouldn’t get any
sympathy at home.”
He blames the breakdown in learning
skills on the “permissive age” following
World War II, when students and their
parents began questioning the authority of
teachers.
He said different approaches toward
teaching, such as the “new math," are
also to blame. Students and teachers alike
are often confused, he said.
“I even know of a case when I was an
administrator of a school when a teacher
wouldn’t teach certain parts of arithmetic
because she couldn’t do it," Hughes said.
“It never ceases to amaze me to watch
high school kids working at these fast food
places who can’t make change for a dollar.
“I’d say, let’s do a better job of teaching
the basics, the fundamentals of math, the
phonetics approach to reading and other
things.”
Hughes, not content with staying on the
educational sidelines, said he plans to
possibly serve as a substitute teacher in
the prison school district and act as a
consultant in bilingual programs for
Brazoria County-area school districts.
His wife, Mozelle, 74, also has retired.
utilize an electric motor to fold them
against the wall when not in use which also
facilitates cleaning.
Another way that people can donate
toward the paying for the bleachers is to
take out a low-interest loan that has been
made possible through the First National
Bank.
Bank officials say that special
arrangements have been made to allow
interested parties to borrow money to
donate to the bleacher fund by contacting
the bank about the unsecured loans.
News briefs
Holiday lighting
contest planned
A Christmas lighting and
decoration contest will be reinstituted
this fall under the sponsorship of the
Hopkins County Chamber of Com-
merce.
A task force that includes Charlotte
Lewis, Coy Vicars and Rod Henderson
will coordinate the event, which will
begin Dec. 1. Actual judging will be
conducted Dec. 15 and 16.
As scheduled, there will be a first-
place trophy and a runnerup cer-
tificate in the commercial decoration
category, with award possibilities
going to any Hopkins County business
that notifies the Chamber of Com-
merce of the intent to be an entrant.
A similar procedure will be followed
in the rural residential and Sulphur
Springs residential categories and
additionally the annual Harrison W.
Grays Award will be given.
Judges for the contest will be
selected by the task force and secret
results will be tallied for the various
awards.
County sales
spiral upward
Hopkins County’s gross sales are
continuing an upward spiral.
Gross sales reported by 437 outlets
in Hopkins County during the second
quarter of 1980 amounted to
$57,868,990, according to State
Comptroller Bob Bullock. This covers
the period of April, May and June.
By comparison, gross sales during
the first quarter amounted to
$52,866,024, with 453 outlets reporting
to Bullock’s office from Hopkins
County. The first quarter sales were
for January, February and March.
Elbow benders
working harder
Hopkins County patrons of local
private clubs belted a few more mixed
drinks during the third quarter of 1980
covering the period of July, August
and September.
At least that’s the apparent con-
clusion as reflected in figures
released by State Comptroller Bob
Bullock, whose office collects mixed
drink taxes and distributes 15 percent
of the revenue to counties and cities in
which the drinks were sold.
During the past quarter, Bullock
mailed a $2,670.74 check to Hopkins
County for its share of the total tax of
$17,804.95. This compares to $2,619.21
of $17,461 during the second quarter.
The total tax would indicate mixed
drink sales totaling $178,049.50 in the
county during the third quarter.
Sulphur Springs received a rebate
of $2,358.51 on tax revenue of
$15,723.41.
Como’s check was for $75.67 on a
total tax revenue of $504.46 for the
third quarter.
Drive officials'
fingers crossed
Officials of the Hopkins County
United Way fund drive are still
keeping their fingers crossed in hopes
of reaching the $55,000 goal set for the
1981 drive.
As of Monday morning the con-
tributions had inched over the $50,000
level and several pledge packets were
still out.
“I don’t know whether we will reach
the goal or not,” a sposkesman for the
drive said. “But I do think we are
going to get close. We still have some
of the industrial division packets out,
and when they come in we should be
closer to the goal. We still have our
fingers crossed, maybe we can reach
the goal yet."
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Keys, Clarke & Woosley, Joe. The Hopkins County Echo (Sulphur Springs, Tex.), Vol. 105, No. 46, Ed. 1 Friday, November 14, 1980, newspaper, November 14, 1980; Sulphur Springs, Texas. (https://texashistory.unt.edu/ark:/67531/metapth780575/m1/1/: accessed July 18, 2024), University of North Texas Libraries, The Portal to Texas History, https://texashistory.unt.edu.; crediting Hopkins County Genealogical Society.