The Hopkins County Echo (Sulphur Springs, Tex.), Vol. 105, No. 22, Ed. 1 Friday, May 30, 1980 Page: 1 of 4
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l-ICRCPll^ CENTER INC
PC BOX 45435
DALLAS
TX 75235
®p Hopkitts Lvwug Etije
(ABSORBED THF. GAZFTTF. CIRCULATION BY PURCHASF. MAY 12, 1928)
VOL. 105—NO. 22.
SULPHUR SPRINGS, TEXAS, FRIDAY, MAY 30.1980.
4 PAGES -10 CENTS PUBLISHED EVERY FRIDAY
Shaw trial
set July 7
The murder trial of Jessie Lee
Shaw, 31, of 320 Beckham has been set
for July 7 in Mount Vernon.
Pre-trial hearings in that case are
scheduled to begin on June 19 with
Bird Old Jr. of Mount Pleasant having
been assigned as defense attorney in
addition to John D. Byers of Sulphur
Springs.
Byers had earlier this year asked to
be removed from the trial but Eighth
Judicial District Judge Lanny
Ramsay has thus far denied that
change.
Shaw is charged in the July 12,1979
murder of Janyth Kay Wallace.
Her body was found on Dec. 5,1979
near a dirt road in a shallow grave
where she allegedly had been buried
by Shaw.
Mrs. Wallace’s husband, Billy Ray
Wallace, 38, was arrested for her
murder on Dec. 6,1979 and pled guilty
to a charge of murder on Dec. 13.
Judge Ramsay assessed a life
sentence in the Texas Department of
Corrections on that plea by Wallace
and he began serving his sentence on
Dec. 20,1979.
Shaw was originally charged with
arson in the early morning fire of the
Wallace residence at 600 Lee St.
He and a brother were employees of
the Wallace dairy, located south of
Sulphur Springs.
Those charges were dropped and he
was indicted for murder and
arraigned on that charge on Feb. 25 of
this year.
The murder trial was moved to
Mount Vernon on a change of venue
motion.
Area resident
dies in crash
Services for traffic accident victim
Jesse Thomas Cox, 71, of the Peerless
community were held Sunday at 2
p.m. at the Murray-Orwosky Chapel
with the Rev. Jackie McQueen of-
ficiating. Burial was in the Peerless
Cemetery.
Mr. Cox died at 1:15 p.m. Friday
following a two-car accident that
occurred some 50 minutes earlier at
the intersection of FM-2285 and Loop
301.
He was the sixth traffic fatality in
Hopkins County in 1980.
According to Sulphur Springs
Patrolman Jim Emerson, a 1964
pickup driven by Kari Curtis, 22, of
Lone Tree, Iowa was southbound on
Loop 301 when it was in collision with
the 1977 four-door sedan driven by Cox
which was eastbound on FM-2285.
Both Cox and Mrs. Curtis, who was
slightly injured in the accident, were
taken to Memorial Hospital.
Mrs. Curtis’ husband, Cary Curtis,
27, a passenger in the pickup, was not
reported injured.
Cox died of massive internal in-
juries.
Mrs. Curtis was treated and
released.
Mr. Cox was bom Oct. 15, 1908 in
Electra to Houston J. and Minnie
Jordan Cox.
He married Ann Mae Blalock in
Florence, Ariz. on Nov. 22, 1941. He
was a farmer and rancher.
Survivors include his wife; a
daughter, Mrs. Ruth Jackson of
Dallas; two brothers, Carl Cox and
Houston Cox, both of Sulphur Springs;
four sisters, Mrs. Edith Hartman,
Mrs. Onita Brumley, Mrs. Pauline
Moore and Mrs. Sybil Jones, all of
Sulphur Springs; two grandchildren
and one great-grandchild.
Serving as pallbearers were Floyd
Milligan, Frank Darrow, Maurice
Evans, Marvin Evans, Billy Don
Fouse and Vance Wilson.
'Bus Stop'
cranks up
With opening night just a few weeks
away, members of the Community
Players are busy with daily
rehearsals, locating props and finding
costumes for the play “Bus Stop” a
romantic comedy in three acts.
“Bus Stop”, written by William
Inge, is a totally different play than
the last production of the Community
Players according to Jamie Barnett,
director of the current production.
The dinner-theater production is
scheduled for June 20 and 21 in the
Civic Center banquet hall. Tickets for
the production will be available soon
through the Civic Center ticket office,
or by mail. Tickets for the dinner and
show will cost 111.
Center improvements tabled
By JIM MOORE
News-Telegram Staff
The Civic Center improvement projects
are still on hold and will remain that way
until at least the June 13 meeting of the
Hopkins County Commissioners Court -
and possibly even longer.
Commissioners approved the ad-
vertising for bids for the steel work in the
auditorium in a vote which drew two ab-
stentions and three favorable responses.
County Judge Joe R. Pogue made the
motion calling for the vote after a
pregnant pause when none of the com-
missioners would put the proposal for-
ward.
LT. (Son) Martin, Precinct 4 com-
missioner, seconded the motion. His vote,
Pogue’s and that of Mervin Chester,
Precinct 3 commissioner, okayed the
proposal. Precinct 1 Commissioner J.D.
Hatley and Precinct 2 Commissioner
Arnold Alsobrooks both abstained.
On the vote to approve the interest rate
of seven percent for the certificates of
obligation to be used to pay for the Civic
Center work, Martin made the motion with
a second from Chester — again after a long
silence.
The vote was again Martin, Chester and
Pogue in favor, and silence from the other
two commissioners.
Asked if they were abstaining or voting
no, Alsobrooks said that their vote was no
and the minutes were made to reflect a
split 3-2 decision.
Donnie Wisenbaker was present to notify
the court that he is presently circulating
petitions throughout the county asking for
the issuance of $250,000 in certificates of
obligation to be put to a vote by the people
and an issuance of bonds be used instead —
if such a bond issue is passed.
Wisenbaker commended Judge Pogue
for his openness in handling the matter but
said it was the first time that he had ever
taken such a public move.
“I just decided it was time for me to
speak out,” he said.
The awarding of bids for the work at the
Civic Center has been delayed until the
Makeshift gas company
Sulphur Springs' Bernie Beers lights the burner at the end of a
methane gas digestor to check the amount of gas being
produced. Beers and George Law plan to construct a large
digestor on Law's dairy farm that will produce enough gas to
heat Law's home, dairy barn, and water. Methane is produced
when fresh mature and water mixed together go through the
natural decompostion cycle.
—Staff Photo
Local men turn nature
into energy generator
By JOHN GORE
News-Telegram Staff
After five days of hovering over a
makeshift contraption of metal cans and
rubber hoses in the back of a shop, two
local businessmen struck a match and a
tiny blue flame danced on the end of a
burner.
It might not have been the discovery of
the century or even the decade, but it may
be the beginning of a new and renewable
energy source for Hopkins County.
Bernie Beers and George Law did not
invent the new source — they merely
contolled a natural bio-chemical reaction
and captured escaping methane gas from
a makeshift digestor.
"It’s certainly not a new process,” Law
said as he looked over the digestive
system. “It has been around forever. It is
a natural process that occurs in nature,
only at a much slower rate,” the one-time
chemistry teacher said.
“All it takes to make the digestor work
is fresh manure and water and we have
plenty of both substances in the county,”
Beers added.
To produce methane gas on a small
scale, according to Beers and Law, all one
has to do is use five gallons of fresh
manure and ten gallons of water.
“We built a digestor out of a used metal
drum, a couple of buckets, a few feet of
rubber tubing and a couple of gas outlets,”
Beers said. “It took us a couple of hours to
put the thing together and cost around
twenty bucks,” he added.
The digestor is simple to understand and
operate according to Beers and Law.
As the manure breaks down it creates
bio-gas, a by-product of the natural
decomposition process. Bio-gas, ac-
cording to chemistry teacher Law, is
made up of 64 percent methane, a com-
bustable gas; 33 percent carbon dioxide;
and four to five percent hydrogen sulfide,
a corrosive acidL
“The hydrogen sulfide is what makes
the gas smell like rotten eggs" Law said,
“but most of that can be filtered off by
running the gas through iron-impregnated
wood chips.”
Methane gas has the engery potential of
about 65,000 British Thermal Units (BTU)
per cubic foot. Natural gas contains ap-
proximately 85,000 BTUs per cubic foot.
“The reason nobody in the United States
has ever bothered with methane, a
renewable and clean source of energy
before, is that natural gas, butane, and
propane were so cheap. Since those
sources of energy aren’t cheap any more
methane has taken on new respectability
and has become economically feasible as
an alternative source of energy,” Law
said.
The beauty of producing methane gas is
that it can be used not only to heat dairy
bams, homes, and water, it also can be
used to make another energy source —
gasohol.
“We are going to build a big digestor on
George’s dairy,” Beers said. “We are
going to use the methane to take care of all
of his heating needs, but the thing is we
will have thousands of cubic feet of gas left
over. With the excess gas we plan to fire a
still and make gasohol. We already have
the permit to make alcohol and soon we
will have a way to fire the still,” Beers
said.
“It’s really going to be a beautiful
system,” Law interjected. “The cows
make manure and you use the manure to
make gas. You use the gas to heat your
home and your still and make alcohol to
sell or use in your own farm equipment.
You feed the mash to the cows, and the
whole process starts over again.”
“We haven’t worked out all the details
yet,” Beers said, “but it might even be
possible to use the gas to power an electric
generator for all of your electrical needs
too. And under a new law, TP&L would
have to buy from you all of your excess
electricity.”
Beers and Law plan to perfect a system
suitable for this area within the next year
and try to market the setup to local
dairymen.
“Don’t misunderstand,” Law stressed.
“This system is going to be good, but it
doesn’t run itself nor will be cost-free. It
will take some maitenance and will be
moderately priced. But the system will
pay for itself in, say, four or five years and
can be operated by just about anyone. We
figure that the system should last around
15 years without any major repairs or
work. That means that a dairyman could
actually make money on the system for
around 10 years — which ain’t a bad deal
no matter how you look at it.”
Four contests face Democrats
County-wide, there will be four
races to be decided in the June 7
Democratic run-off primary in
Hopkins County. Three of the run-offs
involve state level positions and the
fourth is for the three-county state
representative’s post.
In addition, voters in Precinct 3 will
nominate and, in effect, elect a county
commissioner. Voting boxes in the
precinct are at the Peoples National
Bank, Saltillo, Sulphur Bluff, Weaver
and Dike.
Lex Fite andT.M. (Mervin) Chester
are bidding for the county com-
missioner’s post, which Chester holds
by appointment.
Lowell Cable and Smith E. Gilley
are seeking the Democratic
nomination for State Representative,
District 10.
In the state level races, there are
run-offs in three court positions.
On a purely local level, voters in the
Pickton precinct may write in their
choice for precinct chairman.
No other write-ins are counted.
Absentee voting begins Wednesday.
June 13th meeting of the court when the
bids for the steel work will be received and
awarded.
Civic Center Board Chairman Millard
Bennett said the cost of the steel work
would have to be known before the other
bids could be properly trimmed to be sure
that the costs did not exceed the $250,000.
Also at the session, the commissioners
voted to give the go ahead to the Young
Farmers for a milking parlor to be added
to the civic center facilities.
Herb Flora told the court that through
donations of both cash and materials, the
milk parlor will not cost the county
anything.
David Jackson, Travis Owens, Arnold
Alsobrooks, J.P. Shull and Lowell Cable
were named to the North East Texas
Economic Development District Board
and commissioners awarded a low bid of
$4,665 to Gober-Merrell Chevrolet, Inc. for
a new to-ton pickup.
Price Ford Sales, Inc. had bid $4,780 for
the pickup with a trade-in for Precinct 4.
Commissioners approved the ad-
vertising for bids for a new copying
machine to be included in next year’s
budget and approved the expenditure of up
to $4,000 for the filming of records in the
office of County Clerk Mary Attlesey.
The burial of a telephone cable in
Precinct 4 by Continental Telephone
Company of Texas was approved and the
bond of William G. White Jr. as a public
weigher was also approved.
Power rate hike
goes into effect
By JOEWOOSLEY
News-Telegram Staff
Texas Power & Light Company
customers in Sulphur Springs and Nor-
theast Texas started paying higher rates
Tuesday. J. P. Shull, local district
manager, said that the general increase in
revenues earlier approved by the Texas
Public Utility Commission went in effect
May 27.
The increase would have been larger
than the 10.1 percent increase if the PUC
had not changed its original order of April
29. The original order approved an $83.4
million boost, but later trimmed that
figure to $81.8 million system-wide.
The company had requested a 15.35
percent increase amounting to $124
million.
Under the amended order residential
rates will increase by approximately 10.76
percent or $4.30 per month based on an
average annual usage of 11,753 KWH.
Commercial and industrial rates will
rise by 9.74 percent.
The increase in rates will hit customers
who switched on air conditioners this week
as the temperatures soared to record highs
in Northeast Texas.
Shull said that even though TP&L
disagrees with the amount awarded by the
commission, the company needs to put the
new rates into effect as soon as possible,
which meant today.
“We have been feeling for quite some
time the effects of rapidly escalating costs
of generating and delivering electricity to
our customers,” Shull said. “We are
feeling the effects of rising costs of
maintenance and operations and the costs
associated with our massive construction
program to convert to less expensive
lignite and nuclear fuels.”
Shull concluded, “The reason we put the
rates in effect the same date is to insure
that all customers, systemwide, are
treated equally and have the same rates at
the same time.”
Community improvement
program takes new look
A new format has been planned for the
community development program in
Hopkins County this year, which will be
highlighted by tours in September and the
presentation of awards at the Fall
Festival.
Jim Crawford, county extension agent,
explained that the new format will focus on
recognition rather than competition. Each
community will be awarded a recognition
certificate based on what it has ac-
complished during the past year.
The change in the format was approved
at a meeting of the Hopkins County
Community Club Council Monday af-
ternoon.
During the meeting, Nada Crouch was
elected chairman for the year, with Hilga
Chester as vice chairman, and Joann
Henderson, secretary.
Attending the planning session were
Delbert Hays and Mrs. Chester of Sulphur
Bluff, Mrs. Betsy Whitson and Mrs. Billie
Robinson of Reilly Springs, Mrs. Crouch
and Mrs. Audrey Darrow of Peerless, and
Mrs. Paul Webb and Mrs. Henderson of
Arbala.
Crawford observed that members in
attendance reported that considerable
work has been done in all of the com-
munities, particularly on community
center buildings. It was determined that
the Commissioners Court has paid over
$2,000 to various communities as part of
the money designated in the community
development program and provided in the
county budget.
Mrs. Crouch said the community tours
are scheduled for Sept. 11-12 to coincide
with the Hopkins County Fall Festival
activities. Awards will be presented
during the Hopkins County World
Championship Stew Day.
Spray paint artists
leave costly legacy
By JIM MOORE
News-Telegram Staff
Some of the seniors at high schools
across the area may be having more
problems than getting in that final test or
assignment to provide for their timely
graduation.
A few of the Class of 1980 could be facing
denial of graduation as well as criminal
action in court due to defacing of public
and private property with such slogans as
, “Seniors ‘80”
“We’ve had three complaints already,”
said Sulphur Springs Police Chief Delbert
Harrell Thursday morning, “at least one
student has been caught and is having to
pay for the damages done to the school
here.”
Harrell said that charges of malicious
mischief will be filed against anyone
caught defacing public property and that
the charges could become felonies if the
cost to repair the damage (including both
parts and labor) is in excess of $200.
Doug Steger, principal at Rains High
School in Emory, said that vandals hit the
school there with their cans of spray paint
and “it is possible that they will not
graduate if we catch up with them before
the commencement exercises.”
City of Sulphur Springs Street Depart-
ment Supervisor Leonard Clem said that
the city is having a problem with signs
being defaced.
He estimated that damages will run
about $500 plus labor to repair or replace
the signs already known to have been
defaced.
“We can get most of it off,” he said,
explaining that a solvent was available
that would allow for most of the paint to be
removed.
However, he said that to replace a sign
such as a stop sign where the paint could
not be removed would cost about $25 each
plus labor.
He said that about 1M0 signs had
already been reported vandalized inside
the city.
State Department of Highways and
Public Transportation officials noted that
several signs on Houston Street had been
defaced and that most would have to be
replaced.
The spokesman said that the costs for
replacement could run as much as $50 per
sign plus labor.
The vandalism has not been restricted to
street signs or highway overpasses.
A resident of the city reported recently
that the brick on her house had been
sprayed with “Seniors *10” and a rural
route resident reported that a garage door
had also been sprayed.
Officials at Sulphur Springs High School |
said that windows, doors and walls had 1
been spray painted with that and other
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Keys, Clarke & Woosley, Joe. The Hopkins County Echo (Sulphur Springs, Tex.), Vol. 105, No. 22, Ed. 1 Friday, May 30, 1980, newspaper, May 30, 1980; Sulphur Springs, Texas. (https://texashistory.unt.edu/ark:/67531/metapth780851/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.