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Wednesday, MAY 14, 2008

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Hunt bond election fails; Ingram school board changes
Both propositions in Hunt Independent School District’s bond election failed in Saturday’s election, Ingram Independent School District’s school board will have at least three new members and Ingram City Council’s makeup will remain unchanged.

Here are the unofficial election results:

Hunt Independent School District:

Proposition No. 1 ($10 million for high school)

For: 254

Against: 288

Proposition No. 2 ($3 million for athletic facilities)

For: 242

Against: 296

Ingram Independent School District:

For three, three-year trustee positions:

J.D. Wagner: 130

Tammy Myers: 141

Tamarah Wall: 143

Olen Hicks: 130

Freddie Hawkins: 93

For one unexpired term trustee position:

Connie Hubble: 92

Rowan Zachry: 141

Ingram City Council

For mayor:

Howard Jackson: 31

For two council seats:

James Salter: 35

Wanda Lucas: 25

Monroe Schlabach: 14

For one unexpired term council seat:

Gerald Johnson: 35

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Early Ingram industry still thrives

Jerry Stephens stands amid stacks of cedar posts that are shipped all over the country for fencing.

By Clint Schroeder

West Kerr Current

In the heart of Ingram sits the Jerry Stephens Cedar Yard, a thriving remnant of the area’s history and lore.

The yard — a business that’s been in the Stephens family almost 70 years — is located on six acres where mountains of cedar posts are stacked.

Jerry Stephens said he’s been working in the business since 1963, when he was 18, a couple of years after his father, Thad Stephens, purchased it from his brother, Jack, who started it in 1939.

He presides over his business, which employs 25 cedar cutters, at 115 Washington St., in an office made of cedar. His son, Trey, is next door at Stephens Saw Shop, where he does small engine repair on 4-wheelers, jet skis, weedeaters and ATVs, as well as chainsaws.

“Without him, I’d really be in deep trouble here to keep that many chainsaws running all the time,” Stephens said.

He also has a son, Tye, who is a wildlife biologist for a ranch in Uvalde. He has been married to wife Rena for 25 years.

“When I started here at 18, there were five cedar yards here,” he said. “Cedar was a big, big industry.”

It still is, with Stephens’ yard ringing up sales of almost $1 million a year, selling all over the country and Mexico.

Cedar fence posts are sought after because they can last 100 years.

“A lot of people aren’t aware of cedar, how long it lasts,” Stephens said. “There’s nothing on the market like cedar.”

He said steel posts rust faster than cedar rots, especially within 150 miles of the coast, where he does his best business.

“They got to looking at their 10- to 15-year old pipe fences, and they were in worse shape than their 60-year-old cedar fences,” Stephens said of ranchers near the coast.

Cedar fences also are popular in West Texas, he said, where alkaline soils rust steel posts off even with the ground.

“Where they’ve got 100,000 acres, they buy the crookedest little cheap posts they can get,” he said. “A three to three-and-a-half inch post will last 40 or 50 years.”

Stephens’ business is primarily fence posts, but some of his stock is used for lumber, in restaurants for decoration and in houses. [Full Story]

Wastewater plans await final OK
By Clint Schroeder

West Kerr Current

The complete plans for the City of Ingram’s wastewater collection system have been sent to government agencies for final approval.

The Texas Commission on Environmental Quality and U.S. Department of Agriculture Rural Development have received 410-page and 401-page specifications books, City Attorney Danny Edwards said Tuesday.

A time frame for approval hasn’t been specified, but a USDA Rural Development official said it shouldn’t be lengthy.

“We’ll start the bid process the minute they say ‘good to go,’” Edwards said.

The bid process can take as long as a couple of months, he said.

“We’re going to let this thing in two contracts so they can be working in tandem with one another, so we’ll actually be going out to bids for two projects basically,” he said, “the lift stations and the force main and then the contract on the gravity portion of it.”

The spec books contain the written specifications for the system, contract forms for bidding, federal contract documents and soil sample analyses, among other documents, Edwards said.

The City of Ingram in June, 2005 received a $3.2 million USDA Rural Development colonia grant for the construction of Phase I of a wastewater collection system. The city has applied for a grant for Phase II.

“We’re ready, I hope,” Edwards said.

Beloved basketball coach dies

Coach Jim Reid’s place in the Texas High School Basketball Hall of Fame in Waco was secured in 1996.

By Irene Van Winkle

West Kerr Current

The loss of a Hill Country sports icon last Friday has left many people saddened, yet also with much to celebrate.

Coach Jim Reid is being remembered and honored by family and friends, and by those who worked closely with him in the Hill Country during his superstar career.

Reid was inducted into the Texas High School Basketball Hall of Fame in Waco in 1996, and 10 years later, one of his Ingram Tom Moore High School stars, Troy House, was honored there as well.

Ingram Independent School District Superintendent, Bruce Faust became athletic director in 1985, when Reid was hired as basketball coach. Along with them was assistant coach Tom Klaerner, who’s still at IISD.

“We hired him back to return to the Hill Country, and he was a legend, a gentleman and a real role model,” Faust said. “He took us to the playoffs for five years, and we won the state championship in 1990. I’m sitting here looking at the trophy right here.”

In his career, Reid coached a total of four Texas UIL State Basketball Championship Teams (1969-1971, 1990), including Ingram, and was the only coach who won three back-to-back state championships with two different school districts (Kerrville and Dumas). [Full Story]

Treibers’ hard work, mixed with music, still lives in spirit

Mathias Christian and Magdalene Reisner celebrated their golden wedding anniversary in 1917 in Waring, Texas, where they settled in 1884 after coming from Austria-Hungary. Some of their seven children moved into Kerr County in the early 20th Century.

EDITOR’S NOTE — This is the 116th of a series of articles marking Kerr County’s sesquicentennial.

By Irene Van Winkle

West Kerr Current

Mary Ann Pyle lives in the home that her husband and two of her brothers, Albert and Mike Treiber, built. Mike’s son, Leon, has himself been a builder for decades, but then, the Treiber family has been filled with builders, musicians, pecan-growers and cobblers.

At nearly 88 years of age, Mary Ann remembers moving to Kerr County.

“I was two years old when we moved from Comfort,” she said. “My dad, Mathias Christian Treiber, Jr., bought land from Richard Holdsworth on Goat Creek Road.”

Going back in time, information accompanying the Treiber coat of arms includes its origin (citing Linnartz’s “Unsere Familien Namen”), derived from an occupation: “one who was a cattle driver.” The family crest has three silver cattle symbols.

The family’s journey to America began in 1884; 19 years after their wedding, Mary Ann’s grandparents, Mathias (1839-1923) and Magdalene Reisner Treiber (1842-1916), left their small home-town of Drassmarkt in southern Austria-Hungary, to find their fortune, along with the huge wave of immigrants to a new bustling land of opportunity.

Mathias was the son of Johann Treiber and Rosalia Schmidt. Magdalene Reisner (b. 1842), the youngest of four children, was two years old when her mother (Anna Mittmuhler Treiber) died in Drassmarkt. Her father, Frederick, was a cobbler by trade, who died of cholera when Magdalene was six, during what family historian Helen Rusch Noah called “the French War.” [Full Story]

Big cat snared on West Kerr ranch

Rancher Jim Capeheart examines the mountain lion snared on the Kramer Ranch April 12.

By Michael Mann

What’s smaller than a Sasquatch, bigger than a Chupacabra, and actually does live in our Hill Country back pastures? Mountain lions, of course.

Known as pumas, panthers, cougars and catamounts, mountain lions are extremely secretive and practically uncommon until stumbled upon haphazardly.

Such was the case April 12 on the Kramer Ranch near Midway Road. A routine fence-line ride turned up something out-of-the-ordinary as Jim and Sharon Capeheart noticed something snared in their fence. From a distance, the tan creature appeared to be a deer hung up in a coyote snare, but as they got closer, they realized that it was actually a mountain lion (Puma concolor).

Dismounting from horseback, the couple approached the cat to inspect with their dogs.

“One horse, the gray, would have nothing to do with the cat,” Sharon said, but several others “nudged and checked out” the curious thing with their muzzles.

In retrospect, she recalled the horses having “acted strangely in this area” most probably due to scent left behind from the mountain lion.

Jim generally rides the area every day, she said, checking snares, signs, and fences for holes. Having had coyote problems and a decline in whitetail fawns, the Capehearts have enlisted in a co-op program through the United States Department of Agriculture and Texas A&M of Wildlife Damage Management Service. [Full Story]

Hunt ISD growth 7.2 percent next year
By Clint Schroeder

West Kerr Current

Hunt Independent School District is projecting an increase in growth of 7.2 percent next year.

Superintendent David Kelm, in a report to the board during a regular meeting last Thursday, said the district’s Pre-K class next year will have 23 students, compared with this year’s 12-13.

“It’s the largest Pre-K class we’ve ever had, and those are Hunt kids and we expect them to be here a long time,” Kelm said.

He added that grades 2nd, 5th, 6th and 8th also are almost at maximum capacity, with 8th grade to have 30-31 students.

“Regardless of what happens in the bond issue, we’re going to have to look at revenue,” Kelm said. “If we have a successful bond election, moving students up to a middle school will certainly free up some space.”

Hunt ISD is having a $13 million bond election May 10 — early voting starts next Monday. (Please see related story) Proposition 1 is $10 million for a high school, and Proposition 2 is $3 million for an athletic complex.

Some residents who question the need for a high school have cited a Census report that Kerr County growth was slow last year. [Full Story]

more . . . Front Page

24.APR.08 Early voting starts Monday
24.APR.08 Ingram requests bid to restore long mural
24.APR.08 From early to modern times, Woottons strived for excellence
17.APR.08 Hunt polocrosse
17.APR.08 Wastewater connections grant OK’d
17.APR.08 IVFD selling old fire station
17.APR.08 ITM One-Act makes State alternate
17.APR.08 Grants, emergency funding topics of Mountain Home ESD2 meeting
17.APR.08 Quarterhorse expert recalls local race tracks, fast action
10.APR.08 Return of ‘The Grove’ planned
10.APR.08 Ingram ISD board OKs computers, buses buys
10.APR.08 ITM One-Act advances to Regionals
10.APR.08 Hunt man killed in accident
10.APR.08 Scions of Burney clan set bar high in early Kerr history
03.APR.08 Hunt high school plans updated
03.APR.08 Ingram gets small
03.APR.08 ITM scholarship gala Saturday
03.APR.08 Whelans’ history marked by enterprise, music, humor

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