West Texas Wind Festival This Saturday

T. Graham Brown is the featured performer for the festival's free concert.

Plans are being finalized for the twelfth annual West Texas Wind Festival this Saturday, and organizers are expecting a large crowd, especially for the free concert and the fireworks show. 

The current weather forecast is favorable—cloudy skies early on Saturday morning followed by sunshine and partial clearing on Saturday afternoon and evening with afternoon temperatures in the mid-sixties. Chances for rain are 10%.

The downtown streets will be lined with vendors afternoon and evening, and downtown shops will be open for business. The Roscoe Historical Museum will be open, and the Roscoe Express Shuttle will be on hand to take people to and from selected parking areas and downtown all afternoon at no charge.

Plowboy Mudbog
Unfortunately, the Plowboy Mudbog has been postponed to a later date. The recent rains have filled the area where the Mudbog is normally held with standing water, making the location unusable for both competition and spectators.

Roscoe Collegiate Open House
The Roscoe Collegiate School will hold an open house Saturday afternoon at the Edu-Drone office in the Shelansky Building. Edu-Vet will be in the same building to answer questions and inform visitors about the program, and Edu-Make It will also be on hand to show some of its new equipment, such as the 3-D printer. The Edu-Weld building (formerly Nitzsche’s Welding Shop) on west Broadway will also be open to visitors. 

Free Concert 
The free concert and street dance on Cypress Street will begin around six with music by the Branded Texans, an area band.

Then at around eight, country, soul, and gospel singer/songwriter T. Graham Brown will take the stage. Active since the 1970s, the Georgia native has recorded thirteen studio albums with over twenty hit singles on the Billboard Country chart, including three number ones.

These include “Hell or High Water,” “I Wish I Could Hurt That Way,” “Don’t Go to Strangers,” “She Couldn’t Love Me Anymore,” “Darlene,” “The Last Resort,” “Come as You Were,” “Wine into Water,” and “Happy Ever After.” The last two were on his 2014 album Forever Changed, which earned a Grammy nomination for Best Roots Gospel Album.

Fireworks Show
The fireworks show by the Roscoe Volunteer Fire Department will follow Brown’s performance at about 9:40pm and conclude this year’s Wind Festival shortly after 10pm.

After the Fireworks
However, those who aren’t ready to go home yet can move over to the Lumberyard, where Lyndall Underwood & the Dusty Creek Band will play until midnight with no cover charge.

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HAMLIN DEFEATS PLOWBOYS 50-21

Andrew Deleon tackles the Hamlin ball carrier as Nick Limones and Brandon Lavalais close in. (Football photos by Tamara Alexander)

Friday night’s game with Hamlin had a disastrous opening and then went downhill from there as the Pied Pipers jumped out to a quick 14-0 start and never looked back, cruising to a commanding halftime lead and a final score of 50-21. It was the second consecutive lopsided loss for the Plowboys and a resounding victory for the Pipers, who now appear to be in the driver’s seat for the district championship.

Hamlin received the opening kickoff and the Plowboys stopped them on their first three plays, but with a 4th and 6, the Pipers successfully ran a fake punt to keep the drive alive and then drove for a touchdown to go up 7-0. They then kicked off to the Plowboys. On the third play from scrimmage, Hamlin blitzed, and in an attempt to avoid a sack, the Plowboy quarterback tried to throw the ball away, but it fell into the arms of a big Hamlin lineman, who then ran untouched thirty yards for Hamlin’s second TD. The Pipers had scored twice in less than a minute, and from that point on they had the momentum, and the game became a runaway. They scored again on the last play of the first quarter to increase their lead to 22-0.

In the second quarter, Hamlin made three more touchdowns. After the first two, they were ahead 36-0, but with 18 seconds left to go in the half Jose Ortega ran eight yards for the Plowboys’ first score, giving the team something positive before the half. After the ensuing kickoff, however, the Pipers had time for one more play and completed a 46-yard bomb for another TD as the half ended to go up 43-7. It was that kind of night for the Plowboys.

Not a lot happened in the second half. Hamlin scored in the third quarter to go up 50-7, and the Plowboys scored twice in the fourth, one on a 45-yard pass from Jayden Gonzales to Brandon Lavalais, and the other on a one-yard run by Nick Limones. But it was too little, too late, and the final score was 50-21.

For the game, the Plowboys actually had more first downs than Hamlin, 18 to 16, but it was Hamlin’s big plays—and they had several—that killed the Plowboys. Hamlin’s quarterback, sophomore Braydin Warner, completed 12 of 14 passes, which is quite a feat for high school, but he’s a good player and everything was clicking for the Pipers.

Plowboy quarterback Jayden Gonzales completed 15 of 31 passes for 149 yards with 3 interceptions and one TD. Jose Ortega was the leading Plowboy receiver with 5 catches for 66 yards, while Lavalais had 2 for 46 yards and 1 TD. Ortega was also the leading rusher with 7 carries for 46 yards and a TD.

He was also the Plowboys’ leading defender with 9 tackles, followed closely by Gary Shaw with 7. In the second quarter, Brandon Lavalais made a spectacular one-handed interception of a long Hamlin pass, but the play was negated by a holding penalty.

Plowboys vs. Albany Here Friday

This year is a down year so far for perennial 2A power Albany as they lost their first five games—to Colorado City 32-13, Dublin 26-20, Eastland 48-14, Hawley 32-7, and Brook Hill 50-14. But don’t let that losing record fool you into believing they’ll be pushovers. All five of those schools are larger and, with the exception of 2A-I Hawley, are either 3A-I (Eastland), 3A-II (Colorado City, Dublin) or larger. Brook Hill, Albany’s makeup game to replace Roby, is an east Texas Christian school near Tyler with 660 students, meaning if it were in the UIL, it would be classed as 4A.

The only 2A-II school Albany has played so far was last week’s district opener with Baird, and they beat them 48-12. The Lions are led by quarterback Ryan Hill and running back/linebacker Cutter Edgar. To win, the Plowboys will need to forget about the last two weeks and play four good quarters.

Kickoff at Plowboy Field is at 7:00pm.

Note: Some Plowboy season schedules erroneously listed this week’s game as being in Albany. It is here in Roscoe.

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CENTRAL ROLLING PLAINS CO-OP HOLDS FALL MEETING

Co-op members enjoy hamburger lunches at yesterday's meeting.

The Central Rolling Plains Co-op held its annual fall meeting yesterday at the Community Center instead of the cotton gin, where it normally meets, because of the weather. 

Hamburger lunches were served, and Gin Manager Larry Black gave a short address to the members present, updating them on gin matters, particularly the recent increase of plastic found in bales of ginned cotton, which hurts its quality.

Members also wrote down their guesses for the number of cotton bales to be ginned this year, and a $100 prize awaits the person who gets the closest without going over.

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PLOWGIRLS FOURTH IN DISTRICT CROSS-COUNTRY MEET

The varsity Plowgirls finished fourth at the District 8-2A Cross-Country meet last Wednesday behind Haskell, Stamford, and Cross Plains in that order.

Roscoe’s athletes had an average team time of 14:40 for the two-mile race. Here are the individuals’ times and finish position:

                 Athlete                                Time                            Finish
          Victoria Martinez                   14:00.2                             6
          Riley Sheridan                        14:13.2                              9
          Sadie McCambridge              14:25.0                             11
          Jaci Alexander                        14:59.4                             16
          Kadee Martinez                      15:42.7                             26
          Bonnie Wilkinson                  15:56.4                            (27)
          Hartley Sager                          16:31.7                            (28)

The varsity Plowboys finished fourth.

          Caleb Reed                               16:47.8                            <5
          Tyler Guelker                           17:25.5                             <5
          Aidan Hermosillio                  17:28.1                             <5

The Plowgirl JV team also finished fourth. Team members were Kaylea Perez, Alexis Arce, Shauna McCambridge, Jovana Peña, and Isabel Ortega.

The Junior High Plowboys finished third. Comprising its team were Jesus Aguayo, Graham Gleaton, Jacob Blain, Jaiden Frith, Zain Jackson, and Gaven Martinez.

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WEATHER REPORT: COLD AND RAINY

Lake Roscoe. (Photo by Felix Pantoja)

The weather for the past week has been unusually harsh for early October in west Texas. The rains of the previous week have continued, but this time with much cooler temperatures. An arctic front moved through with strong north winds, and the seventy and eighty-degree highs of the previous week fell to highs in the fifties and forties. Lows fell similarly from the previous week’s sixties and fifties to lows in the forties and thirties.

The high north winds that accompanied the lower temperatures dropped wind-chill readings into the mid-twenties accompanied by cold rain, mostly light but sometimes heavier. Jackets that had been in closets since last spring came out, and heaters were turned on in homes for the first time in months. Sunday night’s low temperature was 36°F and Monday’s was 33°. Monday’s high was 45° and yesterday’s only 43°.

The additional rains have not been as heavy as the week before, but with the ground already saturated, the water has had nowhere to go, and area lakes are fuller than they have been in years and the puddles in town likewise larger and more numerous. About an inch fell on Saturday, .1" on Sunday, .2" on Monday, and .5" or more yesterday for a total of almost two more inches on top of the large amounts from the week before. A light rain is also still falling this morning as I write this.

And we’re not out of the woods yet as continued cool temperatures and showers are forecast until Saturday. Today’s high will reach only about 46°, tomorrow’s 52°, and Friday’s 60°. Chances for rain are 90% today, 70% tomorrow, and 50% on Friday morning. Hopefully, the showers will be over by the time the football game at Plowboy Field begins Friday evening.

On Saturday, cloudy morning skies should begin to clear around midday, which is good news for the West Texas Wind Festival scheduled for Saturday afternoon and evening. Sunday and the first days of next week should be partly cloudy with no more than a 20% chance for showers. If those forecasts are accurate, expect to hear lawn mowers running all over town on those days.

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