District 8-2A schools are Coleman, Colorado City Colorado, Forsan, Miles, Roscoe Collegiate, and Winters.
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LONE WOLF RELAYS RESULTS
The Lone Wolf Relays were held in Colorado City on Thursday, March 26, with four schools participating: Coahoma, Colorado, Forsan, and Roscoe Collegiate.
Here are the results for the Plowgirls:
Event Finish Athlete Time/Distance
Long Jump 2 Cheyanne Moorhead 13’ 5”
3 Cameron Greenwood 13’ 4½“
5 Kirsten Welch 12’ 1½”
Discus 1 Shauna McCambridge 88’ 1”
Shot Put 4 Shauna McCambridge 27’ 4”
High Jump 5 Carson Greenwood 4’ 4”
Triple Jump 2 Kaidy Ornelas 29’ 9”
3 Cheyanne Moorhead 28’ 3½”
5 Cameron Greenwood 27’ 5”
3200 meter run 1 Jissell Rodriquez 14:17.71
3 Jaiden Amador 16:31.52
1600 meter run 1 Kaidy Ornelas 6:01.46
4 Jaiden Amador 7:43.90
5 Savannah Little 8:27.25
800 meter run 3 Yaniez Aguilar 2:57.17
4 x 100 meter relay 4 Plowgirls 56.94
100 meter hurdles 1 Carson Greenwood 18.64
4 x 200 meter relay 4 Plowgirls 2:06.75
400 meter dash 3 Mia Lavalais 1:09.;71
6 Majalia Munn 1:19.74
300 meter hurdles 2 Carson Greenwood 58.53
200 meter dash 5 Shauna McCambridge 31.29
6 Carson Greenwood 31.3
4 x 400 meter relay 2 Plowgirls 4:41.88
Here are the results for the Plowboys:
Long Jump 6 Antonio Aguayo 16’11¼”
Discus 6 Michael Parker-Fulton 93’ 1½”
3200 meter run 4 Caleb Reed 12:23.81
5 Jaiden Frith 13:27.71
Pole Vault 4 Graham Gleaton 7’ 6”
4 x 100 meter relay 2 Plowboys 45.04
100 meter dash 6 Keller Vinson 12.08
4 x 200 meter relay 2 Plowboys 1:35.55
200 meter dash 2 Antonio Aguayo 23.7
1600 meter run 5 Grayson 5:35.64
4 x 400 meter relay 4 Plowboys 3:45.54
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CITY EASTER EGG HUNT THIS SATURDAY
After not being held last year because of the pandemic and the Governor’s stay-home mandate, the City Easter Egg will resume this Saturday, April 3, from 2:00-3:00pm at Old Town Park across from City Hall on Cypress Street.
Hunts are planned for three separate age groups: 0-3 years old, 4-7 years old, and 8-12 years old. Everyone is invited.
The Easter Bunny will be there for photo ops, so please bring cameras and baskets for goodies. For more information, contact City Hall during business hours at 325-766-3871.
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COVID-19 NUMBERS MIXED IN US, BETTER IN TEXAS
In the US, some areas show consistent improvement while others are once again experiencing increases, and the average daily number of new cases is higher now than it was two weeks ago. The western and southern states continue to report falling case numbers, hospitalizations, and deaths, while the northeastern states along with Michigan see their case numbers increase. States hardest hit are New Jersey, New York, Michigan, Pennsylvania, Connecticut, Massachusetts, and Rhode Island.
Meanwhile, the number of people being vaccinated is increasing with about 2.7 million people receiving vaccinations every day. Also, on the positive side, the CDC has learned that transmission of Covid-19 by people who have been vaccinated with Pfizer or Moderna vaccines may be very rare.
In Texas, anyone 16 or older is now eligible to receive the vaccine. The state is receiving another million doses this week, so all who want the vaccine will eventually get it. Demand for the vaccine in Texas is high with long lines of people in cities like Houston.
Despite the outbreaks of Covid-19 elsewhere, the numbers in Texas for new cases, active cases, hospitalizations, and deaths all continue their steady drop from the January peak. New cases on Monday were at 1,881, 329 fewer than last week. Hospitalizations are down to 3,146 compared to 3,980 last week, and average daily deaths have decreased by 31 to 114.
Improvement also continues in the Big Country. The number of active cases in Taylor County has fallen to 160 from 206 last week and 347 two weeks ago. Hospitalizations for Covid-19 in Abilene are now at 9 patients compared to 13 last week. On Sunday, the percentage of Covid-19 patients in the Abilene trauma service area was under 2%. However, 8 more deaths have been added to the total, which now stands at 388 for Taylor County.
In our four-county area, the numbers are also low. Nolan County reports only 5 active cases, down from 7 last week. Fisher County has 2, their first in six weeks, and Mitchell County has 4, down from 8 last week, along with 2 in the Wallace unit prison staff. Scurry County is listed as having none on the state website but has some in others. There was 1 new Covid-19 death reported in Nolan County, but none in the other three.
Roscoe schools are completely Covid-19 free and will be lifting Covid-19 protocols on Friday.
Here are the Big Country’s estimated active cases (with last week’s in parentheses): Jones, 39 (39); Howard, 34 (46); Erath, 14 (13); Brown, 11 (64); Callahan, 4 (1); Mitchell, 4 (8); Comanche, 4 (5); Stephens, 3 (1); Nolan, 3 (7); Fisher, 2 (0), Kent, 1 (9); Haskell, 1 (1); Runnels, 1 (1); Eastland, 0 (6); Shackelford, 0 (3); Coleman, 0 (1); Coke, 0 (0); Scurry, 0 (0); Stonewall, 0 (0); Knox, 0 (0); Throckmorton, 0 (0).
Selected west Texas counties’ estimated active cases (with last week’s in parentheses): Midland 262 (298), Ector (Odessa) 182 (282), Lubbock 161 (155); Tom Green (San Angelo) 102 (132); Wichita (Wichita Falls) 75 (82).
Texas now has had a total of 2,391,860 cases (2,368,222 last week), 95,739 active cases (1o4,994 last week) and 47,278 total deaths (46,478 last week).
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WEATHER REPORT: WARM, WINDY, AND DRY
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| Monday's sunrise. |
It’s been a relatively normal week for the weather with warmer than average temperatures, plenty of wind and sunshine, and no precipitation. The high for the past week was Friday’s high of 84°, followed closely by Monday’s 83°. The lows were also warmer than the average 42° for this time of year. The lowest low was last night’s 44°, and the maximum low was Monday’s 54°.
Winds were generally higher than average with the strongest winds being the south and southwest winds on Friday, Saturday, Monday, and yesterday. At least there were no more sandstorms.
The next few days will be a bit cooler than the past few. Today features a strong north wind of about 20-30mph with stronger gusts and a high of only about 64°. Tonight’s low will drop down to 37° for the coolest low we’ve had for a while. Tomorrow will have a high of 68° with lighter winds from the south-southeast at about 10-15mph, much better for the 8-2A District Track Meet at Plowboy Field. Friday’s high of 68° will come with a strong south breeze of about 20mph, and Saturday’s high will also be similar at about 69°. Sunday will be warmer with a high of 76°, and Monday is forecast to be back up to 84° with highs projected to climb into the nineties by Wednesday.
Unfortunately, there is still no rain in the forecast.
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ROSCOE IN YEARS GONE BY: THE BOYS CLUB EASTER TRIP
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| Roscoe boys on an Easter Trip meet Governor Allen Shivers in Austin in 1954. |
For me, the time around Easter always brings to mind the annual Easter Trip once available to members of the Roscoe Boys Club, and the rattlesnake bite I got while on one in 1957. Any of the boys who ever made that trip in the forties, fifties, or sixties will tell you that it was a memorable experience.
The Easter Trip was an annual affair that took place on the Easter break, which, in the days before schools observed a spring break, was a four-day holiday that began on Good Friday and lasted through the following Monday. About ten or twelve boys would make the trip in the “Moose Wagon,” our nickname for George Parks’ van. Each had to have enough money for his own meals, snacks, and souvenirs. The lodging was covered by the Boys Club.
As with most Boys Club trips, the Easter Trip began at the Roscoe Times office with leaving time set at five in the morning. George was an early riser and insisted on an early start, and woe to the boy who arrived ten minutes late, because by then George would already be gone. This idiosyncrasy was well known to all the mothers in and around Roscoe, and usually by ten to five, everybody was there and ready to go.
It would still be dark when we set off for San Marcos, about 300 miles away, and many boys, especially those in the back seats, would go right back to sleep and doze until it got light. At around one or two o’clock, we’d arrive and immediately go down to a recreational area on the river there and get in a good swim before supper. It would be the first time any of us had swum that year, and the water would be cold—but not as cold as the water in west Texas, which wouldn’t be warm enough to swim in until the end of May.
There was an outdoor snack bar there with a jukebox, which blared out the latest hits, the favorite of one year being Elvis Presley’s “Midnight Train.” There were also local high school kids hanging out there, the boys in white t-shirts and blue jeans, white socks, and moccasins—with their hair combed back in duck tails and one sleeve rolled up so that it held a pack of Camels on the upper arm. Girls in ponytails wore full skirts or rolled-up blue jeans with thick, white socks and saddle oxfords.
Near the diving board was a contraption we called the trolley, which we all loved to ride. You climbed a ladder about as high as a high diving board up to a steel cable that ran from an overhead pole all the way down to the bank on the opposite side of the river. The trolley was a handle with grooved wheels that fit on the cable. By grabbing the handle with both hands and jumping off the platform, you would quickly be borne out over the river. Then by letting go, you would plunge from ten to twelve feet into the water below.
We swam and played until everyone had had enough, and then we went to supper at a restaurant called Arredondo’s. One year, George got tired of people playing Elvis and Little Richard on the jukebox there, so he fed it about a dollar's worth of nickels and played Johnny Cash's "Ballad of a Teenage Queen" over and over again. The other people in the restaurant thought he was crazy. I can still sing that song by heart.
Then we went to the cabins, where we stayed for the night. They were owned by one of George’s old friends, Elmer Gray, who rented them out to Southwest Texas State students. He usually had two or three vacant ones, and these he let the Boys Club use for the night.
The next morning after breakfast we swam again, this time at a place where the river water came pouring over a short concrete dam about three feet tall. The level of the river was about three inches higher than that of the dam, and we would get in the spot where the water came over the dam in a big, constant wave. After the swim, we went to Wonder Cave for two or three hours and then to Aquarena, a tourist attraction with glass-bottomed boats for rent and an underwater show for tourists—with “mermaids” (young women in mermaid outfits) and a swimming pig.
That afternoon we’d leave San Marcos and drive over to San Antonio, where we went to the Alamo, which we treated with the reverence of a church. This was the cradle of Texas liberty, and it meant more to us than anything from the Revolutionary War. Davy Crockett, Jim Bowie, and Colonel Travis were heroes we grew up knowing about, and after visiting the Alamo we’d go to the San Fernando Cathedral in downtown San Antonio to see the stone casket that held their ashes.
We’d also go to the old Spanish Governor’s Palace and in the evening to La Villita and the Riverwalk, although those places were much different then. Before the revitalization of downtown, La Villita and the Riverwalk were in rough areas that tourists visited only in the daytime. At night, Hispanic gangs were out, and George made us all keep together while walking along the river there in the evenings.
On Easter Sunday morning, we’d go to a protestant church somewhere in San Antonio—and would usually be recognized and welcomed by the pastor when he gave the announcements before the sermon. In the afternoon we went to the batting cages or played miniature golf or went to a movie in the Aztec Theatre, one of those grand old movie theatres from the twenties, with a high ceiling and elaborate architecture. The ceiling had “stars” that twinkled, and everything was built and decorated in the Spanish style. That evening, after supper at a Mexican restaurant with Mariachi singers, we’d go to Playland, a big amusement park with the largest roller coaster in Texas, along with various other rides.
The next morning, we got up and went to Austin, where we spent the greater part of the day. We always went to the state capitol and saw the sights there. The state representative for the Roscoe district would sometimes meet us and show us around, and one year the group went in and met the governor. Then, we’d get in one last swim, this time at Barton Creek, a spring-fed creek in south Austin with crystal clear water the same temperature all year round. Finally, in mid-afternoon we’d start the long drive back to Roscoe.
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| A stop at Shriner Institute in Kerrville on the 1956 Easter Trip. |
It was on one of these return trips that I got bitten by a rattlesnake. This was on April 22, 1957, when I was thirteen. We were about five miles beyond Lampasas when Billy Haney, admiring the bluebonnets on the shoulders of the highway, asked George if he could get out and pick some for his mother. George agreed and stopped the van. This was before it was against the law to pick bluebonnets.
Billy and I got out and were on our way over to a bluebonnet patch when I stepped on something soft. Simultaneously, I heard the unmistakable rattle and felt the snake strike me on the lower leg. I was barefooted and in shorts, and I still remember what the snake’s body felt like when I stepped on it. I called out to George that a snake bit me. When he asked what kind and I said a rattlesnake, he told me to lie down on the shoulder of the road.
Then he said, “Who’s got a knife?” and when my brother Joe said that he did, I knew this wasn’t going to be fun. Joe’s knife was an old pocketknife that he got from Daddy and used primarily for cleaning fish. Its main blade was chipped and rusty. George cut an x with it on my leg where the snake bit it and started sucking out the blood and poison and then spitting it out.
In the meantime Joe and Cuppy Graham found the snake in the grass and killed it with rocks. On George’s orders, Wade McLeod stood out in the middle of the highway and flagged down a car. It was just luck that the first person who came along was an intern who worked at St. Mary’s Hospital in Lampasas. He and a couple of boys picked me up and put me in the back seat of his ’57 Chevy.
When we got to the hospital, the intern drove right up to the emergency entrance, and almost immediately they had me on a table and went to work on my leg. While one doctor repeatedly stabbed my leg with a scalpel and then ran a suction device over it to draw out the poisoned blood, another gave me a snake serum shot with a big needle and then some morphine. Then the lights went out, and I was out cold for twenty-four hours.
When I woke up, I was in a hospital bed and my mother was sitting in a chair by the wall crocheting. My right leg was about twice as big around as normal and just about every color of the rainbow—purple, red, and yellow being the main colors. I stayed in the hospital for five more days before the doctor said I was well enough to go home. Wells Funeral Home in Roscoe had an ambulance in those days, and George Parks got Sid Wells to drive to Lampasas and bring me back to Roscoe in it.
I was out of school for another week or so after that and on crutches for three weeks more. Robert Martin started calling me Snake, and before long all the other boys followed suit—although the girls never did, so to this day I am still known in Roscoe to the males as Snake and to most females as Bitsy, as I was known to everyone before the snake bite.
