The Winkler County News (Kermit, Tex.), Vol. 8, No. 39, Ed. 1 Friday, December 8, 1944 Page: 1 of 6
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Friday, Dec. 8,1944
Kermit, Winkler County, Texas
Volume 8; No. 39
Test Made That May Extend
Side
Issues
<»
BY H. G. VERMILLION
because
are
of
be-
be
asked
are
accuracy
and
Red
a
I
*
AN
I
32,
equavalent
Walter
to
R.
and
Mrs.
v.y.;
School Holidays To
Begin Next Week;
Yule Tree Planned
Gifts For Men
In Pyote Hospital
To Be Collected
County Nearing
War Bond Quota:
E Sales Still Light
Weather Returns
To Normal After
Freakish Spell
Eastern Star Sets
Bazaar In Kermit
a
a
Cross
the
the
t as
and
• on
Ten Men Classified
4s 1-A By Local
Draft Board
Force
crews
the
programs
under
D.
at
this
FORCE
England—
The Winkler County News
An Institution Promoting The Interests of Winkler County
meritorious
service in aerial flight over ene-
my occupied continental Europe.
(Continued on Page Two)
Pecos And Merkel
To Play Tonight
In Bi-District Game
State Fire Chief
To Visit Kermit
Mrs. W. T. Hair has arrived to
be with her husband, Assistant
County Attorney Hair.
Walter Hahn, student at Texas
A & M College, visited his par-
ents, Mr. and Mrs. J. M. Hahn,
last week end.
Legion Decides
To Erect Large
Building Here
Akin To Speak
For Men’s Group
A. C. Akin will be guest speak-
er when the Men’s Fellowship
of the Community Church meets
at 8 p. m. Tuesday in the church’s
young people’s building, it was
announced this week.
Refreshments will be served at
the meeting.
J
Firemen Meet With
Wink Department
Kermit Volunteer Fire Depart-
ment members met with Wink
his ! firemen Monday night for a drill
on first aid and a demonstration
of use of the inhalator and re-
suscitator.
Fred Pearson, secretary of the
Kermit department, showed how
the machine works in reviving
[ persons.
the
, Friday
week, it
would have a
an office and
hole.
Westbrook, still, active in the
7 business and not a very old
man to have drilled in the dis-
covery well here in 1926, was
in Kermit this week on business.
He still has some holdings in the
Hendricks pool and is drilling a
well in the Halley pool south of
Kermit.
Members of the Eastern Star
chapter here will hold a bazaar
and food sale in the small build-
ing just north of the Quality
and
was
Mr. and Mrs. S. H. Cruncleton,
former Kermit residents who
have been living in Grandfalls
for the last several months, have
moved back to Kermit. They
are staying m Wink until their
home is completed.
Keystone Pool Deep Production
Sun Oil Well
To Northwest
Watched Closely
Possible extension of the great
Keystone deep field northeast of
Kermit that would almost double
the proved area of the field ..was
watched by oil men this week as
tests were begun at the Sun Oil
Company’s No. 2 Keystone in
Section 4, Block 77, about two, ■
miles east of the Cheyenne post
office.
Production in the field that Has*
brought the boom to Kermit now
extends for about two miles in
a northwest-southeast direction
from the Amon G. Carter discov-
ery well, located east and slightly
north of the Cabot Carbon Com-
pany carbon black plant. Tests
are being drilled to the southeast
that would extend the field for
several miles in that direction if
they are brought in as producers,
however.
In the Sun well, not far south
of the New Mexico line, a drill-
stem test from 10,336 to 10,356
feet failed, and another test was
planned. The hole was in the
Ellenburger formation where pay
had been found in the field’s, pro-
ducers, and the operators ‘ were
reported confident that production
would be found at the well.
If it is, the well possibly could
be a connecting link between the
Winkler Couhty Keystone product-
ion and a well brought in by the
Humble Oil Company about 10
miles northwest of the Sun well
in New Mexico.
Dwarfed by Superfortress tail
fin which towers 28 feet into
the air, a lone guard stands his
watch over B-29s at Pyote Army
Air Field, Texas, one of the
Junior Class To Give
Play At High School
Friday Evening
Members of the Junior Class
of Kermit High School will give
a dramatic farce, “Laughing Gas,”
in the High School auditorium
Friday night.
Directed by Misses Lillian
Ayres and Hazelie McCarty, the
play will feature amusing sit-
uations and fast action.
The characters will be played
by Phyllis Syfrett, Betty Jo Holl-
and, Mamie Ruth Odom, Bobby
Jim Sparks, Christine Goodin,
Joe Cannon, Jr., Patricia Holling-
worth, Frank Ellis Summers,
Tena Rasure, Gary DeShazo and
Elmer Six.
Stage
Norman Horner,
Junior Oliver, M.
and Janie Belle Morgette.
> NEW S OF OUR
men^women
W-SW IN UNIFORM
Boxes for the collection of
Christmas gifts for the soldiers
in the hospital at the Pyote Ar-
my Air Base have been placed
in the Kermit Pharmacy, the
Best Drug Store, the L-B Drug
Store, the Winkler County Lib-
rary $nd the school it was an-
nounced by Mrs. W.- G. Crowley,
president of the American Le-
gion Auxiliary, this week. The
American Legion and Auxiliary
are sponsoring the collection.
Suggested gifts are books,
games, writing material, air mail
stamps, toilet articles, tooth
brushes and paste or powder,
billfolds) handkerchiefs, combs,
hair brushes and socks. It is es-
no razor
> or any
be in-
Landers, of
an outdoor
Eighth Air
welding
week.
The shop is to be known
the Harvey-Baxter Boiler ;
Welding Shop and is located
the Jal Highway.
* *
Service Board,
nounced this week,
ification list:
G. Gilligan, wife of the
wife of the Kermit High School
band directir, and daughter left
this week for Austin to spend a
week or more with her parents.
Trinity President
To Preach Here
Sunday, Dec. 17
■p ■ A fc®
Somehow it is the nature of
the oil business to be different
from other businesses and to be
filled with tales of the bizarre
and the unusual.
Every major oil strike in the
history of the business, I guess,
has its share of such tales, some
true and some woven out of the
sheer fabric of fiction.
Thus the stories that grew up
about the discovery of oil in the
western Permian Basin in Reagan
County are many and interesting.
Frank Pickrell, according to the
legends, drilled there because of
something a buddy in France told
him in the first war; he was
supposed to drill at a certain lo-
cation, but his crew had to start
drilling where they unloaded the
rig off the old Orient Railroad
because the lease was about to
expire, or else because it was
handier there.
*
Roy Westbrook, erstwhile Fort
Worth print shop operator who
drilled in the first well in Wink-
ler County, says that the legend
that the discovery well in this
county, in the Hendricks Field,
was drilled on the wrong -location
is not so. He said that it was
true, however, that the Reagan
County discovery was drilled off
location and that the original lo-
cation would have been a dry
State Fire Chief Frank Williams
will make his annual visit to the
Kermit Fire Department next
Tuesday, Dec. 12, Secretary Fred
Pearson of the Kermit department
said this week.
Firemen of the city and city
officials will meet Chief Will-
iams at the fire station here at
8 p. m. Tuesday.
Chief Williams ordinarily on
visits presents a movie or inter-
esting demonstration on fire
fighting.
a community Christmas tree
the Courthouse lawn.
They also directed the club’s
standing committee to investigate
and find out whether there
any families in Kermit that will
need Christmas baskets. In the
past, the club has distributed the
baskets to the needy on Christ-
mas as an annual good will and
peace toward man gesture, but it
was believed possible that be-
cause of the plentitude of jobs
now available at good wages, no
families in Kermit this year would
need a bsket.
In the schools, teachers and
children were planning the annual
Christmas parties that always are
held a few days before the mid-
winter vacation begins.
With the opening of the annual
school Christmas holidays set for
next week in Kermit, stores were
reporting record pre-Christmas
I buying, despite shortages of mer-
chandise that would have been
considered suitable for the Christ-
mas trade in pre-war days.
Schools will be dismissed on
Friday of next week, Dec. 15,
and will not convene again until
Tuesday, Jan. 2, it was announced
by school officials.
Thus school children will get
two full weeks plus an extra long
week end away from classrooms.
While merchants were busy
selling goods and as a War Loan
drive was on, Kermit was doing
almost nothing in the way of the
usual Christmas holiday decorat-
ing.
Members of the Kermit Lions
Club board of directors voted not
to attempt the former project of
stringing colored Christmas lights
across the streets, but to inves- |
tigate the feasibility of erecting t
a community Christmas tree on
* *
EIGHTH AIR
FIGHTER STATION,
The Air Medal and its first Oak
Leaf Cluster have been award-
ed to Second Lt. Otto D. Jen-
kins, Kermit, Texas.
A cluster is
another medal.
The P-51 Mustang fighter pilot,
destroyer of four and a half
Nazi aircraft, received the award
from his commanding officer, Lt.
Colonel John
Joshua, Texas,
ceremony at
Force station.
The citation for Jenkins
other 357th Fighter Group pilots
read:
“For exceptionally
of
Cleaners Thursday,
Saturday of this '
announced.
Sale of hand-made linens
other similar articles was to be
and Friday,
home baked
personnel consists of
Sammie Austin,
E. Thompson
Second Air Force fields where
Superbomber crews are being
trained for the program of
long-range aerial attrition which
is just opening against Japan’s
homeland.
* * *
When the discussion switched
to the occult, Wesbrook said he
did not “believe in messing with
that stuff,” but contributed a yarn
that I had never heard before
and that perhaps belongs in the
album of oil discovery yarns.
Westbrook said that in October
of 192iT he attended a theater at
which a woman billed as an In-
dian princess was doing some
kind of a mystic act. Members of
the audience were supposed to
tell her what was on their minds
and she would discuss the sub-
ject.
Westbrook got up and said he
wanted oil as his topic. Some
time before he and associates had
leased the Hendricks Ranch in
Winkler County, but no well had
been drilled.
Westbrook said the princess
said she saw a huge barren area
far from there—the incident took
place in Fort Worth—but still in
the state, although barely in the
state. She said she saw success
in July.
Since the lease on the Hen-
dricks Ranch was made up of
48 sections, all this was very in-
teresting to Westbrook. He had
real occasion to remember the
prophecy, because the discovery
well was started the next Feb-
ruary and was drilled in as a
producer the next July—on July
19, 1926, to be exact.
* * *
Thursday, Dec. 7, was the third
anniversary of our “day of in-
famy,” as President Roosevelt
termed it—Pearl Harbor day.
We will have no national holi-
day on December 7. No bands will
play and there will be no parades,
no patriotic rallies.
Yet we should not forget the
day of Pearl Harbor, not as long
as we are a nation living among
other nations. Because what hap-
pened at Pearl Harbor could hap-
, pen again, and we and our sons
and their sons should be deter-
mined that it will not happen
again, and should work to the end
that it will not happen.
Today we buy war bonds and
we sacrifice, or think we do, be
cause we were not prepared, and
because Pearl Harbor could take
place. We sacrifice less than any
(Continued on Page Two)
featured Thursday
and on Saturday,
cakes, cookies and pies will be
sold along with the other articles.
NEW BOILER SHOP
OPENED IN KERMIT
J. R. Harvey, formerly of San
Antonio, and Aubrey Baxter of
Oklahoma City opened a boiler
shop in Kermit this
Ten men have been changed
to class 1-A by the local Selec-
tive Service Board, it was an-
The reclass-
4-F to 1-A, Grady
Butler, Robert P. Minnix.
2-B to 1-A, Jesse C. Young,
Willis -H. McVay, Naylor E. Po-
gue, Milton G. Whittier, Sterling
A. Bradham, Charles S. Mulkey.
Oto 1-A, John R. Walker, Wal-
ter B. Moore.
1-A to 2-B, George T. Glover,
Fred Jones, Philip Antes, Oran
L. Martin.
1-A to 2-A, James B. Ha vis.
1-C inducted to 1-C discharged,
Clifford B. Olinger, Hubbard R.
Bryan.
1-A to 1-C, inducted, Hubert
M. Nichols, Gilbert E. Perry,
John H. Keating, Lloyd Duncan,
Winfred H. Crispen.
4-A to deceased,
Lewis.
Winkler County apparently was
back to its normal winter weather
of warm sunny days and crisp
nights late this week after a spell
of freakish weather in which the
clouds would blow up, blow away
and blow back again.
The county shared week-end
drizzles and a high wind Sunday
with most of the rest of West
Texas.
Low temperatures for the first
seven days of the month, begin-
ning last Friday, help tell the
story of the freakish weather..
As recorded by the CAA station
at the Wink airport, they are:
Friday, 24, Saturday 34, Sun-
day 47, Monday, 47, Tuesday, 43,
Wednesday, 32, and Thursday,
24.
Bright fair weather with frost
at night was the long range fore-
cast for this part of Texas for
the next few days.
Pfc. Charles Kennedy, son of
Mr. and Mrs. Jack Kennedy of
Kermit, has been missing in act-
ion in Germany since Nov. 17, his
parents were notified this week
in a telegram from the Adjutant
General’s office.
Kennedy was in an infantry
division participating in the great
offensive against Germany.
A graduate of Kerjnit High
School, Kennedy later worked at
the1 L-B Drug Store here before
he was inducted into the Army.
After his induction he attended
college some while at DePaul in
Chicago, training for officer
status, but while he still was in
the college the War Department
discontinued the college training
and Kennedy was transferred to
an infantry regiment as a pri-
vate.
His brothers in the service are
Capt. Curtis Kennedy of the Mar-
ine Air Corps, stationed in the
South Pacific, and Pvt. Bobby
Kennedy, an Army paratrooper
now stationed in Florida.
* * «
Sgt. Joe Burnett, who is station-
ed at the Lubbock Army Air
Field, is visiting his parents, Mr.
and Mrs. Cass Wills.
* * *
Corp. Keith Willis recently has
arrived in England, according to
word received by his parents, Mr.
and Mrs. H. L. Willis. Corporal
Willis, engineer radio operator in
the Army Air Corps, attended
school in Kermit. His parents now
live in Long Beach, Calif.
* * *
Corp. Jerry Hack, son of Mr.
and Mrs. G. A. Hack, has arrived
in England, according to word re-
ceived by his parents. He is in
the Army Signal Corps.
* * *
15TH AIR FORCE IN ITALY:
Staff Sgt. Jack H. Moorehead,
Kermit, Texas, is a waist gunner
in a 15th AAF B-24 liberator
group which has spent one year
overseas.
He is the son of Mr. and Mrs.
Tom Moorehead of Kermit.
His group has flown nearly
200 missions over strategically
important targets such as Ploe-
'St-i,^ Munich, Steyr, Schwechat,
Regensburg,'Vienna, Weiner Neu-
stadt and Budapest. Durin the
12 months overseas, his organi-
zation has taken a leading part
in the destruction of the vaunted
Luftwaffe, and opened the cam-
paign against Ploesti by leading
the first daylight attack April 5.
r It co-ordinated its heavy bom-
bardment with the attacks on
Anzio and Cassino and later pre-
faced the Allied landing in Sou-
thern France by knocking out
coastal installations and gun em-
placements. During the group’s
combat operations, it had estab-
lished several bombing
records.
Moorehead entered the AAF
in November, 1942. He attended
the Laredo, Texas Aerial Gun-
nery School.
Marching on its way toward
meeting its quota of War Bond
sales in the Sixth War Loan
drive, Winkler County this week
had an official total of $108,675
in bonds sold.
Quota in the county for the en-
tire drive is $155,000. If sales
continue at the pace they have
set so far, the quota should be
met without trouble.
However, E bond sales as the
official report was compiled last
Saturday by County Chairman
Lee Johnson and Co-Chairman S.
M. Halley had reached a total of
only $48,675, or only slightly over
half of the county quota of $80,-
000.
It was in E bond sales that the
bond drive was lagging in many
sections of the nation. Apparently
too many of the people who buy
E bonds—the wage earners and
small businessmen—figured the
war was drawing to a close and
that the United States did not
need their money any more.
Reports from battlefronts of
the global war emphasized on the
contrary that on the third anni-
versary of the infamous Japanese
attack on Pearl Harbor, the U.
S. forces abroad were consuming
munitions and supplies of all sorts
at a rate exceeding anything that
had ever, been conceived
fore.
Dr. Monroe G. Everett, presi-
dent of Trinity University, San
Antonio, will preach at the Com-
munity Church in Kermit Sunday
morning, Dec. 17, Rev. Fulton
Moore, the pastor, announced
this week.
Dr. Everett’s sermon will
on “The Candle of Wisdom.” .
the service, Professor Elw;
Carter, head of the music de^
partment and director of the
Trinity University Choir, will
sing, accompanied by Mrs. Carter
at the organ.
Mrs. Everett, wife of the Trin-
ity president, also will be a guest
at the church.
Dr. Everett became president of
Trinity in 1942 after a career
which included ministry in the
Presbyterian Church beginning in
1915 and various administrative
posts in church work since 1922.
Carter, a baritone, who came to
the university this year from
New York, was soloist for seven
years at the First Presbyterian
Church of New York City, and
has appeared as guest soloist for
the Detroit Symphony Orchestra
and on such radio programs as
the Hall of Fame under Paul
Whiteman and the All Time Hit
Parade.
pecially requested that i
blades, mirrors, scissors
other sharp instrument
eluded in the box.
Those giving gifts
to make the package as attrac-
tive as possible and to look like
a real Christmas gift. Personal
cards may be placed in the pack-
age if desired. Much apprecia-
tion was expressed by hospital
attendants for the gifts of can-
dy, cookies, fruit and nuts de-
livered to the hospital Thanks-
giving day.
Members of the American Le-
gion post in Kermit Tuesday de-
cided to attempt construction of
a 60 by 90-foot American Legion
home here that also would be
used as a community center, a
youth center and a recreation cen-
ter for Kermit.
The building would be erected
on five lots now owned by the
Legion on the northeast corner
of the block just north of the
Courthouse square. Details of the
building program remained to be
worked out. No cost estimates had
been made, but Maury Alberts,
chairman of the building comm-
ittee, said it will cost “plenty.”
The building as proposed would
be a memorial—perhaps the mem-
orial in Kermit—to the dead of
the present World War from this
community.
It was planned that some sort
of permanent plaque or marker
in the building would bear the
names of the men who have given
their lives in the war.
Alberts told members of
Lions Club Thursday that
project would be too large for the
Legion and Auxiliary to swing by
themselves, and that the entire
community would be asked to
help financially.
(If we build this building as
we plan to,” he said, “it will be
the finest Legion home in West
Texas.”
As proposed, the building would
have a sub-basement with banquet
hall and kitchen, along with
room for Auxiliary meetings,
recreation room,
room.
The first floor
large auditorium,
caretaker’s quarters.
Tentative plans call for outside
barbecue pits.
Jim Vowell, Fort Worth arch-
itect, has been employed to draw
plans for the building, and this
week was said to be preparing
cost estimates.
On the building committee for
the Legion are Post Commander
S. C. Calloway, Alberts, G. C. Ol-
sen, Jack Kennedy, T. J. Hill-
house, Joe Boudreaux, J. M. Hahn,
Jack Garber, Hugh Hawkins, and
Rev. Fulton Moore.
Pecos and Merkel will meet in
Pecos Friday night in the Class
A bi-district football game for the
championship of this area of West
Texas, with Merkel somewhat the
favorite on the basis of scoring
records and other factors.
Merkel last year was defeated
by Wink at Wink in a bi-district
game that developed little spec-
tacular football. The powerful
but relatively slow Merkel team
of a year ago could not get up
enough steam to play Wink on
even' terms.
Winner of the Pecos-Merkel
test will meet Littlefield for the
regional title.
Pecos’ Eagles were unbeaten
in regular district play, but were
in’ {tied by Kermit in a non-district
encounter, and were beaten by
Austin of El Paso in a game out-
side the district.
Merkel was beaten only by the
always strong Ballinger team.
Pyote Superfortress Dwarfs Guard
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Vermillion, Henry G. The Winkler County News (Kermit, Tex.), Vol. 8, No. 39, Ed. 1 Friday, December 8, 1944, newspaper, December 8, 1944; Kermit, Texas. (https://texashistory.unt.edu/ark:/67531/metapth1227180/m1/1/: accessed July 17, 2024), University of North Texas Libraries, The Portal to Texas History, https://texashistory.unt.edu; crediting Winkler County Library.