The Hopkins County Echo (Sulphur Springs, Tex.), Vol. 106, No. 12, Ed. 1 Friday, March 20, 1981 Page: 1 of 4
This newspaper is part of the collection entitled: Hopkins County Area Newspapers and was provided to The Portal to Texas History by the Hopkins County Genealogical Society.
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_____________ EDALMX 1 12-31-99 00
MICR0FILM CENTER, INC.
S P.0. BOX 454^5
DALLAS TX 75235
PIM
VOi. 104—NO. IS.
SULPHUR SPRINGS. TEXAS, FRIDAY, MARCH 20,1911.
4 PAGES - IS CENTS PUBLISHED EVERY FRIDAY 1
I in I I---n--
City council locked
in battle of budget
By JIM MOORE
News-Telegram Staff
After a marathon session Tuesday,
Sulphur Springs City Commission
members were still scratching their heads
in an attempt to bring the city budget back
into line.
The Tuesday session of the commission
ended at 10:30 p.m. after many hours of
struggling with a $287,000 budget deficit
that was still unresolved at that late hour
- even as the commissioners debated how
to come up with the funding for the
issuance of bonds under the already ap-
proved bond issue to improve the Water
Treatment Plant.
City Financial Director Travis Owens
told the commissioners that they currently
are facing a projected $287,000 shortage by
the end of the current fiscal year.
Owens said he had met with the various
department heads to work on their
budgeted expenditures and that some
changes had been made. Even with the
changes, the city is still short the $287,000
figure.
He said that non-budgeted expenditures
were the primary cause of problems with
the budget.
Each department head discussed
budgets with the commissioners ex-
plaining where they felt additional cuts
could be made and where they needed
additional monies. *
Owens said that in the Finance and Tax
Department, overruns were caused by
additional audit fees charged by the
auditors that were above the amounts
anticipated and unexpected costs of
printing checks.
There is a possibility that the City
Swimming Pool might not be opened this
summer, commissioners were told.
Hugh Sprague and Public Works
Director Bill Farler said that $26,200 would
need to be spent on the pool before it could
be opened this summer to solve problems
that made the pool hazardous to operate in
its present condition.
Sprague said that the pool generated
$7,088 in revenues and the concession
stand generated an additional $3,047.
The Library and City Hall had only
slightly good news as their budgets
reflected surpluses of $800 and $1,500
respectively — but the Fire Department
was a different story.
Fire Marshal Jerry Bolding said that the
fuel, tires and batteries account would
overrun at least $2,500.
He cited as the biggest problems the
continuously increasing cost of fuel and
the operation of the county fire truck.
Bolding said that in 1980, the truck had
been driven 4,198 miles on 250 county fire
calls and 524 miles on 346 city fire calls.
A total of 464 manhours were expended
on county calls while 206 were required on
city calls.
Bolding said that the truck presently has
52,000 total mdbs on it and was bought new
13 years ago.
Hopkins County pays the city $300 per
month to handle calls outside the city
limits.
Commissoners indicated that the
situation needed to be scrutinized with the
aim of exploring an increase in the amount
of firefighting funds supplied by the
county.
Police Chief Delbert Harrell reported
that he is currently operating with four
officers less than he is authorized and in
that manner is able to stay within his
budget in keeping personnel costs down.
However, he warned that a major
emergency where officers would have to
be called in would result in an overrun in
that budget item.
Harrell said that he has budgeted money
to provide an emergency generator in case
of power failures.
He said that the battery pack installed in
the construction of the building would only
provide electricity for four hours and that
the Police Department would be without
communications if electrical power were
not restored within that time.
Other departments showing overruns
included the Sanitation Department
($33,500) and the Quality Control
Department which includes both the Water
Industrial fund group
okays reorganization
Reorganization of the board of the
Hopkins County Industrial Fund was
approved Tuesday by directors of the
volunteer support group.
The board called for an election of five
new directors of the agency in April and
named five men who have served nearly 30
years on the board as Charter Advisory
Directors.
The five are J. W. Pratt, long-time
president of the Fund, Weber Fouts, F. W.
Frailey, Enos L. Ashcroft and Maurice
Kelty. All were charter members of the
group in the early 1950s and have served
since that time.
In their new roles, effective in mid-April,
they will continue to provide advice for the
Top names
expected
for rodeo
Tentative commitments from several
top cowboys to appear in the Spring
Roundup Rodeo here April 1-4 have been
received, according to producer Billy
Wayne Orr. •
The event, sanctioned by the
Professional Rodeo Cowboys Association,
will be a one go-round affair with action
beginning at 8 p.m. daily in the civic center
arena.
Topping the list of tentative com-
mitments are those from Tom Ferguson of
Miami, Okla., current all-around leader in
the PRCA standings and chasing yet
another championship in the calf roping
event; and from six-time world title holder
and 1980 champion bull rider Don Gay of
Mesquite.
Also penciled in for an appearance here
is area cowboy Butch Kirby of Alba, who
won the bull riding event in last year's
Spring Roundup on the final night.
All prise money earned at the Spring
Roundup Rodeo here will count in the point
standings for the year, with the top 15
cowboys in each event earning berths in
the National Finals Rodeo in Oklahoma
City.
— ' )
Fund, which owns three industrial
development tracts in Sulphur Springs, as
ex-officio members of the board.
Fund president B. F. Ashcroft named a
committee to select a panel of 10 names for
submission to those who have contributed
to the industrial account over the years.
Five new directors will be elected from
that group.
Nominating committee members are J.
P. Schull, Ene Ashcroft and Gene Watson.
The Hopkins County Industrial Fund is
an organization of local business firms and
individuals contributing money for the
development of industrial sites in Sulphur
Springs. It has been responsible for
development of the industrial park along
Interstate 30 and Radio Road and also has
tracts available for development along
Loop 301 northeast and northwest of the
city in addition to other acquisitions.
A fund drive was conducted in 1980 to
provide money for purchase of the nor-
thwest tract from Hopkins County.
Ashcroft reported that $79,775 has been
collected in the drive and another $6,300 in
“firm” pledges remain to be collected.
“I want to brag on Jim Holland, who as
chairman of the fund drive did an excellent
job,” Ashcroft said. “We have paid off the
$60,000 note and interest (on the new tract)
as a result of this drive.”
The disappointing aspect of the fund
drive, Ashcroft noted, was that con-
tributions came from “the same old
bunch” who have supported the fund in the
past Little if any support came from new
businesses or individuals in the com-
munity who will share in benefits of in-
dustrial development, he commented.
The board indicated a desire to continue
efforts to elicit support from the newer
element in the community.
In addition to authorizing ballots to be
sent to stockholders (contributors) of the
fund, the board authorized the president to
negotiate for the sale of two acres of land
in the existing industrial park to a local
industry and authorized a program to
replace a promotional sign in that in-
dustrial area and to add signs on the
Fund’s other properties.
Fund directors who will femain on the
board hi the reorganixatian are W. E.
Bradford, Schull, Randall Maddox,
Watson, Joe Gober, Ene Ashcroft, Jim
Chapman, Thomas Payne, Holland and B.
F. Ashcroft.
Treatment Plant and Waste Water
Treatment Plant ($255,000).
Owens said that the budget
expenditures would amount to
Added to that would be $125,000 for the
tertiary treatment portion of the sewer
plant, accounting for the total $287,000
deficit.
Owens informed commissioners that the
deficit did not include any funds for the
repayment of any bonds sold for the Water
Treatment Plant improvements under the
bond issue approved late last year — that
would add approximately another $25,000-
30,000 to the current fiscal year’s financial
problems. An earlier attempt to sell the
bonds failed because of lack of bids.
The commissioners asked City Manager
Marshall Shelton to come up with some
firm ideas as to what revenues could be
increased and what budget items could be
cut by next Tuesday’s meeting of the City
Commission when action could be taken to
resolve the deficit.
Among the items briefly discussed as
potential deletions were $44,500.83 in the
emergency equipment fund, $100,000 in the
revenue sharing fund that is still unspent,
$30,000 projected to provide jet fuel
facilities at the airport and $30,000 planned
to be set aside toward the purchase of a
new firetruck.
The commissioners also asked that the
city staff look into the possibility of in-
creasing fees charged at various city
facilities such as the sanitary landfill
which has an ordinance providing for the
payment of fees. That ordinance, however,
has not been enforced.
City Financial Advisor Dan Almon was
to be notified to hold off on plans to sell.
$950,000 of the water improvement bonds
next Thursday and is expected to meet
with the commissioners Tuesday night as
well.
Confusion time
Tuesday's strong winds, gusting to 40 mph, did more than ruin a tew hairdos.
Around noon, one ol the traffic signals on the square was blowiTaskew — turning two
sets of lights in one direction, which caused confusion for motorists as well as
pedestrians who weren't sure whether to stop, walk, or go, since one light showed
green, one red, a right turn arrow was aglow and a 'no right turn on red' sign all
faced the perplexed traveler.
—Staff Photo
Jail squabble veteran
calls for bond passage
The pressure from federal courts on
local communities to improve jail and
prison standards is not a new trend, a
veteran Texas lawman said in Sulphur
Springs Tuesday.
Clarence Jones, deputy sheriff of
Hopkins County and former Dallas County
Sheriff, told Lions Club members that 1
instructions from the courts to require new
or vastly improved jails has been going on
for nearly two decades. Hopkins County is
not alone then — in fact is in the majority
- in being told its jail is “un-
constitutional.”
Deputy Jones made the comments in
presenting aspects of the jail issue that
will appear on a 3-proposition ballot for
county voters April 4. Proposition 2 would
authorize the county to issue $2,080,000 in
bonds to construct a new jail.
Also on the program was Bruce Fielden,
chairman of the Hopkins County Regional
Civic Center board, who spoke in support
of Proposition No. 1, for center im-
provement bonds.
"The time is upon us to build (a jail) '
because it is the law of the land,” Jones
told the Lions. IX.
The lawman has been through such a
period before. He was sheriff of Dallas
County when Federal Judge Sarah T.
Hughes ordered a new jail there. At the
time, Jones said, her instructions were
hailed as a “landmark” decision in the
treatment of and facilities for county
prisoners.
Actually, he noted, such court pressure
had begun as much as 10 years earlier in
Ohio and had impacted local communities
in the Midwest and in California before
Judge Hughes made her sweeping order
for Dallas County.
One of the most significant aspects of all
such federal court orders, Deputy Jones
noted, has been the refusal to consider
financial ability of a local government to
meet such standards. He noted one phrase
appears in virtually every such federal
order: “The lack of funds shall never be an
excuse for violating a man’s rights.”
Facing the facts, Jones said, the state
“most likely will close this jail” should
financing not be provided for construction
of new facilities. “We have an un-
constitutional jail,” he said.
Such closure could prove expensive for
Hopkins County, the lawman said.
“I checked around... to see the situation
of other area jails,” he said.
Jones reported that neither the Hunt
County nor Lamar County jails are ap-
proved, and besides both are full. When
Injured officer 'feeling great'
Sulphur Springs Police Sgt. Robert
Stidham, wounded by a gunshot in the
abdomen during a Friday incident
near downtown, was “feeling great”
in his Memorial Hospital room
Monday morning, according to Police
5 Chief Delbert Harrell.
“He was sitting up in bed, studying
his college lessons, this morning,”
Harrell said. “He is hoping to be
- discharged from the hospital Wed-
nesday, but we don’t know for sure yet
whenhe will be released.”
Stidham suffered the gunshot
wound while grappling with an
escaped felon Friday afternoon. The
fugitive, identified as Everett Jerome
Jones, 36, was shot and killed by
Patrolman Leonard Stout after Jones
had wrestled Stidham’s service
revolver fom its holster and wounded
the sergeant.
Jones, whose last known address
was Washington, D.C., died on the
operating table at Memorial Hospital
a short time after the shooting in-
cident. Jones was named in a federal
warrant as an escapee.
Sales tax take
trend still up
Sulphur Springs has received a
check for $36,860.63 from State
Comptroller Bob, Bullock’s office for
its share of the city sales tax for
March. This boosted the total 1901
payments to date to $160,422.95,
compared to $148412J9 at the same
time in 1900.
The net payment to Sulphur Springs
for March last year was $85,692.94.
there is space, he noted, Hunt County
charges $20 for keeping prisoners from
other counties.
“With the 13 prisoners we have in jail
today, that would run to $94,000 a year,” he
said. “It would cost us $118,675 a year to ,
keep that many prisoners in the Dallas f
County jail."
His figures did not include tran-
sportation costs nor the inconvenience
factor, he noted.
Jones said that the plans for the
proposed Hopkins County jail are based
Upon the programs of safety for law of-
ficers and segregation of different classes
of prisoners as required by law.
He defended the uses of some extra frills
in jails such as television sets for prisoner
use.
“The reason we have people in jails is
because they have neither the ability nor
the willingness to abide by society’s
rules,” he said. Since they can then be
expected to violate jail rules, there must
be methods of dealing out non-physical
punishment.
They can’t be threatened with jail, they
are already there, Jones noted. Often
removal of such privileges as television
can be an effective punishment threat.
Jones said that he believes the plans
proposed for the new jail here are sound.
“The plans have to be submitted to the
Sheriff, who has the final say in this
county, and then to the jail standards
commission,” he said. “I don’t think we
will get a $2 million freak if the bonds are
Fielden noted that the Civic Center
wasn’t something that just happened, but
rather is the result of efforts by some
concerned people.
“A lot of the features of the center have
come about as a result of donations, work
by the center’s board in concession
areas,” and similar non-tax revenues, he
commented.
“You couldn’t put a dollar value on the
amount of free time that has been given
out there,” he said.
That donated time and money makes the
$330,000 bond issue proposal for April 4
cover considerably more developments at
the center than if everything had to be
financed by taxes, he noted.
The board is actually talking about
minimum improvements, below those
considered several years ago at an
estimated cost of $125,000, Fielden said.
Inflation has pushed costs up and likely
will continue to do so, he said.
Winnsboro
In killed
gunshot
WINNSBORO - One man is dead,
another is in critical condition and three
have been arrested following a shooting
incident here late Tuesday night.
Winnsboro Police Chief Gary Lile said
that Joseph Walter Bearden, 34, of 507
Sherman St. was in the Winnsboro Jail
Wednesday morning, charged with
murder in the shooting death of Jack
Thomas (Jackie) Deal, 30, of 609 North
Church St. in Winnsboro.
Lile said that Deal had been shot once in
the back with a .30-06 rifle.
Officers were notified at 11:26 p.m.
Tuesday that shots had been fired in the
area of Sherman Street.
At 11:28 p.m., Bearden called the Police
Department and told the dispatcher that
he had just shot two men in the living room
of his residence.
Cpl. Gregg Clanton was the first officer
to arrive on the scene and he called for an
ambulance and additional officers.
Lile and Sgt. James Whittiker arrived on
the scene just after the ambulance had left
with Deal and Terry Lee Whitworth, 25, of
Winnsboro, enroute to Winnsboro
Memorial Hospital.
Both men had been shot once with the
same rifle.
Deal was dead on arrival at the hospital
and Whitworth was immediately taken
into surgery where he remained for six
hours.
A police department spokesperson said
that surgery was performed at the Winn-
sboro hospital as Whitworth’s condition
was too critical to permit his being tran-
sferred to another hospital.
Whitworth had been shot in the pelvic
area.
Bearden was arraigned before Justice of
the Peace Ray Robertson on a charge of
murder in the death of Deal.
Robertson set bond at $75,000.
Lile said that Kenneth Hass, 40, and
Thomas Sipes, 32, — both of Winnsboro -
were placed under protective custody in
the incident and were taken to the Wood
County Jail in Quitman.
Bearden was transferred from the
Winnsboro Jail Wednesday morning to the
Wood County Jail.
Whitworth was reported to be in critical
condition at the Winnsboro medical
facility late Wednesday morning.
Deal’s body was taken to the McCrary-
Edwards-Cain Funeral Home. Services
were held at 2 p.m. Friday in the Bethel
Church with the Rev. G.M. Streun and the v
Rev. L.A. Boykins officiating. Burial was
in the Bethel Cemetery. N
He was born July 24, 1950 in Dallas to
John and Thelma Deal.
Deal was a member of the Baptist
church and was employed as a bricklayer.
Survivors include his father, of Dallas; a
daughter, Jennifer Deal of Mesquite;
Three brothers, John Arlie Deal of Garland
and David Deal and Tracey Joe Deal, both
of Dallas; and five sisters, Mrs. Melba
Jean Pickney of Coppell, Miss Lee
Stringfellow and Mrs. Virginia Watson, I
both of Fort Worth, and Mrs. Judy Casey
and Mrs. Patty Zachary, both of Irving.
Wallace trial
delay granted
The capital murder trial of Billy Ray
Wallace has been delayed until at least
June—if not later.
In Eighth Judicial District Court
Wednesday morning, a motion for a
continuance, filed by new defense attorney
Robert G. Bush m of Sherman, was
granted by Judge Lanny Ramsay.
Wallace is charged in the July, 1979
murder of his wife, Janyth Kay Wallace,
whose body was not found until December,
1979 in a shallow grave near the East
Caney community.
Ramsay had no choice in the matter as
Texas law states that when one of the
attorneys involved Is a member of the
Texas Legislature, a continuance is
automatic when the legislature is in ‘
session, guaranteeing that the case will be
continued until at least 30 days after the
close of the legislative session.
Bush is the District 22 representative for
Grayson County.
The motion was received late last week
and filed in the District Clerk Ola
Beckham’s office.
The motion was considered last Monday
by the court, but it lacked all of the
elements necessary to complete the action
at that'time. Judge Ramsay had re-
scheduled the motion luring for Wed-
nesday.
A result of the graatinf ll the motion is
that no other action will occur in the case
which has been undergoing pre-trial for
the past several weeks, until the
legislature has been adjourned.
I
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Keys, Clarke & Woosley, Joe. The Hopkins County Echo (Sulphur Springs, Tex.), Vol. 106, No. 12, Ed. 1 Friday, March 20, 1981, newspaper, March 20, 1981; Sulphur Springs, Texas. (https://texashistory.unt.edu/ark:/67531/metapth780292/m1/1/?q=Lamar+University: accessed July 18, 2024), University of North Texas Libraries, The Portal to Texas History, https://texashistory.unt.edu; crediting Hopkins County Genealogical Society.