De Leon Free Press (De Leon, Tex.), Vol. 123, No. 23, Ed. 1 Thursday, November 29, 2012 Page: 1 of 10
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Partly cloudy
through the week
Thursday: 70/56
Friday: 72/52
Saturday: 76/56
Sunday: 79/56
Monday: 74/52
Proctor Lake Level: 63.32%
Weekly Precipitation: 0.00”
Annual Precipitation: 32.57”
Burn Ban On
2012 Texas Press Association award winner
Thursday, November 29, 2012 10 Pages Seventy-five Cents Volume 123, No. 23 DeLeon, TX 76444
ARTS AND CRAFTS. Hundreds of shoppers patronized the Women’s Division Arts
and Crafts Fair Saturday at DeLeon High School.
Arts fair draws large crowd
By MARSHA ENGLAND
Special to the Free Press
More than 250 visitors
attended the Women’s Division
23rd Annual Arts and Crafts
Fair this past weekend, at the
DeLeon High School cafetori-
um. Local and out-of-town
shoppers had 25 different ven-
dors from which to choose
something for everyone on their
shopping list. There were hand-
crafted wooden bowls, baby
blankets, baby bibs, baby
clothes, hair bows, tutus of
many colors, Christmas stock-
ings to hang, yard art,
Christmas wreaths and decora-
tions, jewelry, towel sets,
kitchen linens, jackets, fabric
bags, all kinds of canned veg-
etables, jellies, jams and pick-
led items, cell phone acces-
sories, metal art and even some
sock monkeys. One of the ven-
dors sold beautiful handcrafted
necklaces made from tightly
woven paper beads, made by
women in Africa trying to raise
enough money to dig a water
well for their village. The
organization, Bead for Life
(beadforlife.org) said they had
done very well, and people here
were very generous.
Members say that this
year’s fair was a great success
and one of the best they’ve had
in the past few years. One of the
main reasons was the facility in
which the fair was held. Liesa
Nowlin, DeLeon High School
principal, said it would be “no
problem” for the club to use the
new “state-of-the-art” DeLeon
High School cafetorium. With
plenty of space, good heating,
cooling and lighting system,
lots of electric outlets, great
bathroom and kitchen facilities,
the cafetorium seems to be the
place to hold community
events. Kaye Quinn, high
school counselor, was there
early (6:15 a.m.) to unlock for
See Arts & Crafts page 8
Court finalizes sale of
communications tower
By JON AWBREY
and JASMINE SALDIVAR
At a regular meeting of the
Comanche County
Commissioners’ Court on
Monday, commissioners dis-
cussed repairing a communica-
tion tower in DeLeon and the
future of a county annex build-
ing in Comanche.
Commissioners began the
meeting as they have so often in
recent weeks by discussing a
dilapidated county communica-
tions tower. DeLeon resident
Toney Prather and his teleco-
munications company have
expressed interest in purchasing
the tower in order to replace it.
In the meantime, the sale
of the tower has been post-
poned by other clients using the
tower to provide internet to the
county and other entities.
At Monday’s meeting,
Comanche County Auditor
Joey Boswell reported that he
had researched the matter, and
discovered that Hometown
Computing has been using the
tower since 2003 free of charge
in exchange for providing free
internet service to the county.
Today, most of the coun-
ty’s internet is provided by
Verizon, but many county
offices continue to use the free
email, originally provided by
Hometown Computing, now
provided by Local Choice
Internet.
Boswell reported that a
long list of state agencies con-
tinue to communicate with
Comanche County through the
old, free Hometown
Computing email addresses.
He did not relish changing
email addresses.
“I guarantee you,” said
Boswell, “that somebody
somewhere is going to miss a
grant, and it’s going to come
back to haunt us.”
Both the county and Local
Choice Internet’s Richard
Niblett agreed that it was in
everyone’s best interest for
See Commissioners page 8
YARD OF THE MONTH. The DeLeon Beautification Committee awarded the Gaylon
Atkins family of McKinney Street with this month’s Yard of the Month Award. Pictured
are Mary Jane and Gaylon Atkins, with three of their six grandchildren: Audrey, Kellar,
and Emily.
New life for Deleon City Hall?
By JON AWBREY
Publisher
The DeLeon City Council
met in a regular meeting
Tuesday, November 20, a meet-
ing scheduled two days early on
account of the Thanksgiving
holiday.
Although no action was
taken on any agenda items, the
council reported that hope was
very much alive for a commu-
nity group’s recently proposed
renovation of the old city hall
building.
At a city council meeting
two weeks ago, a group of local
citizens requested that the city
donate the building to a non-
profit organization. At first, the
city appeared hesitant, fearing
that municipal laws would
restrict such a donation.
On Tuesday, the city had
reason to be more optimistic.
“We may be making
strides moving forward,” said
DeLeon Mayor Lowell
Ercanbrack. “We are discover-
ing some options, and it is look-
ing promising.”
Ercanbrack declined to
offer any specific details.
However, it appears that
rules governing non-profit
organizations would likely
make the donation possible.
According to Local
Government Code 253.011, a
municipality may transfer to a
nonprofit organization, for con-
sideration described by this
section, real property or an
interest in real property without
complying with the notice and
bidding requirements of Section
272.001(a) or other law.
Consideration for the transfer
authorized by this section shall
be in the form of an agreement
between the parties that
requires the nonprofit organiza-
tion to use the property in a
manner that primarily pro-
motes a public purpose of the
municipality. If the nonprofit
organization at any time fails to
use the property in that manner,
ownership of the property auto-
matically reverts to the munici-
pality.
In other news, the vacant
city council seat that once
belonged to now-Mayor
Lowell Ercanbrack was dis-
cussed by the council.
The vacant seat is causing
a certain amount of grief, as it
still influences the number of
city council members needed to
form a quomm.
With council member
Gayle Stroud not expected to
return to council meetings until
January, her absence and the
presence of a vacant seat make
it impossible for any other city
council member to be absent
from a meeting. Otherwise, the
meeting cannot be held, as a
quomm will not be present.
Some discussion was
made about appointing some-
one to fill the seat. However,
the seat’s original vacancy did
See Council page 2
Ivie to head Shoppin’ Baskit
By SARAH AWBREY
Reporter
There’s a new face in the
Shoppin’ Baskit that the people
of DeLeon may have seen
recently. Curtis Ivie is the new
store manager of the supermar-
ket. He comes to DeLeon with
quite a bit of experience in the
grocery business.
Prior to working at the
Shoppin’ Baskit, Ivie was
employed by David’s in Dublin
for a year, and by Brookshire’s
in Comanche, where he worked
for eight years.
Ivie is no newcomer to the
industry. He also owned Ivie’s
Convenience Store in Dublin
for 11 years, and served as the
store manager for a small
supermarket in Dublin for
seven years.
Ivie, a resident of Dublin is
59 and has two grown sons who
live in Dublin, too.
He’s also lived in
Comanche for five years, but
moved back to Dublin to be
closer to his children and their
families.
Ivie’s personal goals for
the future of the Shoppin’
Baskit are to have a clean store,
improve customer service, and
offer patrons a variety of prod-
ucts.
“If there’s any way to get
products into the store, we’ll do
it,” said Ivie.
One of Ivie’s main goals is
to help the community of
DeLeon.
He has found the people to
be friendly and wants them to
be happy as customers.
“The people of DeLeon
deserve a good grocery store,”
Ivie said.
He wants the Shoppin’
Baskit to provide as much to
the community as it can so that
local people are able to find the
things they need here in
DeLeon, and will not have to
travel to purchase groceries.
Ivie was also complemen-
tary to the employees, saying
that they work on being friend-
ly to the customers.
“We have a hard working
staff here that wants to please
and help each customer that
comes in here,” said Ivie.
CURTIS IVIE.
TURN OF THE CENTURY DELEON. Above, the intersection of Texas and Reynosa
streets in turn-of-the-century DeLeon, looking north down Texas.
Deleon makes way in May ‘98
By JON AWBREY
Publisher
In and about May of 1898,
the United States was busy
fighting a war against a collaps-
ing Spanish empire. William
McKinley was President of the
United States, and a handful of
firsts occurred. Travelers’
Insurance Company sold the
first car insurance policy. In
New England, the first college
hockey game was played. The
first amusement park opened in
Atlantic City, New Jersey.
What we think of as the modem
world was just then emerging
from a frontier past.
In 17-year-old DeLeon,
the Free Press, then already in
business for the better part of a
decade under editor John J.
Switzer, printed a newspaper,
the oldest Free Press we have
thus far discovered.
War fever was on. In 1898,
Americans were gearing up for
their first major conflict in two
generations, the Spanish
American war.
Dock Roark, brother of
Jordan and John Roark, and
Will D. Anderson, brother of
A.L. Anderson, were men “well
known” DeLeon residents, and
they were stmck with war
fever, too. They enlisted in the
Mexia Minute Men, joining the
regular volunteer army to fight
the Spaniards.
DeLeon merchant E. B.
Walker offered a sale on hats
and gloves, a sale that he would
continue “until Spain surren-
ders.” If customers were short
of cash, Walker advertised that
he would accept chickens and
produce as payment.
In DeLeon in 1898, rail-
road fever was on, too, as the
Free Press reported that the city
confidently expected a rise in
population to as many as 5,000
residents with the addition of
rail lines to Rising Star and
Strawn.
J .R. Gilmore, perhap s
anticipating this population
growth, proposed installing
telephone lines to connect
DeLeon to Desdemona and
Victor. Gilmore owned a drug-
store, and advertised such
things as “One Minute Cough
Cure,” “Little Early Riser”
pills, and Ballard’s Snow
Liniment for “bicycle riders.”
Gilmore’s dmgstore also boast-
ed its own surgeon and physi-
cian in residence, Dr. R.A.
Wilson, who operated out of the
store.
See Makes Way page 6
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Kestner, Laura. De Leon Free Press (De Leon, Tex.), Vol. 123, No. 23, Ed. 1 Thursday, November 29, 2012, newspaper, November 29, 2012; De Leon, Texas. (https://texashistory.unt.edu/ark:/67531/metapth787076/m1/1/: accessed July 17, 2024), University of North Texas Libraries, The Portal to Texas History, https://texashistory.unt.edu; crediting Comanche Public Library.