Sulphur Springs News-Telegram (Sulphur Springs, Tex.), Vol. 113, No. 3, Ed. 1 Friday, January 4, 1991 Page: 1 of 26
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Sulphur Springs
VOL, 113—NO, 3,
^Vius-SrXrgram
riday
JANUARY 4,1M1
TWO SECTIONS
25 CENTS
©The Echo Publishing Co., Inc. 1990
Supporters vow to
win sales tax vote
By BOB MERRIMAN
News-Telegram Staff
Supporters of the half-cent sales
tax proposal in Sulphur Springs
“intend to win this election,” W.T.
Allison III said Thursday nighL
Allison, president of the Sulphur
Springs-Hopkins County Economic
Development Corp., which is lead-
ing the proposal, charted the . L,
group’s strategy and outlined - chases in this area, both Allison and
benefits from the tax for about 70 Holland said. Based on anticipated
Two other near-term' proposals
mentioned by Holland were for a
waste-water treatment plant on in-
dustrial property on 1-30 across
from Ocean Spray Cranberries Inc.,
and “infrastructure on the in-
dustrial property on 1-30 West”
The majority of the tax revenue
will come from people who live
outside Sulphur Springs and Hop-
kins County, but who make pur-
Pot luck for motorists
City and county officials say crews are working as fast as they can obtain materials to repair potholes, like
the one on Airport Road, pictured at left, remaining from the December ice storm. The scene of the
repaired hole.on North Davis Street is likely to be repeated when further surveys of damage are made, ac-
cording to Bill Farler, city director of public works. Joe Pogue, county judge, said county road damage also
is extensive and crews are making temporary repairs — filling holes with gravel — as fast as possible.
—SUIT photo by Larry Barr
Recent ice storm provides
potholes as forget-me-not
asals for use of the revenue,
including a vocational-technical
By CARL MILLEGAN
News-Telegram Staff___ _
The cold weather may be wel-
comed by some, but for the folks
responsible for repairing city streets
and county roads, the freezing and
thawing means trouble. A “hole”
lot of trouble.
“We’ve had a lot of calls com-
plaining about potholes," Couhty
Judge Joe Pogue said. “But there is
little we can do about them until
the weather drys up. We can haul in
gravel to fill the holes, but it won’t
do much good if the weather gets
worse.” _
Sulphur Springs and the county
seem to have perennial pothole
problems that never seem to go
away, according to a city official.
“You’ll always see potholes after
a freeze,” Bill Farler, director of
the city’s Public Works Depart-
ment, said. “But this year I haven’t
seen near the damage as last year. I
was on the east side of town today
and I saw the potential for a great
deal of problems. More rain w,ould
cause more problems.”
New potholes seem to be pop-
ping up everyday, and the old ones
get bigger as long as water stands
in the road.
“The milk trucks and feed trucks
(and other heavy traffic) make the
pothole problem harder to deal
with,” Pogue said. < ■ , .
The county is responsible for
more than 900 nyljg of &pds, and
sowm of them have major' problems
which commissioners are attempt-
ing to deal with.
One such problem is in Reilly
Springs where the natural springs
bubble up just about everywhere.
County Road 2439 has a natural
spring which continually pops up
right in the middle, eating away at
the road from underneath.
“It’s as if they fix the problem
one dav, and the next day the
springs comes up on the road
somewhere else,” a Reilly Springs
resident said. “The county could
probably put the road somewhere
else, but a spring would probably
squirt up there, too.”
Water of any type, from the sky
or from the ground, serves to erode
road surfaces and create potholes
and other damage.
Back in the city, Farler said
damage assessments from the
recent ice storms have yet to be
completed, but at least the material
exists to repair problem areas.
“We have about half a truckload
of asphalt on hand,” Farter said.
“And we’ll be able to get more if it
is needed. We have a plan where
we can get some hot-mix (a type of
road repair asphalt) from a Plano
distributor who .will deliver it on
call.”
The county has more roads and
more problems.
"We don’t have a stockpile of
gravel because we use it as fast as
we can haul it,” Pogue said. “We’ll
need a dry spell to make any
progress.”
other supporters, who met at City
Hall.
The election is set for Saturday,
Jan. 19, at City Hall. Voters can
vote absentee any weekday from 8
a.m. to 5 p.m.
If approved by voters, the half-
cent tax is expected to generate up
to $650,000 yearly for economic
development, said Jim Holland, a
member of the five-man EDC
board of directors.
Holland outlined several
propos
includi
school to be operated by Paris
Junior College and East Texas State
University.
“The school will be the most
important thing to come out of
this,” Holland said. “We’ve been
negotiating with PJC and ETSU for
more than three months on this.
Personally, I hope to see a com-
munity college eventually come out
of this one of these years.”
A post-secondary training
school, Allison said, “will help
meet did needs of industries already
here, as #e!l as industries we will
get in the future. The school would
also greatly help the graduates,
since they would receive needed,
vocational training.”
revenue of $650,000 and a cost to
Sulphur Springs residents of
$210,000, “two-thirds of the tax
revenue will come from non-
residents,” Holland said.
“Other area cities have passed a
similar tax for economic develop-
supporters pledged positive voles
for the tax plan.
Steering committee members
are: Division J, Charles Helm;
Division O, Paul Herschler; Divi-
sion B, Jim Holland; and Divison
S, BUI Williams
Fifty people had voted absentee
by 5 p.m. Thursday, Mayor Margin
Latham said.
“We warn at least 500 absentee
votes,” Allison said. On a similar
proposal in 1989, “about 1,200
people voted, and the measure was
defeated by a couple of hundred
votes.”
Many of the members of the
EDC and the various committees
“live outside the city limits,” Al-
lison said. “We can’t vole in the
ment," he said “Also, Greenville cIeaion but wc wiU * able to pay
has money from its city-owned
utilities going into economic
development GreenvUle is about to
start<> work on a $1.5 mUlion in-
dustrial park.”
Holland said he “can see advan-
tages of people from Hunt County
paying for our industrial develop-
ment”
The EDC, Allison said, operates
under the control of the city. “We
have a budget that must be ap-
proved by the City CouncU. Ex-
penditures must-be approved by the
city.
“We’re not going to spend all the . „ c
money at one time, or spend all the say®* V**}* 011 & commit-
rpvpmw Aarh v#»or caiH “Wa tees have put in a tremendous
amount of work. ”
A sales tax, he said, “is the
fairest tax, if there is such an
animal, because people make a
decision on whether to buy taxable
items.”
Supporters plan to advertise the
plan’s benefits through newspaper
ads and radio spots, Allison said.
Also, he said, "we’ve got
speakers set up far 15 clubs and or-
ganizations.”
Allison praised those who have
done the groundwork on the plan,
revenue each year.’Oie said.
" tfifc* revenue in
might put some of
banks and let it draw interest”
Based on a “JOBS” theme,
backers of the proposal plan for
four steering committee members
to call voters, explaining the
program’s benefits and asking
voters to vote absentee. During the
meeting Thursday, more than 60
Anticipated revenue of $650,000
“aounds like a lot of money,” he
said. “But when you consider a $1
million-plus wastewater treatment
plant $650,000 is not that much.
This will be a pay-as-you-go
program, because we’re going to
charge for services.”
Catching up is hard to do for busy lawyer
client’s business like you would
your own. You get along better if
you don’t go to court,” Johnny said
in an interview with The News-
Telegram.
That philosophy was put to work
in 1946 after he had completed
military service during World War
II and joined his father’s practice.
Before that time, he had attended
Texas A&M University two years
and SMU law school for a year. In
May of 1943 he was called to ac-
Warmer, probably wet
weather coming to area
quired.
“I just don’t have a degree of
any kind — except high school... I
intended to go back .;. but I made
up my mind after I got to be 50
years old that I didn’t need it,” he
said, smiling.
But not having a sheepskin
hasn’t prevented the small-town at-
torney from establishing a reputa-
Staff and Wire Report '
The upcoming weekend may be
wet, but it should not be icy, ac-
cording to the U.S. Weather Ser-
vice. " - «
The possibility of rain will con-
tinue through the weekend, at least
to next Tuesday, but temperatures
are expected to remain above freez-
ing during the period.
Highs should be in the 40s or 50s
and overnight lows will hover inr
the 30s. *
That should be good news to lo-
cal motorists still suffering from ice
shock as a result of the ice storm
around Christmas.
Many motorists in Texas ex-
perienced that same shock
Thursday when rain turned to ice
on roadways.
lee-coated bridges and overpas-
ses created hazardous driving con-
ditions across a vast area of Texas
in the wake of a cold front that
claimed three lives and caused a
jetliner to slip off a runway at Dal-
las-Fort Worth International
Airport
The rain and above-freezing
temperatures will replace frigid
/conditions that surprised com-
muters Thursday morning and
made for treacherous travel after
the evening rush hour in central
North Texas, Brundrett said.
At least three motorists died on
treacherous roads Thursday. A
Farmers Branch woman, Abilene
man and Odessa man died in
separate accidents Thursday.
By MARY GRANT DAVIS (
News-Telegram Staff /
When J.R. Ramey (known to just
about everybody as Johnny> joined
his father’s law practice in 1946, he
was told by the elder Ramey that he
could finish work on his law degree
at Southern Methodist University
“just as soon as we catch up.”
“We just didn’t ever catch up,”
Johnny said, laughing as he discus-
sed his retirement this month after
more than four decades of work as
an attorney in Sulphur Springs.
That sort of frankness and sense
of humor, coupled with the attor-
ney’s law ability and his influence
in the community, is recalled by
two of Johnny’s colleagues.
Tommy Allison, who practiced
law in the Ramey firm for about 19
years, was advised early in his
career that he would learn more
from Johnny in two years than he
would in 10 years somewhere else
— “And that was right,” Allison
said.
- “Of course, I always thought
that he and Kay’s dad were the
most influential people in my life,”
Allison said, referring to his wife’s
father, the late Charles Carothers.
“He (Ramey) is just one of those
guys who just loved to work out a
deal, no matter how challenging,”
he added.
Joel Sheffield, who has been in
the law practice with Ramey since
1975, said, “Johnny is just one of a
kind. He’s a throwback to that old
school we’d like to go back to ...
He tries to compromise and that’s
better than firing off a lawsuit and
going to the courthouse.”
Sheffield remembers many in-
cidents when clients would appear
in the office red-faced and ready to
fight “When they left Johnny, they
would be patting each other on the
back. Johnny just has that gift.”
As a matter of fact, Sheffield ad-
ded, current law advisers are
recommending a return to more
compromise and less courtroom
participation. “That’s what it’s
coming to,” he said.
Sheffield will continue the law
practice at the gamey and Sheffield
offices and Ramey will continue to *
%££££*but 1,01 as tfaig-time association
tion as a premier lawyer on the sub-
jects of real estate and oil and gas,
Allison said.
“He had a natural instinct..Even
if he didn’t know immediately what
the law was, he knew what it
should be — and he was almost
always right,” Allison added.
Johnny’s father, the late Tom
Citizen of the Year in 1965, and
served on the Memorial Hospital
Board of Directors and as mayor of
Sulphur Springs. “We built the first
hospital," he noted, referring to the
hospital that preceded today's
facility.
f “He was Mr. Democrat to the
people around here,” Allison recal-
Jonnny s tamer, tne tate tom pwpic arounu uwc, musun icmu-
Ramey, began law practice in Hop- led of Johnny’s political interests,
kins County in 1914. The father At the age of 69, he has decided
and son worked in offices that were
on Church Street just off the square
offices to the present spaces on Jef-
ferson Street
As soon as their two daughters
were old enough, Johnny’s wife,
to officially end his career. But he
added, “I’ll still be coming in to
the office every day.”
For the past five to six years, he
hasn’t been in the courtroom, and
he noted the changes over the years
he has observed in the profession.
“You have so many different kinds
of cases now — mat complex,” he
“I can’t
Mildred, joined the law office staff, said, adding with a laugh,
and she has worked at his side as even run 9 FAX machine.”
his secretary fra many years.
Johnny was Hopkins County
Democratic party xhairman fra
more than 30 years, was selected
Perhaps Allison expresses it best:
“It was really fun practicing law
with him.” He might have added:
“Even if he never got caught up.”
Ramey said he has always
worked with the philosophy of
mediation. “I was oriented toward
saving mongg. You tend to your
•
in the firm begun by hb father, the late Tom Ramey. V
r —Staff photo by Larry Barr
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Keys, Clarke. Sulphur Springs News-Telegram (Sulphur Springs, Tex.), Vol. 113, No. 3, Ed. 1 Friday, January 4, 1991, newspaper, January 4, 1991; Sulphur Springs, Texas. (https://texashistory.unt.edu/ark:/67531/metapth824229/m1/1/: accessed April 25, 2024), University of North Texas Libraries, The Portal to Texas History, https://texashistory.unt.edu; crediting Hopkins County Genealogical Society.