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The Risk is Real - Serving our Country

Remembering those that have served and those that are serving our country.

You know sometimes it doesn't hit you until it is personal.

Weather

Hasn't the Spring weather been great! At least we are not getting snowed on like some up North.

I have been a little under the weather this week with a touch of the stomach bug going around so the news may be a little light for the next couple of days.

Car Crash Update

I had told you about a recent very serious car crash involving a car driven by Paula Anderson, and a car of Bronson and Austin Buzzard.

I heard late last week that the two Buzzard Brothers had returned to school at Coleman High and that Paula had returned to work at the Santa Anna National Bank.

We hope that all are doing well now and continue to recover from this near tragic accident.

Walking to Denver

Last week on the way to work I passed a man backpacking with his Boxer dog on the side of the road. On Monday morning I passed them between Bangs and Brownwood and noticed a web site on a banner across the top of his backpack that said WalkingtoDenver.com. I thought I would check it out when I got home that evening as I worked on SantaAnnaNews.com.

A friend of mine from Abilene, Kent Barnett, that works at Abilene Christian University for the Members of the Churches of Christ for Scouting called me up that evening and said that he met a man, Jeff Robinson in Tulsa last year at a Christian gathering. He also said that Jeff and his Boxer dog, Walker, are traveling through Santa Anna and I might be able to get a good human interest story from him. When I told him that I had seen him a couple of times he was surprised. He also said that he was staying in Santa Anna with the Postmaster.

I meant to try and call the postmaster, Gary Absher, and see if Jeff was there but I had some other things going on and before I knew what time it was it was too late to be calling around.

But I did go by his web site and found out this:
In most ways, I'm a fairly ordinary guy. I am fifty years old, married for nearly 28 years, father of two delightful children, and recently a proud new grandfather.

"Why?" is almost always the first response when people hear about walking to denver. It’s a logical question, really. Why would a middle aged man and his dog walk from Galveston, Texas (sea level) to the summit of Mt. Elbert (14,433 ft.), the highest point in Colorado, and then on to Denver - a journey of 1,336 miles? There is a reason - a cause, actually. The purpose is to spread the word about the problem of homelessness among teenagers in America, and the effort of a cutting-edge ministry - Dry Bones Denver (www.DryBonesDenver.org) - whose members are dedicated to serving the needs, and reclaiming the lives, of homeless and runaway teenagers living on the streets of downtown Denver.

Cats

It is time I said something about the cats.

Santa Anna has gotten a lot of publicity about it's cat problems recently.

It is kind of ironic that the state of Wisconsin is at the same time considering a law legalizing wild cat hunting. Wisconsin is not alone as the states of South Dakota and Minnesota already have laws that allow the hunting of cats.

As I consider one of those involved in the debate here in Santa Anna as one of my best friends it is difficult for me to be unbiased but I will offer my opinion in a more personal story, not that it is worth anymore or less the opinion of anyone else.

This past Friday Cindy and our oldest daughter Chrystal had to put our 20+ year old cat to sleep. I found this cat as a kitten walking around some parked cars in front of what was then H&H Food Mart and is now Santa Anna Grocery. I brought the small Siamese kitten home and we named her Frisky. She became Chrystal's cat for the most part and she was loved, fed, sheltered, and given her shots when we got around to taking her to see Dr. Pearce. We have family pictures of Chrystal holding Frisky when she graduated from Kindergarten, Eighth Grade, High School, and Friday Chrystal brought home her cap and gown just to have her picture made with Frisky one last time as we didn't think Frisky would make it two more weeks until Crystal's graduation. Frisky had stopped eating this past week and was getting where she could not walk very well. She was pretty much confined to the back yard for the last year.

She wore a collar with city and rabies tags for the most part during her lifetime. She developed a cyst on her neck over the last year or so that prevented her from wearing one lately. She had wore out her welcome in the house a couple of years ago too when she no longer could control herself.

She was kept in and out of the house over the years as she would just act crazy sometimes. She would come in to eat usually and would want outside as soon as she finished. She would come in too in the Winter when the weather was cold but really preferred it outside. She had a couple of litters of kittens early in her life before we got her spade. She would always want in the house then to have her kittens and would hunt for a closet in the house or on the back porch in a box. She never had very many as she was a small stature cat but she always had some beautiful kittens. I remember one in particular that she had in a litter of a couple that was a longer haired white cat that was really kind of wild. For some reason that litter was born outside in the garage before we realized that she had a litter and Cindy tried to tame them. This one white cat Cindy liked a lot but it was really crazy and Cindy or the girls one named it Bonkers. We gave Bonkers and her siblings to the Oakes when they lived between the Gap and they became barn cats. Jodie Oakes used to tell Cindy that Bonkers had the most beautiful kittens. We gave one of these kittens to my Granny Wright too that she named Miss Kitty. My Mom and Step-Dad still have and take care of Miss Kitty who looked almost like Frisky.

I can understand too the nuisance of a cat as I have gone out to the car or truck after a rain storm and there would be paw prints all over it or worse yet on my bike. My neighbors, Bob and Nelda, have three motorcycles and one had the seat damaged by a cat and I too have had my gas tank scratched and paw prints all over it even with a cover over it. Bob and Nelda finally bought an enclosed trailer to store their bikes in. I would love to be able to afford a garage to enclose my bike in but I can't.

I remember when Nelda's sister Ruby and her husband Charles Hosch lived where Bob and Nelda live now. They had a real nice Lincoln Continental that they parked under their carport and Frisky would go over there and do what cats do.. walk on the car leaving prints and worse yet leave a mess in the soft dirt by the car door where they would get in and out. We would do what we could to try and keep her in our yard leaving cat litter in a spot where she went in our yard.

The real issue here is the nuisance cats and not the pet cat. In reality we can't control with much success a cat's coming or going as they please even if they are a pet. And too many cats in one place are a real nuisance especially if they are wild. If someone is feeding these stray cats without meeting the other needs of these cats they are not really helping the cats are they? And the answer is really pretty simple for determining the difference in a wild or pet cat.. If you can't put a collar with tags on it then it is not a pet!

A property owner should also have the right to protect their property too. If the animal, cat, dog, or otherwise is damaging another's property then that property owner should have the right to protect that property or the animal owner should be financially responsible for the damage done to the property.

I sure hope that we can reach a compromise in our community to this problem that reaches across our nation.

Thanks for reading..

Santa Anna High School OAP competes at Regional Contest Saturday

The one act play from Santa Anna, along with the plays from Miles, Benjamin, Roscoe: Highland, Lindsay, and Saint Jo competed at the Regional One Act Play Contest Saturday April 23rd at Hardin Simmons University Auditorium in Abilene. The large auditorium was pretty full for most of the performances and there were quite few folks from Santa Anna there to watch the plays and many came early or stayed late to watch other plays.

The competition was very good as Lindsay is the defending State Champion from 2004. All of the plays were expectedly well done at this level of competition. The contest critic judge was the Drama Department Director of Midland College, Dr. David Allen.

The advancing plays to the State competition are from Lindsay and Highland with the play from Miles as alternate.

Those from Santa Anna receiving honors were Tasha Zarate and Mayra Dean which were named to the Honorable Mention Cast and Jessica Pelton named to the All Star Cast. The play from Santa Anna was recognized by the Contest Manager, F. Larry Wheeler of HSU, for an outstanding technical production.

Congratulations to this year's SAHS One Act Play cast, crew, and directors for a great year!

You might be from Santa Anna if..

You might be from Santa Anna if.. you ever wore a band hat like this one:

You might be from Santa Anna if.. and Whatever Happened to..? Part III

I wonder.. whatever happened to this unidentified Mountaineer Band member?

Tom Guthrie was the first one to guess it correct and he said he didn't get any help from Lane, Sharon, or Briana. There were a few others that got it right and some pretty good guesses.. Ricky Jones, Dickie Horner, Doug Warnock..

So who is it?

Well this young Freshman Mountaineer Band member from 1972-73 is our very own David Robinett. David is now the Santa Anna High School Principal where he is known as Mr. Robinett. He was a four year band student and also played football, basketball, tennis, and ran track for four years. David started teaching at CAPS High School several years ago and then teaching and coaching here in Santa Anna. David is married to Shelly and they have two children, Shyler Farley and Caylie.

David is better known by the Peltons as Uncle David since he is Cindy's Uncle. Cindy's Mom, Linda White, and her sisters, Jean Findley and Gail Horner take a lot of the credit for the way David is today since David was the baby of the family. Their parents, Robert and Maggie Robinett are largely responsible for all of them though and they all are pretty good people as I have come to know them the last 23 years. Like his dad, David loves to work on cars and is pretty well known on the race tracks around Wall and Abilene. David is no stranger to making cars go fast either as he worked on Ozona's Circle Bar Truck Corral Indy Car and Nascar race teams back in the 80's. I too have gone pretty fast in some cars with David but I must admit it is a little scary sitting on a five gallon bucket when the front wheels come off the ground!

I have always looked up to David and he has never let me down, always helping me do this or that and willing to stop what he is doing to give me a hand around the shop. And he is pretty talented around the shop too. Custom fabricating whatever thing he wanted a long time before they started doing it on TV shows.

Some people just get cooler the older they get and David is one of those guys!

You might be from Santa Anna if.. and Whatever Happened to..? Part IV

I have enjoyed looking at the 1973 Mountaineer especially since it was before we moved here. There are some things that really stand out in it to me such as everyone dressed up for school pictures (picking on David still):

I wonder whatever happened to..?

I wonder whatever happened to this Senior from the SAHS Class of 1973?

This Senior is Judy Wright Chambers.

Long time Santa Anna school teacher, Joan Jones, guessed correctly although she admits, "I confess I had to look at an old annual. I did not teach Judy--or any of these seniors. As for David Robinett--I remember him very well from junior high.."

She did not say whether David was good or bad!

Judy Wright Chambers, Sister of my Step Dad, Tex Wright, by that time was already my Step Aunt. She, like my Granny Wright, always treated us just like her own.

There are two things that I will always remember about my Aunt Judy: The first is when she helped me and my cousin, Greg Gibson, put an old door up in one of the big mesquite trees out in front of my Granny Wright's house, and her's too I guess. She pulled my Uncle Lynn's, old Yellow Chevrolet pickup up under the tree and helped us nail the old door up there for the best tree house two city boys could ever have. We fought the Indians coming off of the mountains for days on end that Summer.

The other thing I remember about my Aunt Judy was her driving my Granny around town, to work at the nursing home, to the post office, and to the grocery store. They had an old Chevrolet car back then... an Impala I think.

One other thing I remember now, I guess that makes three, is when her and my Uncle Phil were dating they would sit out beside Granny's house on the porch or on the hood of that old Chevy and talk mostly and whatever teen-agers do when they are dating... I was more of a nuisance probably than anything else.

Uncle Phil, Chambers or course, was a really cool guy back then, not that he isn't now.. but he is older than me you know! He was a star quarterback for the Bluecats back then and he always played the quarterback on our pickup games at Granny's house. He has been a policeman now in Coleman for as far back as I can remember and is now running for Chief of Police of the Coleman Police Department and he will make a darn good one if elected.

Judy works at Abilene Christian University in Abilene and has for a long time now. She started there I guess back when they lived in Abilene and Uncle Phil started to work at the police department.The ACU website says 1989 and that she is the Operations Assistant in Development Operations. I am not sure exactly what that means except she can operate!

Mothers Day Special

Sent to SantaAnnaNews.com by Laurie Powers:

We are having a Mothers Day Special for friends, family, and friends of friends and family...

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