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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.

In a recent e-mail from Clay Hubbard, aboard the USS Abraham Lincoln,
"We just left Singapore a few days ago. I had a good time just wish we could have stayed longer, it is not true what people say about it being a trashy city, it was very clean. They call Singapore a FINE CITY because you can get fined for a lot of things. You can get fined for spitting on the ground, not flushing toilet, feeding birds, and other stuff"..
No littering fine - $625 US
Possesion of fire crackers - CANE
NOT FLUSHING FINE - $93 US
No feeding birds - $625 US
VANDALISM - JAIL AND CANE
No smoking fine $625 US

Please remember Clay and these Santa Anna folks that are serving our country in combat, training, or support: Maricela (Marty) Siller, Eddie Dawson, Ike Garza, James Watson, Austin Voss, Randy Casey, Mike Montgomery II, Mark Rutherford, Allen Tucker, James Culpepper, and Shane Watson.

James's Cool Site of the Week

Every once in a while I run across a site that is really cool and then I forget about it before I tell anybody about it.

This is one that I ran across several years ago called Microsoft Terraserver that is just too cool.

Here is an Terraserver aerial photo of Santa Anna

Be sure and check out the Famous Places link at the top.

This TerraServer.com's color image of Santa Anna and this TerraServer.com black and white image is real cool too.

Tuesdays' Abilene Reporter-News

My celebrity daughter, Jennifer Pelton, was pictured on the front page of Tuesday's Abilene Reporter-News along with several of her classmates at Cisco Junior College in Abilene. The article by Reporter-News Staff Writer Jerry Daniel Reed is about the increased enrollment at two year colleges and the affordability of community colleges.

There is also an article online at the Abilene Reporter News Education page. Free registration is required to view the full story.

SantaAnnaNews.com Classifieds Work..

Well I hope that you didn't have your heart set on buying Jessica's Kia, because we sold it Wednesday to someone in Mills County that found out about it from SantaAnnaNews.com!

But it's not too late to send in YOUR classified. It doesn't have to be a car or big ticket item. It can be anything from a house for sale to a garage sale. Best of all it is FREE! Send your classifieds to news@santaannanews.com today.

Mountaineer Band members attend UIL Solo and Ensemble Competition

Five students from the Santa Anna Mountaineer Band attended the UIL Solo and Ensemble Competition hosted by Howard Payne University in Brownwood, Texas this past Saturday. Pictured below L-R: Band Director Shane Strawbridge, Kristle DeLeon, Jesse Hensley, Chelsea Guerrero, Micah Pritchard, and Garrey Cannon. Soloists, Jesse on Euphonium (baritone) and Micah on Flute, scored Excellent ratings and the Brass Quartet (Kristle - trumpet, Chelsea - french horn, Jesse - Euphonium & Garrey - trumpet) scored Average.

Whatever Happened to.. follow up

.. Tara Stark? Part II or III..
Well I was pretty surprised to get an e-mail from Tara Monday but I think I might have gotten her little brother Bodie in a little hot water though!

She had this to say, "I can tell you that I have a fabulous 13 year old daughter named Lauren. I am a realtor for Keller Williams based in Ft. Worth, but I handle different properties throughout surrounding counties, especially farm & ranch (naturally)."

Tara has her own section on the Keller Williams website along with a photo and I bet if you are looking for property in that area she can hook you up.. and be sure and tell her SantaAnnaNews.com sent ya!

Weather

Cindy and I did a little stormwatching Tuesday night with all the lightning and thunder in the area and of course I took my camera along to catch a few photos.

Have you ever tried to photo lightning? Out of 280 or so photos I took, I deleted over 250 most of which were pretty dark! ..but here are couple that turned out fair.

Rusty Buzzard accepts position at Coleman

Well I am very excited that several people told me that they saw on KTAB TV that Rusty Buzzard has been hired as the new Head Coach and Athletic Director at Coleman High School!

Congratulations Rusty!

I know you will do a great job!

Tuesday I got to talking about Rusty with some of the guys at work from Goldthwaite and our old high school football days and just how good Rusty was when we played Goldthwaite for the District Championship in 1980. All this got me to wondering if the he had passed any of this on to his sons.

It didn't take much effort to find out that the Buzzard family has some players in the family!

Austin was named to the 29-2A All District First Team as a Quarterback and Defensive Back this past year as a Junior at Yorktown and his little brother Bronson was named as the 29-2A Newcomer of the Year and also to the All Area Team and the Texas Sports Writers Association Class 2A All-State Team Third Team Defensive Back as a Freshman with 10 interceptions, 72 tackles, one caused fumble, and two fumble recoveries.

Austin playing an outfielder is also listed as a "Class 2A Player to Watch" by the Texas High School Baseball Magazine. He also ran track and was on the District 31-2A 2nd place 400M and 800M Relay Teams, placed 4th in the 200M and 6th in the Long Jump. For a nice photo of Austin making a tackle in a playoff game with Lexington see this link to the Austin American Statesman.

Santa Anna Library

I recently received this e-mail from Kathy Roe:

I would like to thank the ladies, Ovella Williams and Alice Guthrie Spillman, at the Santa Anna Library for visiting with me last Wednesday, the 2nd of February. I was waiting to attend a funeral service in Santa Anna and thought I would leave Ft. Worth early enough to go by the library. It was convenient and easy for me to get to. There were even parking spaces available in front of the building! That was a treat.

The library has a sitting area near the front door and that is where Alice and I visited. Her husband and Tex Wright, a brother of a friend of mine I went to school with in the sixties, were there, too. It felt like I was home again. That is something I cannot feel in Ft. Worth no matter where I go outside my home. Everyone up here are strangers to me, unless I am with someone I know. I asked Alice if she remembered me from the first time I met her. She said of course she did! It felt really good to be recognized. Up here you can go to the grocery store once a week and be checked out by the same cashier every time and still would not be recognized! I really wanted to buy a house in Santa Anna and move in it that same day. How good it felt to be home again, sitting back and talking to people who made me feel comfortable. It was nice. Alice and Ovella are special. I hope people will donate money and books and make the library a very special place for those of us that visit. Donuts and coffee would be good :)
Kathy

For those of us that live here we sometimes don't recognize the kind of friendliness shown by Mrs. Williams and Mrs. Guthrie. But what extraordinary behavior this is in the hustle and bustle of life today.

The Library is located in a building that I think was last a dry cleaners and dry goods about 20 years ago but I am not positive.

I am sad to say in a way that I don't read a lot of books. I can only think of two that I have read since getting out of high school.. Tom Landry's biography that I borrowed from the First Baptist Church Library about ten years ago, and "Fish" which was some required reading at work a couple of weeks ago. It's not that I don't like to read or don't read a lot.. I just don't read books. I read mostly newspaper and magazine articles most of which are technical or work related.

All the more reason for me to recruit some qualified assistance and to put my Step-Dad Tex Wright on a little photo assignment! Special thanks to him for taking and sharing these photos.

Whatever Happened to..

I am cheating a little but I wonder.. "Whatever Happened to Jerry Don Culpepper?"

By "cheating a little" I mean that I knew a little about what Jerry Don was doing these days. I have seen him a time or two the last couple of years and his sister Connie is a faithful reader of SantaAnnaNews.com. The last couple of times that I have actually saw him he was traveling down the road as I was going to work. The last time I spoke to him was while waiting in line to see "The Passion" and he was with a church group from Zephyr.

I am not real sure about what all he has been doing over the last 20 years or so but I know that he lives near Zephyr and has started his own business which is similar to a mobile car wash except for he has a mobile oil change service. When I worked at Coleman County Broadcasting Jerry Don was working for Schwan's Foods delivering frozen food door-to-door. He often visited with me about the automobile service business.

I knew that Jerry Don would be successful no matter what he chose to do. Jerry Don, and Connie too for that matter, were always pretty good looking, smart, and athletic. Just like their parents Jerry Don and Connie both have worked very hard for what they have. Connie is now a US Probation officer in Abilene where she and her husband have three children, Cody age 15, Kortney age 10 and Katie age 8. She tells me that ".. my brother Jerry Don is living in Zephyr, Texas. He has his own business, called "The Oil Taxi", which is a mobile oil change service. He has three children, his oldest is Eden, she graduated from ZHS last year, he has a daughter, Ciera that is a freshman and a son Lacy, who is in ZJH. He is still married to Susie, and has been for over 20 years. He and his family are very active in local sports there in Zephyr, as well as their church. His daughter Ciera is following in his footsteps as a stand out athlete as well as academically. She was the 8th grade valedictorian and keeps a high GPA.

Whatever Happened to.. follow up

.. Tara Stark? Well I was pretty close last week when I told you "I am sure that she is raising race horses or something like that since I think their family was raising them when they lived here."

Her brother Bodie gave me her phone number, but I was a little hesitant to call her. What do you say to someone you haven't seen for 24 years?

So I thought I would see what kind of public information I could find about her. I consider myself to be an advanced Google user since I have been using Google to search with for a lot longer than it has been popular.

She is raising cutting horses and of course she is pretty good at it. This website that I found called Sr Barolena is actually for a beautiful gray stallion that she owns but it has some nice photos of her also.

I had also told you that "I was trying to think of someone else that I knew in Willow Park." I knew that Mom would come to my rescue on this too when I said "Mom will probably line me out on that since she is the family genealogist." and of course she did in true genealogist form.

Here is what she had to say some of which may not interest you but just hang on and I will bring it back around:

"My cousin's son, Wayne Price and wife, Sherry, lived at Willow Park at the time Mouse Trap got away. They no longer live there.

Small world isn't it? - Mom"

You may have caught that "Whatever Happened To?" hint from my Mom. Well she, Cindy, and Jessica are some of my best inspiration for a lot of this stuff. And many of you are doing a good job of helping me too and I really do appreciate it.

When I was in the old Mobil station cousin Bob, as Mom mentioned, bought one of Santa Anna's old fire trucks to restore and when he came to pick it up I helped him get it ready for the road trip. So I have put Mom on assignment! We will try to have more on the old firetruck later.

Weather and "You might be from Santa Anna if.."

One again what great weather we had Sunday. After the little showers Friday and Saturday, I poured out another half inch of rain Sunday afternoon.

Last weekend .. Jessica, Patrick, and I, spent Sunday afternoon washing cars. We hand washed Jessica's car, my car, and Cindy's truck and about the time I was getting ready to put up all the car wash stuff here comes Jennifer wanting to wash hers!

Well this Sunday afternoon at Pelton' Car Wash we, Chrystal, Jason, and I washed Chrystal's car, my car, and Cindy's truck, and Jessica' Kia and once again about the time I was getting ready to put up all the car wash stuff here comes Jennifer wanting to wash hers!

I like to think I have taught them how to take car of their cars, but sometimes I wonder! Have you seen a crop of corn, oats, or wheat growing in the back of an old farmers pickup truck? That is all I am going to say except for "You might be from Santa Anna if you have a better crop in the bed of your truck than you have in your field!"

I Believe - Part VI continued

I believe that life is an education.

You should take advantage of every opportunity to learn no matter how old you are. Whether it is a formal training at work, a week long seminar, a trade school, jr. college, or university. Or maybe it is an old person just telling you a story.

I have tried for the last 15 years to go to college and let me tell you it has not been easy! If you are a young person I would encourage you to go to college. If you are a little older don't give up.

As I have shared with you before I started out going to Howard Payne University in 1987. Since then I have also taken some classes at Angelo State University and Howard College in San Angelo and most recently at Texas State Technical College in Brownwood.

I searched for a way to get a Bachelor's Degree and still make a living and only recently found a program at Texas Tech University for a Bachelor of General Studies Degree through the Texas Tech Distance Learning Program. After I applied to the program they have started offering a Bachelor of Science Degree in Horticulture also. I have been accepted and will start in the next few months so the time I spend on SantaAnnaNews.com may be shortened but hopefully by then there will be enough reader input to carry on.

I believe in Santa Anna schools.

I went to them, my wife, my kids have gone to them, my sisters, my Step Dad and his brother and sisters, and my Robinett clan in-laws.. have all been to them and hopefully my Grandkids will go to them. Santa Anna's schools are some of the best around.

I am not sure what to call this except how about ramblings?

Well I am really getting excited about two of my favorite school activities that are coming up.. One Act Play and Track!

There is a One Act Play Festival at the High School Auditorium on the Santa Anna School Calendar for this week starting Friday. I will try to get some more information squeezed out of Jessica.

The first track meets are scheduled the first week of March so get your stop watch and measuring tape out!

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