December 12, 2016

 

Congratulations to a longtime customer of ours, Sue Baker. Sue was all smiles telling about winning a book and gift card for completing a “reading challenge” at Temple Memorial Library. The challenge began in January and ended December 1. Forty books were selected by the library staff which also read the books. The purpose was to get people to read books they might not ever pick up to read on their own. Sue was one of five adults that completed the challenge and according to Justin Barkley, “A lot of adults were really close to completing the challenge.” Justin also said the library is working on another list of books to begin a new challenge in January.

Jack and Gayle Beene stopped by early Wednesday afternoon to visit and were disappointed they missed the annual Christmas dinner at the civic center. They live in Jack’s hometown of Mexia where they built a home on land that has been in his family for years. Jack enjoys rebuilding old tractors and Gayle volunteers helping others and enjoys her garden club and they are both active in their church. From here they drove to their old neighborhood in South Meadows and visited with former neighbors, Don and Dolly Whitaker.

Mark and Ann Hafernick hosted their grandson Gibson Hafernick’s 4th birthday party at their home. Gibson’s parents are Angela and Brian Hafernick. It was a farm party complete with plans for a hayride to the barn and an opportunity to feed chickens, goats, cows, horses and tractor rides were also on the agenda. Unfortunately, it rained 4”on that cold Saturday morning so the party was moved inside and original plans were substituted with lots of farm related games and activities. The children still had a wonderful time and left with homemade stick horses as their party favor!  The stick horses were made by Angela and members of the Caskey family at their Thanksgiving celebration. Attending were several of Gipson’s classmates from St. Cyprians, friends from church and cousins, Alex and Millie and their parents, Ron and Michelle Haney from Lufkin. Gibson’s maternal grandparents, Jim and Ann Caskey, also enjoyed the party which was lots of fun and turned out to be the best “indoor” farm birthday party ever!

Jimmie Woodard went with friends Dell and Jerry Sawyer to Durango’s Canyon outside of Mt. Enterprise and had a delicious meal at the Crater Restaurant and Club.  She reported that the food was good, but prices were a little high. The music was excellent and not so loud you couldn’t visit and enjoy your evening.  The ambiance of the outside surroundings was awesome.  The restaurant sits high and overlooks the crater and the Christmas decorations at the foot of the crater were pretty awesome. So, you might ask, “What’s the story on The Crater? “No one is certain. There is the legend that thousands of years ago a huge meteorite fell to earth and left this natural crater. One can find some interesting boulders which could possibly be meteorite debris. Then there are the stories that The Crater was formed by the Caddo Indians for their use. Arrowheads and Indian artifacts have pushed their way above the ground. Located on 120 acres, the restaurant sits on the rim of the Crater Amphitheater overlooking the stage at Durango’s Canyon and is open Wednesday through Saturday evenings.

          Two guys came in the store at the same time and I learned they both graduated from Diboll in 1992. Jose Hernandez, Jr. and Bobby Lee who both live in Diboll. Jose and his two brothers, Cesar and Juan had returned from Green Bay, WI where they watched the Packers win over the Houston Texans. Before that trip, Jose, his two sons, 9-year-old Trey and 11-year-old Santana and Chaundra Hawthorn attended the game between the Cowboys and Packers. In fact, they attend all the home games in Green Bay and have tickets on the 20-yard line.

          Bobby Lee, as a hobby, raises AKC Labrador Retrievers to run and compete in AKC field trials. After last week’s competition in Hillsboro, Bobby’s prize dog, “Jammer” who is only 16 months old is ranked #21 in the nation. He trained the dog for about a year but since then Jammer is being professionally handled and trained by Mike Johnson of Piney Creek Retrievers in Corrigan. Bobby also raises birds used in training dogs and presently has about 900 pheasants and ducks at his house.

          Two good friends who worked together for years and have hunted together for “too many years to remember”, Eugene May and John Wallace, truly enjoy hunting. They recently returned from a two-week trip to Montana and South Dakota.  They hunted for five days in Montana staying in the outfitters’ lodging. The temperatures broke records for being the hottest in years but these guys both got a mule deer before driving 300 miles to the area of the Badlands’ in South Dakota. Eugene had a picture of the 300 pound deer he bagged with four HUGE antlers that were extremely wide and tall. I was astounded but Eugene in his mild, quiet manner said it wasn’t much by SD standards. John Wallace amazed them all with his 4×4 mule deer he shot at 505 yards by carefully getting down on his bad knees, bracing and calculating the long distance shot. Before leaving home Eugene had already killed two nice 11 pointers; one in the Tower Club and one in the Dean Creek Club.

          Ramiro Perez came in just as Eugene was leaving and was very proud of the 14-point buck that he had gotten in the Tower Club. Ramiro said the thick rack scored 138 points and was 14-1/2” wide.

          The Diboll Lions Club met for their regular monthly meeting at the First Methodist church. The speaker was Drew (Andrew) Estrada, a senior at DHS and expected to be the Valedictorian of his 2017 graduating class. He told us about his freshman year when he planned to take a culinary class that filled up and he had to take an agriculture class. Getting injured and unable to play sports, he got involved in FFA and presently holds an area office that includes 89 school districts and 11,000 members. He has been accepted to Texas A&M and plans to major in Nutritional Science. He challenged the Lions Club to speak up and speak out for everyone in the community. This young man was a very impressive speaker.

          You missed a treat if you did not attend “Christmas in the Park”. It was a wonderful evening with singing and scriptures. After the program The Diboll Civic Club had the Christmas lights turned on in the park just in time for Santa to arrive on a firetruck. Please take time to drive through the park and see the many exhibits, it’s beginning to look a lot like Christmas.

          Please send me news and come see us…’round the table.

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