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361-949-7700 editor@islandmoon.com The Island Newspaper since 1996 Facebook : The Island Moon Newspaper
April 4, 2013
This is the weekend when we showcase The Island’s
Around The Island
By Dale Rankin editor@islandmoon.com By Dale Rankin
March went out like a lamb…but just barely. We dodged a bullet Sunday night as March wound down when a thunderstorm passed just west of us and dropped grapefruit/baseball sized hail on the towns of Freer and Benavides and golf ball sized hail on Alice. If you happened to be looking west just after 8 p.m. you could see it moving fast out across the Wild Horse Prairie. We Moon Monkeys don’t know about you but we don’t want to be around when anything grapefruit-size comes barreling down out of the sky. But now we’ve hit the Chamber of Commerce Weather portion of our calendar year here on The Island and all we can say is it’s about time. We’ve had the first weather that felt sort of like summer this week and Hurricane Season is still two months away. So get out there and have some fun!
Photo by Brent Rourk Next Publication Date: 4/11/2013
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Year 16, Issue 468
Presented by the Island Moon
2nd Annual Padre Island Showcase, Vendor Show, and Home Tour This Weekend! The 2nd Annual Padre Island Showcase, Vendor Show and Home Tour is this Saturday and Sunday with 32 Island homes open for inspection as well as presentations by a variety of Island home improvement companies. The homes will be open both Saturday and Sunday, April 6-7 from from 1-5 p.m. The event is presented by the Island Moon. This is an great chance to take a look at the variety of homes The Island has to offer in all price ranges and locations, and no appointment is necessary; just pick up a map at the Seasore Learning Center Gym where the Island companies are having their showcase and make the rounds of homes on display.
The Padre Island Community Garden is one stop on the Island showcase tour. 20 new garden plots are being dedicated on Satrday, increasing the number from 40 to 60 plots
Easter Egg Hunt Fills Billish Park
The event was featured in last Sunday edition of the Corpus Christi Caller Times, and is also being promoted in KIII Television. The Bonus Feature of this year’s tour is The Community Garden located in Douden Park along Coba de Bara where gardeners will be available to tell you about their accomplishments and show you their abundant crops, and where on Saturday twenty new garden plots are being dedicated. Showcase continued on A6
Garage Sale Saturday April 20
The sand from canal dredging is being pumped to this site near Aquarius. Digging near Aquarius We’ve been getting several questions about the work going on over west of the Aquarius Extension. The POA is dredging the canals on the north end of the canal system and the spoils are being pumped into the area you see there. The work is being done by the POA under the auspices of Asset Development Corporation who holds the dredging permits. ADC is creating new wetlands as part of the Schlitterbahn Beach Country Resort project and that process is what you see there. The area where the sand is being pumped was recently increased to accommodate an additional 5000 cubic yards of sand that is coming out of the Primavera Canal after the contract was amended for that purpose. So that’s what’s going on.
Touchstone for Blind Drivers You don’t have to be a sighted person to know when you are driving past the Cruiser/Whitecap intersection these days; your nose knows. For the Olfactory Impaired the stench emanating from the Gypsy Sewer Station over there has become steady and at times overwhelming. The line that runs from that station is a force main under four pounds of pressure in order to get its contents to the Whitewater Treatment Plant so anytime there is a small leak the contents are pushed out underground. Remember a couple of summers back when the intersection at Gypsy and Whitecap became a section of the giant sinkhole? That was due to a leak in that line which has since been replaced. Here’s hoping the leak gets fixed before the prevailing southeasterly wind arrives for good in the next few weeks and blows this eyewatering cloud into the neighborhoods for the entire summer. After complaints from business owners in the Padre Professional Plaza just down the street the city conducted smoke tests on the line to find out where the leak is located but found no leaks that could be causing this odiferous offender. So we don’t know when it will be fixed but we’re not holding our breath…no wait…we are holding our breath.
Girl Scout Working to Establish Community Library I am a senior student at Flour Bluff High School, a resident of Padre Island, a former student of SLC and SMA Schools, and a Girl Scout Ambassador for the GSGST Council in Corpus Christi, Texas. For my Girl Scouts Gold Award Project I am working together with my Project Counselor, Mrs. Maryann Carl, and the POA Executive Coordinator Mrs. Maybeth Christensen, to develop a Library at the POA office which is open to the community. The Island has a Charter school, kindergarten through 9th grade, but we don’t have a library and the community definitely needs one. The Library will have books for children, teenagers, and adults, and will positively impact the overall community. It will be a place where parents, children, and friends can meet and spend quality time together. The POA Office is located at 14015 Fortuna Bay Dr. on Padre Island, C. C., next to the Billish Park on Gypsy St., which will make it a great place to organize Community Events. The Library will be run by volunteers at the POA office, and I am kindly asking the SMA school Journalism class students, the Gifted & Talented children at the Seashore Middle Academy, older students from the SLC Elementary school, Girl Scout’s Troops, and other community associations, if they would like to help my project by volunteering for Monthly Reading Events at the Library. I will like to start with their help, a Monthly “Around the World Reading Program”, where volunteers will read books about different cultures from different countries. I have an International family, my mom is Italian, my dad is English, Scout continued on A5
Packery Channel Ramp Cleanup
Whitecap and SPID intersection We’ve also been getting questions about near collisions as people make the U-turn on southbound SPID at the Whitecap intersection to head back north. Drivers making the U-turn must wait until the turn signal turns green before they can go, but when they do they almost collide with drivers making a right on red from Whitecap to go northbound on SPID. This leads to two questions: First, why isn’t there a turnaround so drivers don’t have to wait for the light? This is a question for TxDot since they maintain that roadway and we’ll find out. Second, who has the right of way? We checked Around continued on A5
ignite their rush to find over 20,000 eggs and toys. The battle was part of the 16th Annual Kiwanis Club – Padre Island Easter Egg Hunt.
By Marzena N. Friday,
Saturday, April 6 is the date and the Packery Channel Boat Ramp is the place for the National Day of Action cleanup. The all volunteer event will involve underwater and land trash pickup. Bags will be provided to divers and kayakers. Girl and Boy scouts can earn merit badge points and for anyone needing community service hours (you know who you are) these will count.
The “Hunt”
By Brent Rourk Photos by Brent Rourk and Miles Merwin The children all lined up last Saturday at Billish Park, some patiently and some impatiently, like they were ready for battle. They were going to battle. They surveyed the field and spotted their prey. They all had faces painted with excitement, anticipation, and animal figures complements of the Kiwanis Club and SMA’s Builders’ Club. They were waiting for the starting signal to
As the final countdown hit ‘2’, some children jumped the gun to get to their favorite spot. The fierce and determined hunters covered the field in seconds. In less than ten minutes the Island Easter Egg Hunt massacre was over. A few broken eggs, smashed toys, and empty wrappers remained where the hard battle had been fought. Hoards of winners proudly marched off the Billish turf with full baskets or pails and then hurried to find a spot to sit and revel in their stash of spoils. Parents sat with them and shared the joys and surprises. Some eggs carried a certificate for one of 83 special, larger prizes such as a wagon, trike, body board, Ripstick, scooter, and more. The hunt was over.
Food and Fun
It was time to wind down, though without question the candy might have kept several kids on full throttle for hours. But for the majority of children, the Easter Egg “Hunt” was the high point and culminating event of the days’
Easter Egg Hunt continued on A2
A little Island history
Texans Flee to the Alamo, Mexican Troops Arrive in San Antonio, Seige of the Alamo Begins By Dale Rankin It was February 23, 1836 and the natives were restless; in fact they were more than restless, they were leaving San Antonio de Bexar.
in the field as a guide to the Mexican troops; if she was leaving it was because her husband had gotten word to her that the arrival of Mexican troops was imminent. In a microcosm of the split between the longtime Texas residents and the new comers who had only come to Texas to join the fight, Travis, now is charge of the “Regular” army of Texans ordered the arrest of Mrs. Musquiz. Bowie and Dimitt who had lived among the Tejanos for years knew that to so would alienate the local population and cut all lines of communication. Travis didn’t listen and ordered her arrest and while her hearing was going on a messenger came to Travis and said he knew why the Tejanos were leaving; the Mexican Army was almost in sight.
As James Bowie and William Barret Travis surveyed the scene from their headquarters on Portero Street they saw the local Tejano population heading southeast with everything they could carry. The Tejanos told Travis, who they didn’t know, that they were going into the fields to prepare for the spring planting season. But when Bowie and Captain Philip Dimitt observed the pregnant wife of Ramon Musquiz leaving they knew that wasn’t not the The enemy is in view real story. Musquiz, A friendly Tejano told they knew, was a Juan Seguin was Alalde (Mayor) of one of Bowie’s friends that prominent local San Antonio prior to war for Texas the column of Mexican citizen and was now independence.
History continued on A3