City of Mosaics Discover Levelland

Helping People.Changing Lives.

South Plains Community Action Association was formed in 1965 under the name Hockley County Community Action Committee. SPCAA has six divisions: health, head start, childcare, workforce, community and transportation.

Samantha Mendoza South Plains Community Action Association Communications director explained SPCAA provides free or affordable transportation for individuals in rural counties through Spartan public transportation.

“What we do is we provide affordable, and oftentimes free transportation to individuals in our rural counties,” Mendoza said. “A lot of times people might have an important doctor’s appointment, an office that they need to get to or something important in the bigger cities like Levelland or Lubbock and they

live in a rural county, and transportation is either not affordable or they just don’t have reliable transportation to get to those appointments.”

There are 17 counties included in the South Plains Rural Transit District that are serviced by Spartan with three types of service. Scheduled route service offers pick-up from a designated point to a predetermined drop-off location. Commuter service is offered to those with a standing reservation to get to work or school. Commuter service users typically have a pass or pay fares using a subscription rate. Traditional demand response service is available for those who request pick-up and drop-off locations that cannot be included into the scheduled route.

“We’ll pick them up at one of those spots in the rural counties, and we’ll be able to transport

them and take them over to wherever they need to go,” Mendoza said. “It’s a great service that we have, and it’s just one of the many that we have under our agency.”

The community service division offers utility assistance through the Comprehensive Energy Assistance Program to low-income elderly or disabled households. This program is based on income eligibility for all household members 18 and older.

According to the SPCAA website, to be eligible for assistance the household income should not be greater than 150% of the federal poverty level.

“Utility assistance is really just if an individual, for instance, has a really high electric bill or water bill that they can’t pay, if their gas or light has been turned off. If they have a really big fee to turn it back on, we’ll help them with that,” Mendoza said. “What you

do is you just go online to our website, you click the apply button, follow the steps and you get that assistance.”

The community service division also offers weatherization assistance to increase the energy efficiency of low-income residences making no more than 200% of the federal poverty limit.

“It’s really individuals who don’t have insulation, or they don’t have the proper equipment or appliances in their home to stay safe, either in the winter or summer months,” Mendoza said. “Obviously, Lubbock and the South Plains area is a place where it can get really really cold in the winter, and it can get really really hot in the summer. So, we want to make sure community members are safe and comfortable in their homes.”

According to the SPCAA website, a whole-house energy assessment is conducted to determine the most effective way to help client’s save money on their energy bill. The assessment can determine if a homeowner needs attic and wall insulation, air sealing, duct sealing, weather-stripping on windows and doors and the repair or replacement of inefficient heating and cooling systems.

Diagnostic testing will also be performed on all combustion appliances to determine if the appliances are working safely and efficiently.

“We’ll have someone assess what is going on and what is needed in the home, whether it be insulation or redoing windows or updating appliances, even AC units and replacing those as well,” Mendoza said.

The workforce program offers a range of services benefiting those seeking jobs. SPCAA aides with resume building, skills training and hosts virtual and in person jobs fairs among other services.

“It’s a great program that not a lot of people are aware of because it is completely free,” Mendoza said “You walk in, and we help you find any kind of assistance that you might need. You basically let us know what your situation is, what your skills are, what your education level is, what kind of work experience you have and then we go from there and to try ind you employment.”

Childcare assistance is available for those with children under the age of 13 whose parents receive Temporary Assistance to Needy Families (TANF), parents who have recently stopped receiving TANF benefits due to increased income, parents who are in job training programs offered through the Workforce Innovation and opportunity act, parents receiving food stamps, parents that qualify as low income and need help paying for child care so the parents can continue working or attending trainings, teen parents who are from low-income families that need child care to attend school or to complete a GED and parents that qualify as low-income and have children with disabilities.

“Childcare services is basically what it sounds like you come in, let us know your information, your income level, etc. and how many kids you have, what kind of accommodations that you need,” Mendoza said, “and we’ll

try and find them a really good quality daycare to place them in during the day. And so that helps obviously, a lot of parents who need to work or go to school.”

Parents have the right to choose the type of childcare that best meets their needs. Childcare options include licensed childcare centers, licensed childcare homes, registered family homes and relative care.

“We partner with a lot of daycares all throughout the South Plains area. It’s a sliding scale coverage,” Mendoza said. “Depending on your income level, determines how much we can pay. For the most part, it’s pretty much covered completely so the individuals or parents don’t have to pay anything.”

SPCAA offers Head Start to children from birth to age five to low-income families following the federal government poverty guidelines. Head Start is also offered to families and children experiencing homelessness, children in the foster care system and children with disabilities or other special needs.

“Head Start is something that we’re really proud of because it’s one of our major programs we have under our agency,” Mendoza said, “Early childhood develop-

ment is super important. Children, especially at that young age absorb things like sponges. What the Head Start program does is place children into early classrooms, and they develop those skills that set them up to be successful once they transition into like kindergarten and elementary.”

Early Head Start is offered following the same guidelines to children from birth to three years old. This can be utilized by parents or families that are working and need childcare assistance.

“Once again, it’s something that you have to qualify for income wise, and that can also be a great tool for parents who need to work or have to go to school,” Mendoza said. “They can know that their kid is in a Head Start in a classroom and learning some really good skills.”

The Woman, Children and Infants (WIC) program offers WIC benefits, breastfeeding support, one-onone counseling with nutritionist, nutrition classes, recipe and cooking demonstrations and healthy food.

“We want to meet with parents from pregnancy and assist them to make sure that they have the proper nutrition, the proper guidance on how to take care of and be healthy with their children,” Mendoza said. “WIC benefits are great. Obviously, you take your WIC card, you go to the grocery store, and you can buy really good quality, healthy food at an affordable price and that’s really helpful.”

Mendoza explained that SPCAA was able to assist WIC members find formula during the shortage and are prepared to support families during crisis and issues that arise.

“Last year we had the formula shortage going on nationwide, and a lot of our clients were affected by that,” Mendoza said, “During issues and crisis like that our program is there to support the community. Basically, just offer any kind of support and guid-

ance, let them know where they can find formula if we can provide them formula we can as well. It’s a supportive program. We want to support parents, mothers, and children in any way that we can to make sure that they’re healthy and set up for success.”

The Health Services Division also offers the Navigator Health Insurance Marketplace which aides individuals with applying and enrolling into health insurance. The requirements are to be a U.S. citizen or lawfully present immigrant that lives in the United States and are not currently incarcerated or serving time in a jail or prison.

“If you don’t have health insurance and you don’t have health coverage, and you need it, we have certified navigators,” Mendoza said. “They’re federally certified. What they do is they walk you through the healthcare.gov application process, step by step, they answer any questions you might have about health insurance. They are there to help you make sure that you have coverage that is affordable and comprehensive, and it’s tailored to your needs.”

The Senior Companion Program is also offered under the heath services division. The program help adults live independently and give support to caregivers.

“We send individuals to go spend time with our seniors in our community and kind of help them out and take care of them,” Mendoza said. “They’re not nurses, they’re not caretakers or anything like that, but they’re there to provide support and social interaction to our seniors in our community.”

Project Champs is also within the Health Services Division. Project Champs includes the Ryan White HIV/AIDS services which was created by congress to fund the health and social services needs of people living with HIV/AIDS.

“All over the South Plains and actually El Paso

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we have Ryan White programs, which is to help individuals who are HIV positive find resources and medication and treatment for free and help them through that process of being HIV positive,” Mendoza said, “and a lot of people aren’t aware of it and they think that being HIV positive means that your life is over. We’re able to provide them with treatment that is really lifesaving, and they’re able to live full, complete fulfilled lives and have that medication and treatment be very affordable and oftentimes free.”

The Hockley County food box was relocated to SPCAA Levelland in January and is another program that can be utilized by those in need.

“That’s also an amazing program that people can take advantage of here in the communities,” Mendoza said. “I think we have 3000 meals a month that we give out and it’s probably more than that now. It’s something that the community should look into if they need food assistance.”

SPCAA is always looking for employees. There are current job listings for Spartan drivers, accounts payable clerk, community services-service specialist clerk, workforce WOIA youth center counselor among other listings.

“If you’re looking to find employment with

us, what you do is you go online and fill out our application. We have the careers page, and you can find listings through there,” Mendoza said. “Head Start behavioral specialists, for instance is a position that we have open pretty much all the time in different areas and we have tons of Head Start locations all over the South Plains. So that’s something that is almost always available to people to apply for.”

SPCAA is currently seeking volunteers for the Levelland food box. Monetary donations are also welcome to individual programs or to SPCAA as an organization.

“We’re always looking for volunteers, especially at the food box because that’s picking up a lot since the new ribbon cutting ceremony,” Mendoza said. “Donations are, of course, always welcome with our individual programs. As an agency overall, we rarely get donations just for the agency. Most of the time people donate to specific programs, which we encourage as well. We’re always looking for volunteers, you can contact our individual programs, and kind of let them know that you want to help out, and they’ll find something for you to do.”

For those unfamiliar with the Levelland Chamber of Commerce, their goal is simple. it is to create, support and promote economic opportunities for members or investors and community.

Comprised of 21 board members per their bylaws, the purpose of having such a sizable board is because the chamber tries to represent taxing entities and businesses.

Chamber of Commerce President, Mary Siders, explained that the group tries to be well-rounded in every industry and in that effort, the board is also represented in education, the county, private business, oil field, agriculture and retail to name a few key industries.

All individuals who serve on the board of directors are all on three-year terms, and they are elected by the membership. Siders added that anybody who’s ever interested in serving on the chamber board, every July the nomination committee seeks possible candidates that are interested in serving on the chamber board.

Siders added that through the chamber newsletter more information is included as well as through the press. There are also requirements to serve on the board.

The individual must represent a business

CHAMBER OF COMMERCE

that is a member of the chamber, an organization or a business that is a member of the chamber. Additionally, the governing body and in that among that board of directors they have officers.

Currently, Tye Gregory is serving as the chair of the chamber with Rob Martin serving as chair elect. Sham Myatt also holds an executive board role as treasurer.

Siders explained that for any business that is interested, membership in the chamber is an affordable way business to have a stake

in Levelland’s business community. The involvement and investment are essential to the growth, revitalization and sustainability of a promising business climate and quality of life.

Throughout the year, in addition to several events the chamber puts together, a handful are dedicated to networking and expanding opportunities.

“The chamber of commerce is a service institution and a 501c6 nonprofit business organization,” said Siders. “It provides a medium through which people can take effective action for the progress of Levelland and should be vetted as your business partner. Funding for the chamber is through membership and event fundraising.”

Business exposure is one of the key ways the chamber can aid many businesses as many consumers use the chamber as an authority to find products and services. Siders added that they receive several phone calls from parents of new South Plains College students inquiring about businesses their student can utilize and have as a resource.

That is one example of gaining exposure.

“Membership means the Chamber staff is promoting your business at any given opportunity,” explained Siders. “We refer its members to the public daily and an online membership directory is available and promotes your organization. As a member, you also have access to the list of other business owners that you can market to as well.”

As legislation continues at the state level, members can expect a sense of advocacy as the chamber is in connection with the Texas Association of Business.

While the chamber puts their members interest in high regard, the group understands that the focus should be given to the Levelland community. With that sentiment, that goal is achieved through serving on a chamber of commerce committee.

“Getting involved with the Levelland community by serving on a chamber committee is an excellent way to aid the community,” said Siders. “Whether the committee meets once a week or month, serving on a committee offers your business the oppor-

tunity to grow by being involved with other local business owners, along with playing an active role in the community.”

The Marigolds, a group that was formed in 1976, acts as the women’s division of the chamber. This progressive group of ladies meets monthly and stays active in the community through projects. Those include decorating the county courthouse grounds at Christmas, meeting Santa Claus and holding Christmas on the Square. The ladies also serve as hostesses at chamber events and fundraising for their goals and projects. They meet the second Thursday of every month at noon with a great meal.

The Marigolds have also endowed a scholarship at South Plains College for a Levelland High School female senior who will attend SPC.

“Since the inception of the Marigolds, those ladies have done more than we could ever have asked for and they continue to show love to the community,” said Siders. “This amazing and very motivated group is a fun, exciting and committed group to enhancing the quality of life of Levelland.”

The Ambassadors group meets quarterly and is instrumental in assisting with ribbon cuttings and ground breakings. They assist in membership relations and serve as host, hostesses at numerous chamber events.

For the Keep Levelland Beautiful Committee, the group meets the third Monday of every month at noon. Levelland is an active member of the successful and proven beautification program Keep Texas Beautiful and structures local program as such. The mission of Keep Levelland Beautiful is to improve the community’s appearance through partnerships, education and action.

The community can expect two annual clean up events and additional events throughout the year that is geared to making the area as clean and beautiful as possible.

The chamber also offers a Tourism and Lodging Committee that assists in distribution procedures of occupancy tax supported events in Levelland. Levelland hosts over 40,000 plus guests annually. These guests bring in new dollars and economic activity to the community which means lower taxes for citizens and businesses. This group meets the third Wednesday of every other month at noon.

As agriculture is a staple industry in this area, the chamber has in place an Agricultural Committee. Their goal is to create awareness of the significant impact of the agricultural industry in the area. They host a pre-harvest producer appreciation Shrimp Boil before harvest every fall. They also plan, implement, and host a local agricultural awareness tour every other year that enables attendees to tour local

facilities and experience hands on science and technology. The Ag Committee has endowed a scholarship at South Plains College for future agriculture professionals. The group meets monthly or as needed on determined dates.

Every year the chamber puts together an annual festival and has been deemed the Cotton and Crude Street Fair and Music Festival. In the fall of 2021, the chamber leaders revamped, ignited, and moved the dates of the former summer event to a September weekend. This event is planned by volunteers and task force meet as needed.

As part of the chamber, one of the biggest aspects the group focuses on is leadership growth. Establishing that quality or growing it, the chamber has several groups that includes developed leaders.

“The chamber of commerce is committed to the development of creating new leaders to fill leadership roles on community boards and committees,” said Siders. “This is done through the YELL Program, LEAP and a biannual program called Leadership Levelland. Every business and or organization must be doing their part to develop new leaders. Our future depends on it.”

The Young Emerging Leaders of Levelland or YELL, is a group of Levelland High School students consisting of sophomores through seniors that meet during their school lunch hour once a month. The program runs September through April coinciding with the school year.

“The purpose is to engage students and challenge them to take charge of their lives while giving back to their community,” explained Siders. “They elect their own officers and plan their programs and community service.”

Meeting presentations include scholarships, student loans, financial aid, banking, credit card use, fraud, organizational skills, job interviews, resumes and professional development. Community service projects include food drive, toy drive, donation of special needs for local animal shelter, faculty appreciation, campus clean up and community wide highway litter prevention with Keep Levelland Beautiful.

For Levelland Emerging and Active Professionals or LEAP, formerly known as Young Profession-

als, the group was formed in 2011, They are an outreach group of the chamber and purpose is to develop the next generation of community and business leaders.

“This a great place for baby-boomer leaders to engage your new and upcoming leaders,” said Siders. “They also elect their officers and Executive Board that determines plan of work, programs, networking, professional development, and programs.”

An exciting program that Siders touched on was Leadership Levelland. Leadership Levelland is an eight-month course, tuition based held every other year. Attendees will participate in a mandatory team building retreat initially followed by eight-hour class day each month.

Class days are made up of professional development including time management, life balance, goal setting, personality studies, human interaction, and

leadership skills development. The afternoon portion includes meeting community leaders and industry tours showcasing local educational facilities, economic development, law enforcement, local judicial process, medical industry, oil field and energy manufacturing and agriculture. Class is concluded with graduation celebration for attendee and employees.

For business and organizations, a large number of resources are offered by the chamber through different means, but the main focus and overall goal is to continue to grow and in turn, grow the community. Siders encourages any business or organization to reach out to the chamber as they are more than willing to get to work to create more opportunities.

FIND YOUR NEW CAREER

SOUTH PLAINS COLLEGE

Entering the new calendar year, South Plains College has continued to trend in a positive direction.

With the recent opening of the Downtown Lubbock Center for the Fall semester, President of South Plains College Dr. Robin Satterwhite has continued to share his excitement regarding the finish product that is the Downtown Center.

For the main campus in Levelland there have been a myriad of renovations and additions thanks to the SPC Board of Regents.

One of the earlier projects the board chose to tackle was the renovations of the firing range to address unsafe lead levels. Satterwhite explained that with a firing range, lead abatement becomes a necessary task.

During the last lead abatement, which was completed after the recent backdrop renovations, the range was used for a short period of time be fore the lead levels were retested. The results show the lead levels were too high for safe occupation.

The final concern is the noise pollution from firearms is not contained within the facility which presents problems for surrounding activities.

The renovations will include the removal of the existing airduct system from both sides of the active range area and will be completed by a cer tified lead abatement specialist and treated as lead disposal. The cost of this process has yet to be set.

The contract renovation of the HVAC sys tem will include the replacing of air vents on the front units to allow more airflow.

New air ducts from the firing line to the rear ex haust system will be installed. The new design will eliminate the intermediate intake system to provide for continuous flow of air from intake to expulsion.

New ductwork to re-direct flow to reduce contamination will be put in place along with the HEPA filtration system. Additional filters and sound dampening panels will be implemented.

During the last part of 2022 and the beginning of 2023, the welding expansion on the main campus has been one of the key updates President Satterwhite has given to the board.

Back in 2022, construction on the new weld-

ing building and expansion had begun. At the time, the board shared pictures of renovations to the existing building in this meeting as well. The extensive renovations to the existing building included bathrooms, an entry way, and the addition of new bay doors are all complete. Construction on the new building has progressed, though no time frame was given on the time of completion at this time.

As of early February, minor details like venting hoods and additional odds and ends needed to be addressed, but students have already been making use of the new area.

One of the biggest events for the college that took place this spring was the 25th annual Scholar-

Home of the Texans & Lady Texans

ship Gala which was held at the Mallet Event Center.

In regard to fundraising, this year’s event broke their previous record set in 2022. The gala raised $309,505 for this year.

The live auction brought in $112,000, the si lent auction brought in $23,400, the raffle brought in $3,425, the special appeal brought in $4,780 and the Whiskey pull, squares game brought in $5,000.

The Judy Bryant Boulevard street sign was un veiled at the main campus in Levelland in early April.

The SPC Street Sign Naming has been one of the items featured in the live auction during the annual scholarship gala. The item was donated by the SPC Board of Regents, and it grants the win ner naming rights to the sign until next year’s gala.

This year’s winner was Scott Bryant who an nounced at the event and he wished to name the street after his mother. Friends, family and mem bers of the community were invited to attend the unveiling which was also a tribute to Mrs. Bryant who was a SPC faculty member for 43 years.

During her time with SPC, Bryant became a chairperson of the physical education department in 1994, which is now the kinesiology department. She was made a full professor by 1995. She was awarded the status of “master teacher” when she received the 1995 Faculty Excellence Award from her peers.

For the athletic side of things, men’s indoor track program was crowned the 2023 NJCAA Division I Men’s Indoor Track and Field Champions on March 4, in Topeka. The Texans scored 107 team points with 16 individual national championships to win the indoor team championship for the third consecutive season.

The Lady Texans Track and Field Team scored 83.5 points with six individual national champions to finish the 2023 NJCAA Division I Women’s Championship in third place.

Combined, the Texans and Lady Texans finished the indoor season with 44 All-American Performances, and Kudakwa Chaden-

ga was named the Men’s National Field Athlete of the Year with a national championship in the high jump.

In regard to the coaching staff, Coach Wesley Miller was named Men’s National Assistant Coach of the year by the U.S. Track and Field and Cross-Country Coaches Association.

Looking toward the future for SPC, the board approved a partnership that would see an ALERRT Training Program be placed at the Reese Center Campus.

ALERRT or Advanced Law Enforcement Rapid Response Training, is a program that was created and practiced at Texas State University in San Marcos.

The alert center at Texas State University was created in 2002, and is a partnership between Texas State University, San Marcus Texas Police Department and Hays County Sheriff’s Office to address the need for active shooter response training for first responders.

In 2013, ALERRT Texas State was named the national standard in active shooter response training by the FBI. Since 2002, they have received $126 million in state and federal grant aid. The program has trained 248,000 law enforcement, fire, EMS, and emergency management officials nationwide.

SPC is poised to become the first community college as well as the first recognized regional training facility in the state of Texas for alert training.

This partnership will allow SPC to play an integral role in the ongoing and soon to be legislatively required training of the 86,000 peace officers throughout the state of Texas in active shooter response training.

The college will set the courses up and will host the courses and be able to receive funding. In addition to that planning, the college anticipates several hundred police officers being trained every year with the possibility of that number go up more than expected.

SPC continues to stay busy as the move forward with growing their reach and representing the community of Levelland in a big way.

LEVELLAND COUNTRY CLUB

Levelland County Club was formed in 1946 and opened in 1948 as a private club with a nine-hole golf course, swimming pool, restaurant and bar.

Jim Marra county club bar and restaurant manager explained the dining room is open to the public for lunch Tuesday through Sunday 11:30 a.m. to 1:30 p.m. and dine-in or carry out on Thursday starting May 4 for dinner.

“I think it’s always kind of been out there that it’s members only for the dining room,” Marra said. “I want to be very clear that it’s open to the public to come have lunch and Thursday night, they’re very welcome to come. It is membership only in the bar and membership only at the swimming pool when we open in the summer.”

The restaurant serves fish every Monday and Mexican food every Wednesday. The other days of the week the restaurant has up to four entrée options.

“We do fish Friday, we do Mexican Wednesday,” Marra said. “Those are the two that stay the same all the time. The other days there could be as many as four entrées on there with all the fixings. We have a salad bar, dessert and the buffet is $14.95.”

The Ladies Golf Association recently revamped the country club lobby by pur-

chasing new furniture and redecorating.

“We’re trying to do upgrades, some painting and that kind of stuff,” Marra said, “and we’re really sticklers about making sure it’s clean. Cleanliness is a big deal to us.”

Chad Davis, country club golf-pro explained the pro-shop and golf course is open 9:00 a.m. to 5:00 p.m. The golf course has nine holes and is 3,240 yards. Members can bring out of county guests to pay to play.

Davis also explained that the dining room is also available to rent for both club members and members of the public.

“We would love for people to come out to our restaurant, that’s open to the public,” Davis said. “We are open for people to rent the club, have parties or gatherings. The swimming pool is open and can be rented for parties.”

The dining room is also available to rent for both club members and members of the public.

The club is currently selling stock memberships with a one-time fee of $500 and approximately $180 in monthly dues.

Your SanitaTion Department Works For You

WHAT WE DO

To insure a high quality of life for Levelland citizens and visitors through effective and efficient municipal services and economic growth.

HOW WE DO IT

Sanitation Department provides a way for the citizens to dispose of their trash in a way that meets State requirements and health standards. We strive to provide the best possible waste management service to our customers through weekly household waste collection. This service is outsourced to Republic Disposal. For any concerns relating to our trash service, please call 806-894-0113.

Levelland offers recycling programs for many items and the majority of the recycling programs are free to the citizens of Levelland. Examples of the free programs include free wood mulch; drop off locations to dispose of used oil (limitations apply); drop off location for cardboard and paper. The used oil drop off locations are at the Recycling Center at 902 A&M Lane and 302 Ave. G.

RECYCLING OPTIONS

The City of Levelland has many reduction/recycling programs and a recycling center drop-off.

• Brush, Tree Limbs & Christmas Trees (Seasonal-Chipped into mulch. Free to the public)

• Cardboard & Paper

• Metals & White Goods

• Tires (Disposal Fee May Apply)

SECURE YOUR LOAD

When hauling debris to the Recycling Center or Landfill station your load must be secured. State law requires that “...vehicles hauling waste to the facility are enclosed or provided with a tarpaulin, net, or other means to secure the load in order to prevent the escape of any part of the load blowing or spilling.” Failure to properly secure the load can result in a surcharge being applied or the load being denied access to the facility.

LEVELLAND RECYCLING - 902 A&M LANE

OPEN - Mon, Wed, Thur, and Fri 8AM-5PM

We Accept: Bagged Household Waste, Construction Debris, Metals, Concrete (Restrictions Apply), Appliances (Restrictions Apply), Tree Limbs. Recycling trailer available Tuesdays at the Recycling Center and at City Hall on the weekends.

We Do Not Accept: Chemicals or Chemical Containers of any kind, Plastics, Radioactive or Hazardous Materials of Any Kind.

LEVELLAND LANDFILL - 3590 BOBWHITE

OPEN - Monday-Friday 8AM-5PM & Saturday 8AM-Noon

We Accept: Aluminum Cans, Automotive Batteries, Metals, Cardboard Boxes, Paper, Magazines & Newspapers

We Do Not Accept: Paper Plates, Plastics, Napkins, Paper Towels, Glass Products, Oil Containers, Paint Cans, Plastic Bags, Liquids/Aerosols, Hose/Pipe, Adhesives, Hazardous Waste.

MCDONALD’S OF LEVELLAND OPEN 24/7

On your way around town today, look for McDonald’s. We’re always close by. Just remember, good food and good fun are right on your way every day.

CITY OF LEVELLAND

After spending the first nine months assessing the state of the city, Levelland City Manager Brandon Anderson feels that the city finally has a firm direction they can pursue.

“What I have found in municipal business and in the city management business is you need to come in and first evaluate where you’re at and what you’ve got to deal with,” said Anderson. “The first six months has been a lot of that.”

Constantly working internally with staff, Anderson has visited with a lot of department heads and hopes there has become a stronger sense of stability during his time.

“Obviously, there was a transitional period and anytime any entity goes through a transition like we have from having a long absence in city management they’ve gone through a lot,” said Anderson. “I think just stabilizing that environment has been good for all of our departments and we’re learning how to work with those department heads,

wastewater, transportation, facilities and storm water.

The study was conducted by Freese and Nichols which spanned a period of several months. After gathering enough data and talking with city staff for possible ideas and solutions, the company presented their information

Addressing areas of concern with city staff after gathering data, the group moved forward with putting together capital improvement projects and proposed programs to address maintenance for each category.

As they move forward, it was suggested the city attempt to bite off at least one to two percent of the total projects each year.

Helping Anderson switch gears and become more proactive is Assistant City Manager Joe Cavazos.

Cavazos has been working for the City of Levelland for a long time and has spent his career working up the ladder to earn his position.

“He’s truly a success story when you think about a young man from this town grew up here went to

After talking with Cavazos, Anderson is moving forward the rearrangement of some departments and for the most part moving forward he will stay as the assistant city manager and director of public works.

“With the amount of time Joe has worked for the city, I know those areas will be capably guided,” said Anderson. he knows all about our water and sewer sys tems and I think that fits right up his alley.”

He will be focusing on working with the

other department heads and other committees that he’s not been able to cover effectively.

Anderson says having Cavazos by his side has been a great value and the transition for him coming in as a city manager has been made a lot easier.

Anderson and the city have had to move quickly in a short period of time with a such a large project in the wastewater treatment plant but feels confident in the way it was handled in such a short period of time.

“I think anytime a city can go through the process that we did in terms of realizing a need, which I know the city is known they had a need at the wastewater treatment plant for a very long time,” said Anderson. “To put your heads together to work with staff, the engineering firm and then hustle through and really have council be able to wrap their head around everything that we’re doing and do it in the quick time frame was impressive.”

For Anderson, another duty he has been handling is sitting in and offering his thoughts in vari ous board and committee meetings.

“We have a lot of good boards, some more active than others,” said Anderson.

After sitting down with the oth er boards, Anderson says he has been very impressed with the vol unteer ship from the community.

Moving forward with his over all evaluation, one area that he would like to focus on is the general fund.

When talking about the gener al fund, Anderson is referring to the

fund that handles, police, fire, streets, parks and ems. He also added that a lot of the quality-of-life areas are covered by the general fund as well.

“We’re pretty tight as far as the budget goes,” said Anderson. “We’re really tight I’ve talked to council about the period of time spanning the last six years.”

The city has managed to stay at the no-new revenue rate and there was a period of time where the adopted tax rate was even lower

“Everyone knows what inflation’s done over the last year and a half that has affected the city as well,” said Anderson. “Everything we’re doing cost more, everything we’re purchasing cost more, but we’re still dealing with the same pool of dollars that we dealt with from six years ago basically in the general fund,” explained Anderson. “That’s created a little bit of a challenge as we look forward for the city and that’s what I’m tasked with to figure out how we can get the best bang for our buck out of out of what we’ve got.

Spending time in Levelland has opened the eyes of Anderson, and he feels that the city has a unique position to continue to grow.

Having assets such as South Plains College, the agricultural industry and oilfield industry, businesses continuing to find their way into Levelland, Anderson believes the city will be able to grow and maintain a good independent level of economy.

“It’s important to encourage our citizens to support one another in business and in various avenues to help drive the local economy and state of the city in a positive direction,” said Anderson.

THUNDER ON THE PLAINS

Thunder on the Plains will host the 17th annual Levelland car show August 19 and 20 at Levelland City Park.

“We have it down at the city park and it’s a wonderful place to have it,” Thunder on the Plains member R.H. Reeves said. “We park on the grass, underneath the trees. Everybody likes to come because a car show in August on asphalt is not any fun, it’s hot.”

The event is held over two days; the first day consists of a poker run and cruise. Those participating in the poker run will drive to five different locations, pull a poker chip and log the number. The participants with the highest total win.

“The poker run is a 50-50 split, so however many people we have involved in the poker run we keep half the money and pay out the rest in prize money,” Reeves said.

After the poker run, an open cruise begins. While it is free to participate, those wanting to be judged will have to pay a small fee. The cruise takes place over a few hours and is held at the downtown square and Avenue H.

“Then we have an open cruise, no charge unless you want to be judged,” Reeves said. “We go around the courthouse square and up and down avenue H and a lot of people

tion. “We sit at bleachers, we have the fire department there. Get an announcer just for during the burnout contest. And a lot of people come walk through the car show do the burnout contest, come back and walk through the car show again and go home and get them something to eat a lot of times.”

All events are free for spectators, and the organization encourages the community to see the show cars for themselves.

“It’s good free entertainment,” Reeves said. “We tried to maintain that through the whole deal. It’s for the public, anybody can come to the car show and enjoy themselves.

There are also food vendors at the car show. Participants and spectators can purchase food from them while looking at the cars.

“We do have vendors, all different kinds of food vendors and stuff like that,” Reeves said. “So, you can come and not spend any money and walk through and look at the cars or you can come and buy you a hotdog or a hamburger or a slushie.”

This family friendly event offers a hot wheel’s track for children to race cars on.

“We also have Hot Wheels track for the Kids,” Reeves said. “They can either bring their own hot wheel car, and it has to be a legitimate hot wheel car to fit the track, or they can purchase a hot wheel car. We charge just a little entrance fee and then they win some trophies and stuff like that to for the kids.”

There are 19 classes being judged at the show by the participants. The people’s choice award is voted on by spectators.

“We do have a class called People’s Choice and that is judged by people that come to the car show,” Reeves said. “They get a People’s Choice form, and they get

to vote on the car they like best of show.”

Best paint, best engine, best by make and best of the rest are voted on by Thunder on the Plains committee members.

“We also have best paint, best engine and you know, best Chevrolet, best Mopar, best Ford, and- best of the other- best of the rest is what we call it, which would be like vehicles that will be a Pontiac,” Reeves said.

Proceeds raised from the entrance fee and poker run are donated locally, including a Thunder on the Plains South Plains College scholarship endowment.

“Our scholarship is ear tagged for automotive, diesel mechanics, autobody,” Reeves said. “We want it to stay in that genre. We have an endowed scholarship at South Plains that we add to every year and hopefully we get big enough that we can help several students in the future.”

Thunder on the Plains also donates to Covenant Hospital Levelland foundation. These donations are used for the physical building and stay local.

“The Covenant hospital deal is the Covenant foundation. The foundation is actually the physical building owned by the county,” Reeves said. “That money goes in for remodeling of the nursery or new equipment that they made need or something like that. That money does not leave it stays in our physical building here.”

The organization donates to other local organizations such as meals on wheels, The Rotary club and Toys for Tots.

“We’ve donated money to meals on wheels, Children’s Hope,” Reeves said. “The rotary club has a bicycle give away for per-

fect attendance, and we’ve donated money to that.”

The Thunder on the Plains organization is able to support free admission to the car show by local sponsorships.

“Once again, it’s free doesn’t cost anything, we don’t charge any admission or anything like that.” Reeves said. “So, you know what

FOSTERING YOUTH RANCH

Micah and Brooke Foster purchased the old Children’s Hope Residential Services campus in Levelland and opened Fostering Life Youth Ranch two and a half years ago.

Micah and Brooke had two kids before entering the foster and adoption process. They now have seven children, five of which are adopted. They also worked at their church teaching Bible study classes and mentoring the youth.

While looking into the process, the Fosters were warned not to choose ‘the bad kids.’ Micah expressed he believed himself to have been a bad kid and understood that they need families and love too.

“Well, we started looking through the kids on the internet and my wife found three kids, a sibling group, and she’s said, ‘These are our kids, I can feel it, these are our kids,” Micah said.

The couple went on to adopt another sibling group of two and expanded their family from five to seven children.

Fostering Life Youth Ranch (FLYR)

can house 15 girls ages 6-17 and treat them holistically through tools like camping, hiking, art, dance, horticulture therapy and equine gestalt coaching.

Equine gestalt coaching is a form of life coaching used to increase a person’s awareness, freedom and self-direction. Raylan Foster, owner of Renewed Spirit, works with FLYR to bring this experimental coaching to the children and teens.

“It’s an experiential treatment model. They go in and they work the horse and they work through the traumas with the horse,” Brooke said. “It’s very active. It’s usually outdoors with the horse and she’s asking questions or leading them into whatever trauma that they’ve expressed has happened to them and trying to get to the root of it is. The biggest thing is it’s interactive, it’s outside, and the kids are working with the horse, but they don’t ride the horse.”

Raylan also assists FLYR with the horticulture therapy program. This program allows the children and teens the

opportunity to care for something and give them a form of responsibility.

“She incorporates what she went to school for,” Brooke said about Ray-

tive because kids can become very focused on themselves. So, if you give them something to focus on and to grow and to nurture, it seems to give them a sense of respon-

they’re able to use those and help prepare meals with kitchen staff,” Brooke said. “It gives them life skills that they can take with them when they leave our program or become an adult. They’ll know how to how to plant something and grow it and use it in food.”

FLYR also takes the children and teens hiking and camping to give them the opportunity to establish a relationship with nature in a way that encourages healing and growth.

Micah and Brooke are preparing to open a boy’s campus for the Fostering Life Youth Ranch Residential Treatment Center. This campus will be able to house 15 male children and teens.

Micah explained they have renovated the campus by painting the outside, installing a new roof and completely remodeled the inside. The Fostering Life Youth Ranch Residential Treatment Center was previously under Children’s Hope Residential Service Inc. Micah and Brooke explained the only similarity the two facilities have in common is the physical buildings, which have both undergone remodeling.

“We have that stigma and we’ve had that stigma and that’s why a lot of people in the community are not donating is because they think we’re Children’s Hope and we are not,” Micah said. “Our whole program is completely different than what Children’s Hope was. We’re more of a family environment.”

Micah explained that himself and Brooke are directly involved with all aspects of Fostering Life Youth Ranch.

“We all take on all departments and whatever happens at the facility,” Micah said. “Whether it’s people working on the floor directly with the kids to management. There is no difference between them and us, it’s like one big family.”

FLYR accepts donations in the form of clothing, hiking and camping supplies, hygiene products, bedding and food among other things.

“Hiking is really is one of the big things, clothing, underwear, bras are very seldom brought with them,” Brooke and Micah explained. “We do have quite a bit of donations with clothing, so I would say that’s a really huge need. Hygiene is something that we go through a lot of with 13 teens and children. That’s usually our biggest need, hygiene products. Food, of course, is really expensive now so, donations of food are always appreciated.”

EMERGENCY MANAGEMENT

Cole Kirkland, Hockley County emergency management coordinator, is responsible for ensuring that agencies are equipped to respond to the threats and needs of the community.

“My role specifically is to make sure that the agencies or resources we have are equipped to respond for the threats and the needs of our community,” Kirkland said, “and then to make resources available to the Community the other way, so that maybe the community will become a little more self-reliant and resilient and a little more prepared within their own lives.”

The county judge appointed Kirkland as emergency management coordinator for the county and the mayors have appointed him for the individual cities of Hockley County.

“Fortunately, I have a good rapport and work well with everybody,” Kirkland said. “I serve the mayors and the county judge and I’m their appointed person to make sure that I take care of the communities needs and I’ve been appointed to take care of the preparedness and response and mitigation piece of it.”

Kirkland finds resources for the community to aide in preventing emergencies such as house fires. One need Kirkland identified within the community was a lack of smoke detectors in homes.

“We’re bringing the Red Cross probably in August and we’re putting in free smoke detectors in everybody’s home, that wants one,” Kirkland said. “Each home gets three of them, and so it’s finding resources like that that are available and making sure that we can give our people the best that we can and make sure that they’re prepared for their worst day and hope for that best day. So, it’s a very similar role preparing the public as it is preparing responders for the threats and hazards that we face each and every day on the South Plains.”

Kirkland explained one of his duties concerning public safety is to coordinate agencies in the event of an expanding incident. He described an expanding incident as a scenario that requires more agencies the longer it continues.

“My piece of the puzzle for that is to manage the resources inbound and to make sure we know who’s there. Ultimately, it’s all about accountability, whether that be personnel, resource, physical, all of those fall under Emergency Management,” Kirkland said.

Kirkland, as well as the telecommunicator operator, can send messages through the emergency alert system. This system is used to alert users of emergency situations such as weather hazards or dynamic police incidents.

The emergency text messages, emails and phone calls are sent by a select group of individuals within the city. Those wanting to utilize the emergency notification system can enroll at RUAware.us.

Even though Kirkland is the only person working as the emergency management coordinator for the county, he works with fire, police and sheriff’s departments among other state and federal agencies.

“As far as response goes, the command post can be deployed and that’s from any disciplines so, fire, police and medical,” Kirkland said. “They can pull any of the resources that I have for any purpose including public health.”

Kirkland is grateful for the support from the county, city agen-

cies and members of the community.

“I am a one man show, so I get a tremendous amount of support from local agencies and our volunteer groups,” Kirkland said. “We’re in a quality position to tap these resources that Levelland and Hockley County alike have. Everybody wants to help, and nobody minds pitching in. Nurturing those relationships and building those rapport with different departments and divisions and community groups and community members is what makes it all work.”

HOCKLEY COUNTY

Hockley County has kicked of 2023 in a positive direction as they have made important decisions that will benefit the community and the county as a whole.

One of the bigger decisions the county has made is the Hockley County Commissioners Court making the decision to move forward with joining the High Plains Regional Public Defender Office. Currently in its infancy, the county has several more decisions and discussions they would like to have before joining the group.

The Texas Indigent Defense Commission (TIDS) has continued to offer the county information regarding the future possibilities and benefits of joining the group.

It was explained that the purpose of the study and the TIDC is to fund, oversee and improve public defense in Texas. The TIDC’s Improvement Team provides counties with plan-

defender offices can improve indigent defense quality, constitutional compliance, accountability and budget predictability. They can also improve efficiency and reduces costs for other parts of criminal justice system, including jail and court operations.

The planning study given to the court included 13 counties in a potential regional public defender office. The counties included, Bailey, Briscoe, Castro, Cochran, Dickens, Floyd, Hale, Hockley, Motely, Parmer, Swisher, Terry and Yoakum.

Additional background as to when the planning study began work dates back to January 2021. The TDIC developed a planning study for a regional public defender office encompassing Cochran, Hockley, Terry and Yoakum Counties. The study was developed at the request of Hockley County District Judge Pat Phelan, who expressed an interest in increasing

cerns about the office raising costs to the counties.

In March 2022, the TDIC developed another planning study that included 11 counties such as: Bailey, Castro, Cochran, Crosby, Hale, Hockley, Lamb, Parmer, Swisher, Terry and Yoakum. That was followed with three planning study revisions with different county combinations within the region.

In the current planning study, all 13 counties in the planning study have populations less than 100,000, making them eligible for TDIC sustainability funding, 80 percent in year one and 66 percent in year two and beyond.

The scope of the planning study has the office representing 80 percent of indigent misdemeanor, noncapital felony, juvenile and appellate cases.

A spring addition to the courthouse has been the installation of mosaic handrails around the building to accommodate individuals who are in need of assistance.

Hockley County Judge Sharla Baldridge and Main Street Manager Tania Moody worked alongside one another after Baldrige showed interest in the handrails. Moody and the Main Street board have been spearheading the handrail initiative and the final product caught the eye of the judge.

Partnering together, the courthouse was able to cover the cost of eight handrails with two on each side of the building for a total of 16 mosaics.

“After seeing the beautiful mosaic handrails being installed downtown, I knew the courthouse

navigate the steps easier,” explained Baldridge. “I also thought these would be a beautiful addition and I wanted to bring in something to represent each community within Hockley County.”

Design wise, Baldridge contacted all the surrounding school districts and South Plains College to obtain permission to use their logos.

Pleased with the overall response from the schools, Baldridge took the images to the commissioners for their approval and to see what they would also like to include.

“I believe what we accomplished is bringing together a feeling of what living in Hockley County represents,” explained Baldridge. “it was a great collaboration with Main Street and Tania. Her board and volunteers do an amazing job representing our downtown are and have been a great partner on different projects.”

Installation of the handrails have been completed with several additional handrails placed in various areas of downtown. Community members can expect to see all the new mosaics in place for all the handrails by the end of the month.

Kicking off the 2023 year with swearing in all county personnel, the goal for the year is to continue to make Hockley County one of the best counties in the state.

Celebrating Juneteenth

The 33rd Juneteenth celebration will be held June 16and 17 at North Side city park located in Levelland.

Juneteenth celebration committee president Glenda Jones explained that L.G. Griffin brought the idea of a Juneteenth celebration to her in 1990. He noticed the celebrations hosted by other communities and wanted Levelland to host its own.

“He came to us and said all the other cit

lowing COVID-19 continuing the annual event.

“It is important because now the people in the community look forward to it,” Jones said. “We have people that come in from out of town, Dallas and Houston and different areas. They come here and they look forward to coming here.”

The committee begins planning towards the end of April. Jones said after 33 years everyone has a specific role or job and knows how to complete it.

day and continues through Saturday. Bingo, dominoes and races are a few activities attendees are able to participate in.

“We start on that Friday, and we do games,” Jones said. “We have bingo and we have dominoes. We have something for everyone. The kids have a play day. We give prizes and they run races and do different games, and we have different kinds of food, great food.”

The basketball tournament is held Friday and Saturday in the Carver gym.

“We do a tournament that starts on that Friday evening, and it closes out Saturday,” Jones said, “and we give prizes for the winning team.”

Before the picnic on Saturday, there is a program which introduces the student awarded the L.G. Griffin scholarship.

“We have a barbecue meal and it’s just really wonderful,” Jones said. “We have a small program before we do the meal, and we also recognize the student who was given the L. G. Griffin scholarship during that time.”

Door prizes are given out during the picnic as well as one large prize at the end. The committee added a car show which Jones described as a success.

“On that Saturday, it’s the big picnic and a lot of people love that because we give away door prizes and a big door prize at the end,” Jones said. “We’ve had three years of doing a car show, and that’s something that we added. Last year, it was a very big success because we had different groups that do car shows. They came and joined us and that was just great. The people really enjoyed the car show.”

The City of Levelland plans to complete the pavilion and sign construction before the event. Jones explained the city aides the committee in helping set up for the celebration. She also expressed the willingness of the school to allow the committee to use the gym for the basketball tournament.

“The city always does such a wonderful job getting the park ready,” Jones said. “It just looks beautiful. They do a great job moving down the tables and that kind of thing. And the school is always so open to letting us use the gyms, especially if it were to rain.”

Jones said the community can get in-

volved by putting out flyers and spreading news of the event by word of mouth. Donations are also welcome and monetary donations can be given at Prosperity Bank under the Levelland Juneteenth Committee.

“One way the community could get involved is by putting out flyers and donations,” Jones said. “We have had lots of donations from businesses and people in the community. All of this is done strictly through donations and everyone on the committee gives. The community gives, and that’s how we do this every year. We have an account at Prosperity Bank, so if anyone wants to donate it’s under Levelland Juneteenth Committee.”

Jones expressed everyone is welcome at the Juneteenth celebration.

“We welcome anyone because it just seems like there is such a division sometimes in the community,” Jones said. “We welcome any and everyone to this event. It’s not just for a certain group of people. I know it’s called the Levelland Juneteenth Celebration, but it’s an

HOCKLEY COUNTY FOOD BOX

The Hockley County Food Box has been around for a long time in different locations and under different management, but it has always served the same function of helping those in need.

The food box is currently under the direction of South Plains Community Action (SPCAA) where the nucleus of the organization started shortly after SPCAA began in 1965, according to director Bill Powell.

The food box manager is Henry Tarango.

Jean Dunlap, a volunteer at the food box, has been involved in helping people for many years and knew several of the people who were instrumental in not only getting the food box started, but keeping it running.

“The Food Box became a 501(c)3 in 1988,” said Dunlap.

Dr. Arlene Brooks was instrumental in the genesis of the food box, first as the principal for St. Michael’s Catholic School in the 1970s.

She later moved to Carver Elementary, where Head Start was located, and began to work toward getting food for the children in that program.

She worked toward getting agency status for the food box from the South Plains Food Bank, which included the non-profit corporation status.

The food box remained at Carver for many years, but was moved to the Episcopal Church on the Sundown Highway.

Both Powell and Dunlap had high praise for Dr. Brooks.

“She cared about people,” said Powell.

The food box has always been operated by volunteers, and that continues today.

“We still need volunteers,” said Powell.

In the beginning, Dunlap said the volun teers were not allowed to be on the oversight board, but that changed after a few years.

Dunlap was not sure who the first manager of the food box was, but Car men Timmons was an early manager.

Sparky Durham managed the food box for a while, then Vonnie DeAr mand took over until her health be came too frail to continue in 2016.

That’s when Dunlap became manag er. She had been a volunteer at the food box since retiring as church secretary for the Austin Street Church of Christ in 2013.

In the past, the food box required a voucher from an area church or the coun ty. That is no longer the case. The food box takes care of the paperwork in-house.

The food box is open from 1-3 p.m. Monday through Thursday in the alley between the community action building.

LEVELLAND ISD

Levelland Independent School District

(ISD) is wrapping up the 2022-2023 school year with spring sports, prom, banquets, STAAR pep-rallies, career days, field days, graduations and many other events and activities.

Superintendent Rebecca McCutchen expressed that Levelland ISD had great success throughout the school year.

“It seems like we just started the school year a few days ago, and now we’re actually in the last couple of months of the school year so it has definitely gone quickly,” McCutchen said. “We’ve had a lot of great success.”

McCutchen commended the district on the success within the different teams and departments. All fall sports teams advanced to the playoffs and Imagination Destination advanced to the state level

among achievements from other groups.

“We’ve had one x play, we’ve had academic UIL, we’ve had our cheer competition, we’ve had culinary arts competitions, agriculture and FFA competitions, our barbecue team and band have been very successful,” McCutchen said. “Our choir both high school and middle school have been very successful. For our Destination Imagination, we had two teams actually qualfy for the state meet just barely missed the national competition.”

The school board worked on a strategic planning and improvement process in June. This involved gathering input from a group of community members to decide what the core beliefs are at Levelland ISD.

“In that process, we were able to develop beliefs, we developed a new mission state-

ment, we developed our motto of ‘expect excellence’ and we developed goals with various indicators within those goals. So, if we are working on something in the district, it needs to be tied to one of those goals or it’s not really within our strategic plan. I think that has allowed us to really align our arrows to, in order to move forward in our improvement process.”

The board made the decision to stop outsourcing the grounds and maintenance department and bring them back as in-house departments.

“Our grounds and maintenance departments had been outsourced previously,” McCutchen said, “and in June, the board voted to bring those back to an in-house process and, and what that did was brought all of our departments together in and adding them in in a unified way to where the pride in being a Levelland Lobo was instilled in all of those employees because they are part of Levelland ISD. It’s definitely something that was just as powerful and in creating unity and improvement for the district.”

Levelland ISD participated in fundraising events for The Children’s Miracle Network, The Humane Society, The Salvation Army and The Berkhart Center.

“We’ve had a lot of neat fundraising for charity. We donated to the Children’s Miracle Network, we donated to the Levelland Humane Society for the PAWS program where they helped the animal shelter,” McCutchen said. “We participated with the

Salvation Army as bell ringers out in the community. We also had a fundraiser for the Berkhart Center, they work with autism in Lubbock and that was really powerful.”

The South Plains Food Bank partnered with Levelland ISD to provide food to student’s families in need.

“One of the things that we felt was really neat was that the district partnered with the South Plain Food Bank had they provided a huge food truck that came out and allowed our families and parents that might need a little bit of help,” McCutchen said. “They were able to gather up nutritious food for your family.”

Texas AgriLife Extension Service and TexDot hosted a car seat safety and installation project where parents were able to receive car seats and learn about the correct way to install the car seats.

“We also partnered with the Texas AgriLife Extension Service and TexDot, and we had a car seat safety and installation project where the parents were given free car seats and talked about the safety and the correct way to install those,” McCutchen said.

McCutchen explained the ABC campus has a new program called the Watch Dogs. This allows one dad, granddad or male guardian the opportunity to be on campus for the day to provide extra security and eyes on the campus.

“Watch Dogs, which is the dads of great students. Every day at that campus, we have at least one, if not more than one, it

doesn’t have to just be a dad, it can be a granddad, it can be a guardian, but we have a male from a family come up and spend the day at the campus kind of helping patrol for security, but also they rotate through the classes and they go out to PE with the kiddos and they’re in music and they’re in art and they’re in the math classroom. And so the watchdogs at ABC has been powerful.”

McCutchen also explained the new Little Lobo program that pairs high school athletes with ABC students to instill pride in the little lobo students.

“It allowed the families of our pre-k kindergarten kiddos to adopt a, a high school athlete and in turn the athletes, the big Lobos ended up adopting the little lobos too,” MCutchen said, “and they would share gifts and they would be able to go out on the field with them after the game.”

Levelland Intermediate School will not be reopening next school year due to a decline in enrollment and repairs needed to the building.

“We are closing that facility and, um, shift-

ing some grade levels around, but one of the things that we want to let the community know is everything that we do is in the best interest of our children and we strive to provide the best educational setting and opportunities for our kiddos,” McCutchen said. “With enrollment declining and that facility aging and needing some dire repairs, we felt that that was the best move for the district. Fiscal responsibility is incredibly important to us and trying to be good stewards of our taxpayers money.”

HOCKLEY COUNTY SHERIFF’S OFFICE

The Hockley County Sheriff’s Department has dedicated their resources and time to handling the rising numbers of burglaries and thefts within the county this past year.

Hockley County Sheriff Ray Scifres explained that there was a need to adjust after evaluating crime trends and the result of that is solid law enforcement work.

“Last year was big as we were seeing rising numbers in burglaries and thefts,” said Scifres. “I think the year end numbers and our trends kind of bore that out.”

Property crime was a big deal with the department last year and Scifres added that the trend was happening across the state causing everyone to feel the effects.

Alternatively, assault offenses were down which necessitated Scifres and his department to look through and reevaluate what the staff needed to look like.

Having those discussions, the focus was what the future of patrol would look like in order to get a jump on the occurring trends.

“We asked ourselves if there was anything we could do before it became any worse and we made the decision to move another patrol officer into investigations,” explained Scifres. “Now we have another CID officer and starting in September of last year, my only instructions to them were to clear cases, recover property and make arrest.”

Within the first few weeks the investigators hit a nine-member theft ring that resulted in a large amount of recovered stolen property.

“Once they got that that one thread, they started working that investigation and it led to another, to another, to another and put together an organized crime case almost like a quasi-syndicate,” said Scifres.

After months of hard work on the streets and investigating thefts, Scifres feels like his department was setting a tone.

“This group has done a phenomenal job, so much so that we made it a permanent transition,” said Scifres. “Now we have

three investigators working and they’re all on rotations for call outs in the event we have an emergency or a particular type of scene where we can call our investigators out to work those crime scenes.”

Currently, staffing is tight with the number of resources available.

“It’s still really tight, but we were fortunate we were able to bring on a part-time bailiff to work at the courthouse, Deputy Aryn Corley,” said Scifres.

A retired game warden captain, Corley has a lot years with the game wardens and we were very fortunate that he was interested and available.”

In the detention center, the department is still down a couple of folks. Scifres added that the jail staff is continuing to work hard and are still hiring for a couple of positions.

With a long time member of the department preparing for retirement, Scifres explained there are some possibilities for promotion in the future.

For the current state of the department, it is all hands on deck. That also

means as the sheriff, Scifres puts his hat in the ring to work wherever it is needed.

“I think we have stressed every penny out of every dollar that we have from a payroll standpoint, and we were just at our cap,” said Scifres. “The current staffing model necessitates having people on the road working, responding to calls and being out doing proactive patrols as opposed to being in the office so that may change later but right now this is what we need.”

As current state legislation continuous to be the topic of discussion for many groups, it proves to be same situation for the sheriff’s department.

A possible senate bill has gained traction that would act as a funding package for the county side of law enforcement directed toward rural sheriff’s offices. Additionally, the scope of the bill is considered narrow as funds can only be used to address any kind of staffing issues, salaries and equipment. If the bill goes all the way through and it’s signed by the governor there will be a funding source that depending on the size of the county could push in an additional two to $300,000 a year.

“It would give us the ability to make our staffing models more robust and

bring them up to current,” said Scifres. “My first go to would be salary increases for our detention officers and then trying to find additional staff.”

Throughout the past year, strengthening relationships with law enforcement agencies has been consistent through working together to close cases or to be there for one another in difficult time.

Scifres highlighted the partnership with the Levelland Police Chief Albert Garcia and his department as they have worked closely for years.

“First off, Albert and I are great friends, and we have a good partnership,” said Scifres. “I think it goes to what the chief and I’ve been talking about for years, to have any level of success we have to have open communication between agencies. We have to have a good working partnership with agencies.”

Explaining that they both philosophically feel very similarly about how their respective agency should operate, Scifres knows both departments are setup to be successful.

“I’m proud to have the partners that we have with the state and in the city,” said Scifres. “I think if you look at everything last year from a law enforcement standpoint, I think we had a heck of a good year.”

LEVELLAND POLICE DEPARTMENT

The Levelland Police Department (LPD) is continuing their efforts to make the community the best version of itself.

Persevering through difficult times since the shooting of July 2021, and the recent loss of two animal control officers in October, the LPD has relied upon one another to continue to serve their community to the best of their abilities.

Police Chief Albert Garcia explained that there have been minor changes and additions in staff, but the overall message and what is expected of each officer has not changed.

“We’ve added more people as time has gone one and in July of 2021 is when we had that tragic shooting that took the life of Sergeant Bartlett from Lubbock County and injured Sergeant Wilson,” explained Garcia. “Thankfully, Seargant Wilson returned to the department over time and was eventually elected as Munic ipal Court Judge for the City of Levelland.

Currently, the LPD has grown to 27 offi cers with two of those officers being school resource officers (SRO). Officers Cory Foley and Joshua Rincones have taken the respon sibility of watching over six active campus es and multiple school district buildings.

A well-known officer for the City of Levelland, Foley has been a part of the Levelland Police Department for 17 years. Now in his sixth year as an SRO, Foley explained that the position is some thing he has enjoyed since year one.

Rincones has been serving the Level land community for the better part of four years. In his first year as an SRO, Rincones was approached with the opportunity as Fo ley’s previous partner was transitioning out of the position and getting back into patrol.

Rincones explained that making the switch from patrolling the streets to watching over the schools has its perks, but the main thing is the differences. With school safety being one of the biggest hot topics in the state legislature and across school districts, proper training and required classes are needed to be completed for the positions. The partnership between Levelland PD and Levelland ISD has continued to grow, and that is in part due to Officers Foly and Rincones engaging with administration, staff and importantly students. With the loss of ASO’s Jonathan Corder and Crystal Goforth, a period of time was taken before filling in the empty positions to mourn the loss of their colleagues and close friends.

In turn, it has taken a bit of time to fill the positions needed, but things are trending in a positive direction as they have gotten the roles filled.

Additionally, Garcia explained that they have had a slight decrease in telecommunications staff, but are actively looking to fill the roles.

“I think everybody across the nation has been struggling to getting people back on as far as working duty,” said Garcia. “Our recruitment for personnel has been difficult sometimes but we have been doing our due diligence to make sure that we try to find the right people for the job.”

While positions are filled, Garcia highlighted the importance of being patient because no matter what position is filled there will be certifications and trainings that need to be done before gaining free-reign.

Working to better themselves and create relationships with additional law enforcement agencies, the LPD along with SPC hosted an honor guard academy.

Ranging from various law enforcement agencies across the region to DPS, Border Patrol and a few additional federal agencies, it proved to be a successful exercise.

Levelland Police Chief explained that the

academy is something the department and other departments across the region have been wanting to put in place for a long time. The initiative is to try and train more law en forcement departments or any public safe ty agency that may have an honor guard.

With collectively training different agencies across the board in the same man ner, to train the same type of policy pro cedures and movements will be common.

Chief Garcia added that he hopes the program continues to grow and the com monality shared between different agencies proves to be beneficial for everyone involved.

Chief Garcia explained that the ability for agency personnel to come on board and be part of the honor guard and actually see that the honor guard isn’t just about march ing, presenting, colors, or performance is big.

“Honor guard is about exactly what’s in its title,” said Chief Garcia. “It’s about the honor and honoring somebody for what they’ve done. the service they’ve pro

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vided whether it’s us presenting colors at the veteran breakfast or whether it’s us protecting the casket of a fallen officer.”

Through hard work and pushing through the loss of colleagues, the LPD went back to work in October with a cooperative effort among multiple law enforcement agencies that resulted in the execution of Operation Snake Eyes which saw 29 arrests across Hockley County at seven game room locations.

Law enforcement agencies such as the Federal Bureau of Investigation, Hockley County Sheriff’s Office, Levelland Police Department and Department of Public Safety have been working on the joint operation for the better part of a year.

A two-phase operation, the first part of the take down resulted in 13 arrests with five additional individuals that have already been in custody being served for a total of 18.

The second part of the operation began with seven groups of law enforcement personnel that raided five game room locations in Levelland, one game room in Opedyke West and the seventh location in Anton. From the second portion of the operation, 11 individuals were arrested.

Additional locations included Morton and Brownfield.

Chief Garcia reassured that the citizens of Levelland and within Hockley County continue to become heard, and their voices are not going unnoticed.

One aspect that Garcia puts his faith in is community policing, and he has seen a continuous growth in that philosophy.

Wanting to create a safe and flourishing community for the citizens of Levelland, Garcia and his department are continuing to work hard to make that a reality.

LEVELLAND MAIN STREET

Tania Moody, Main Street manager, oversees the Main Street program and revitalization efforts for Levelland’s downtown district.

The Main Street program was created by the federal government to revitalize downtowns in cities and towns nationwide.

“They came up with this effort to really focus on rebuilding downtowns and bringing business back to the center, to the heart of the city,” Moody said. “So, underneath their umbrella, they started forming statewide efforts, and Texas was established very quickly after the national Main Street Organization was established.”

The Levelland Main Street pro-

Moody explained downtown dollars as an underutilized gift certificate that can be used at businesses downtown. She detailed a scenario that involved someone buying their mom a physical gift certificate that can expire. Downtown dollars are purchased online and do not expire. Downtown dollars can also be used and split at 20 businesses.

“She shows them the gift certificate on her phone or if you wanted to print it out for her, they key it in like they do any other gift certificate or credit card,” Moody said, “and it is of no cost to the business owner and it’s no cost to the recipient. It works like a like

and mosaic art instillations located downtown. The historic walking tour offers an audio clip and historical facts and photographs of buildings downtown.

“One is the historic preservation walking tour and they can start at any place they’d like,” Moody said. “They pull it up on their phone, and they can either listen to an audio clip with someone telling them about that particular location, what it was before, some neat historical stories about it and they can also see pictures of what it used to be and some different advertisements from back in the day.”

The mosaic walking tour details the 10 large art instillations around Levelland. There is also information available about each piece online.

“You can do that virtually. You can actually look at all the current mosaics downtown,” Moody said, “or you can see where they all are and then you can go take that tour yourself.”

Moody explained the Main Street program applied for a grant to turn the old farmers market into a pocket park for community use. The grant will also provide funds to redo the three-sided mural at the location among other things.

“It will have a tricycle track that goes around

the inside perimeter that kids can use tricycle, scooters or any non-motorized toys,” Moody said. “It will have a few pieces of playground equipment and the goal is for it to have a couple of small splash pads that double as a lighted fountain in the evening. We will also have some raised beds, community beds for planting, like a community garden.”

Moody hopes the community will take ownership of the garden beds and cultivate their own plants.

“We’re hoping that it will just be a very natural and very fluid space to plant things and teach kids about gardening and where food comes from,” Moody said. “We’re hoping that it will yield some vegetables or fruits so that people can also enjoy the fruits of their labor.”

There are several awards given by the Main Street program to businesses and community members. The Main Street Hero award is given to an individual that is supportive and passionate about the revitalization of downtown Levelland.

“The Main Street Hero Award is given to an individual that has shown an incredible

past year or more,” Moody said. “That’s passionate about the revitalization of downtown and volunteers, helps raise funds or have involvement in other civic or community organizations as well. They show up at the events, they help with the events. Basically, they’re just very unselfish with their time and talents on behalf of the community and Main Street.”

The George R. Keeling award is given to an individual who has demonstrated an outstanding lifetime of dedication to downtown.

“Last year, we gave it to the Streets Department and the Parks Department, because without them, the Main Street program would not be able to do any of the events that we do because they’re constantly helping us block streets, moving tables and chairs and volunteering for our events,” Moody said. “They are incredibly instrumental in the success of our programs.”

The Levelland Legacy award is given to a business that has been in business for 50 years or more.

“It’s a pretty significant accomplishment to be in one place and be still going strong. So last year’s award recipient was Tony Malouf of Malouf’s J-M Western Wear, and he was really really tickled to receive that honor,” Moody said, “and when they receive it, they also get a Levelland Legacy Award winner.”

The advisory board is one way to get involved with the Main Street program and downtown revitalization. The advisory board is responsible for presenting recommendations to City Council for approval.

“The Main Street board guides, the mission, vision and goals of Main Street. They help to raise additional money so we can stretch our dollars farther,” Moody said. “They volunteer at our events and different things that are for the good of Main Street, and they’re very good advocates out in their jobs and community for the Main Street program and for why the Main Street

program is important for this community.”

The revitalization task force is a combination of four areas that the Main Street program focuses on. The program focuses on organization, revitalization, design and economic vitality. Members can join the task force, focus on one project that interests them and either move on to another project or leave the task force.

involved. Maybe they love the idea of the first Saturday on the square, so they want to be involved in that. They want to make it bigger and better.”

Those that are not able to be in volved by joining the board or revital ization task force can still be involved by volunteering or showing up to events.

“They can be involved in anyway; they just want to show up to an event and volunteer like shipping swirl,” Moody said. “They can do that. We’re very grateful for any minutes that anyone wants to give our program.”

The Main Street program also hosts a weekly mosaic mom walk Thursday’s at 10 a.m. at the gazebo on the courthouse square. Food truck Thursday is held every third Thursday of the month at the courthouse square.

Community Planting day is an event held every year to remove the artificial flowers from the 44 planters down town and repot them with real flowers.

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ing the artificial flowers from the planters, and we will be replacing them with the new plants,” Moody said. “There’re 44 planters at this time so, we’re very excited to get those replanted.”

There are events scheduled throughout the summer for the community held downtown. First Saturday Shop the Square will be held May 6, June 3, July 1 and August 5.

“We’ll have to Salsa de Mayo in May,” Moody said. “We’ll have the lemonade day in June. We’ll have the watermelon crawl in July and in August, the Hockley County endowment is coming beside us and they’re taking that Saturday event and they’re going to make it a huge ice cream event to focus on what kind of things the Hockley County Endowment is doing for reinvestment not only in downtown but in our community.”

The revitalization task force created the theme for this year’s sip and swirl. Sip and swirl around the world will be held June 9. The event will allow people to try different drinks paired with foods from around the world.

“One of the things that we’ve had complaints about before, ‘I’d come, but I really don’t like wine’ well, we’re taking that excuse away because we’re going to have different kinds of drinks that are paired with different kinds of foods from different countries,” Moody said. “So, as you travel around the square with your glass, you’re going to be able to enjoy a taste of Italy, a taste of France, a taste of Mexico.”

COTTON & CRUDE

Coming off two-straight years of success, the Levelland Chamber of Commerce is looking to bring their third annual Cotton and Crude Street Fair and Musical Festival to the community.

“Getting the ball rolling for the festival, Chamber of Commerce President Mary Siders explained the process it has taken to bring the festival to fruition.

“This is our third year in the transition, and it was not something that was taken lightly,” said Siders. “The elected

business leaders for the community spent two years looking at profit and loss statements while also weighing the pros and cons of switching a long-time event.”

As the chamber weighed their options, the goal was to bring something to the community that brought more generations and more community members overall to the event.

“In order for us to continue to do a good community festival we had to include more than the early settlers,” explained Siders. “Our goal from the board of directors was to include more generations. When you include more generations, we can provide things that are appealing to those generations.”

To help facilitate that, the chamber looked for answers internally through the Levelland Emerging and Active Professionals (LEAP) and the Young Emerging Leaders of Levelland (YELL) group at the high school to help board members understand what younger individuals would be attracted to.

After understanding what needed to be done, the new event had to be profitable for the community and it

needs to be more appealing to more generations so it would last forever.

“The early settlers are here respected, loved and they’re still a part of that day, but we were missing our longevity by not including the younger generations,” explained Siders.

The success of the festival has continued as the event has moved toward the fall time in order to provide a cooler event compared to an event scheduled in the middle of the summer.

After making that decision, Siders explained that the scheduling of the festival has become a bit of a challenge as Texas Tech football is a factor, along with the South Plains Fair and other towns hosting similar events.

“Navigating the scheduling of the festival is not an easy task, but we have a group of business leaders that work diligently to come up with the best timetable,” said Siders. “We

can’t compete with Texas Tech football and so many of our community members, sponsors and vendors are avid fans. Also, it’s not fair to host an event that coincides with another as that forces everyone to choose one or the other.”

Bringing thousands of community members together in a single location is a lot to ask when it comes to following laws, guidelines and being prepared for the unexpected.

Siders explained that the planning process is extensive and with the amount of helping hands through the entire process, it is what makes the festival a success.

“When you consider all the ordinances, codes and laws, people do community festivals all over the nation and we’re very governed by how we do these community festivals,” explained Siders. “In the 1950s, everybody came to the square and there was a lot less governance.”

To help navigate all the obstacles is a task force that has been meeting throughout the year to make sure bringing thousands of individuals to a single location goes well.

“We have a task force that is working on security efforts, we have task force working on entertainment and then we have a marketing task force that handles sales and marketing,” said Siders. “To top it off we also have a sponsorship task force. We have four good groups that consists of different leaders and different groups that spend the whole year working.”

Festival Fun!

City of Levelland Rail Park

Through the continued hard work of the Levelland Economic Development group, the Levelland Industrial Rail Park has continued to see progress through expansion and upgrades.

Joining the group in April 2022, LEDC Director Justin Balderas has been soaking in every detail there is to the rail park in addition to the wide array of responsibilities an LEDC director is required to fulfill.

“It’s been an exciting first year learning about the assets that we have here in the community and all of our infrastructure,” said Balderas. “The unique one being our rail park. The rail industry is a very specific industry, so it’s been great learning

that and I looking forward to learning more.”

Complimenting the EDC board and council that came together in 2008 for being forward thinking individuals, Balderas explained the rail park began construction in 2009 and was operational in November of 2010.

The rail park is comprised of 297 acres of raw land and the city still has over 100 acres available to market which Balderas is actively doing.

Currently, the rail park consists of Penny Newman, Titan Lansing Transloading and Pipeline Plastics. Additionally, on the business portion of the rail park, the area consists of Norton Drilling, Independent Electric, Allied Oilfield, Portales Select Peanut Company and

Butches Rat Hole and Anchor Services.

“We’re looking for new partners, but not just any partner; the right partner that is going to fit the community and support our existing clusters out here,” explained Balderas. “We have agriculture, oil and gas.”

Having the rail park in his arsenal to grow the city of Levelland, Balderas feels it’s a great asset for him to have in the profession.

“Rail serve properties are very highly sought after now since the pandemic,” said Balderas. It allows industries more capabilities to do inter-motor travel, meaning they could get their commodities brought in on rail which is significantly cheaper, bring those commodities, do what they need to do at their property and then send them off in trucks or put them back on rail and get them to the location.”

Moving commodities in this manner provides greater capabilities than just standard semi-truck traffic that areas without rail service traditionally see in the area.

“I can’t emphasize the importance of

our existing partners that we have out there and what they do for our community, the state and basically the country,” said Balderas. “I mean we’ve got some big companies out there, so a lot of learning, a lot of meeting and of course you know trying to meet with site selectors to advertise the assets that we have here in the community is important.

Now in his position for a little over a year now, Balderas can improve upon what he has seen and learned with his LEDC board and continue to grow Levelland.

“It’s usually nine months to a year for you to really learn of how this organization is run,” explained Balderas. “It’s a well-oiled machine and you don’t want to throw a wrench in the cog to ruin anything. I’m getting to the flow of creating that vision with the board and myself to carry out that plan.”

Having constant conversations between what the board thinks and what the board’s direction is for the rail park, hope-

fully the group will be bringing industries into the area. Balderas gave a hint of caution however, as nothing is set in stone until the incoming businesses begin to break ground.

Making up the current LEDC board are: President Elgin Conner, Secretary Sham Myatt, Rob Blair, Jody Rose, Tushar Bhakta and Assistant Savannah Adams.

With the current goals of the board and Balderas, he highlighted how well the group works together with a common goal and direction.

“Not only is the board together and going in the same direction, but they provide a tremendous amount of knowledge to me,” explained Balderas. “They’ve known about this rail park since the conception of it and it just makes the job easier to have the support of the board and the city council. They collaborate together to have this one mission of being forward thinking and progressive.”

In addition to bringing in new busi-

nesses, Balderas has the responsibility of retention, creating relationships and strengthening them.

There’s plenty of hats that are worn with a community our size and the staff that we have, Savannah is a tremendous asset to the corporation and the city,” said Balderas. “For myself, it’s taking care of business retention, it’s not always going out there and trying to attract the new latest and greatest.”

If there’s a need from an existing industry whether they need help finding employees because workforce retention is very difficult, Balderas will step in and help with that situation.

“Working with our partners out there and having a good relationship with groups such

as South Plains Workforce Solution and South Plains College are important,” said Baldera’s. “A lot of the time, these industries need to upskill their workers because they have new equipment or just industry standards have changed over time.”

Balderas looks at it as his group is in a relationship with the business and building that relationship with the companies and the citizens is key.

“We can only utilize our funds for industrial manufacturing, but we’ve invested in leading EDG to better assist our entrepreneurs that have ideas,” explained Balderas. “After they speak to leading EDG and it makes sense, we could have a conversation. We’ve got tools to assist those specific industries so you know it’s just being flexible with what the community needs.”

Balderas encourages anyone with an industrial manufacturing operation idea or an expansion

come talk to him for a conversation.

“My door is always open and we can sit down for five minutes or an hour and talk about it,” said Balderas. “We have plenty of acres left that are rail served and we would love to have an existing resident either start and or expand a business out here because we could assist with that. Never hesitate to reach out to myself, Savannah, any of my board members, city council and just allow us to do our job; let us let us help if we can.”

Moving forward, the board has been proactive in making the rail park move-in ready as they have completed two new major projects in a new concrete roadway and sewer infrastructure.

Balderas and the board have high hopes for the progression of the city and the rail park in the future as they continue to move forward in aiding the city of Levelland’s growth.

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PARKS AND CEMETERY

The Levelland Parks and Cemetery department is continuing to work hard to provide the community with recreational activities and well-maintained cemeteries. The department is led by Dustin Reichelt who has 16 years of experience in working with and maintaining parks. In his fifth year as director for the city of Levelland, before making his way to the city of mosaics, Reichelt spent 11 years in the city of Weatherford maintaining and expanding their parks. Including Reichelt, the department consists of seven employees. The group is responsible for over 200 acres of land which includes 13 parks. From landscaping, up-keep, repairs, additions and general improvements to the area, Reichelt and his team work through the seasons to provide the community of Levelland a safe and inviting environment to en-

joy the outdoors with family and friends.

Well into the spring season warmer temperatures begin stay consistent, the Levelland community can look forward to spending time at the several parks location for outdoor activity.

Reichelt and his crews have been spending the better part of the winter season battling the windy conditions as well as maintaining the grounds for parks and cemeteries alike.

“We want to keep our parks and cemetery clean for the community and one of the biggest things we have been dealing with is tumbleweeds continuously blowing through,” said Reichelt.

Coming out of the colder weather, Reichelt and his crew have been starting their preventative maintenance for their equipment such as their mowers, weed eaters and blowers.

“We’ve already made our first cut at city

park on a small patch of grass, and once the tem peratures begin to warm up consistently and the ground temperatures begin to warm up we start getting into mow season,” said Reichelt.

For the winter season, the department put together multiple outings for the snow hill at Lobo Hill. For the spring season, the community was invited to a Parks Easter Egg Hunt on April 1st. The hunt was held at the city park at pavilion one, with the hunt open to anyone 12-years-old or under.

“It is a great event for the kids and the community,” said Reichelt. “We provided the eggs and candy.”

Seeing an impressive turnout of children

and families enjoying the event, the community of Levelland can look forward to the egg hunt making a return in the future.

Reichelt currently has two projects waiting for the approval of city council as the funding would be through the remaining ARPA funds. City staff brought several project options that could be funded through ARPA in a previous council meeting and are expected to make their final decision in the future where the remaining funds will be allocated.

However, Reichelt says that while those projects are on hold, the department has several small projects going on through their normal means of funding.

Through March and April, the crew conducted preventative maintenance at the baseball and softball fields located at the Oxy Sports Complex.

The complex holds multiple fields and continues to draw multiple tournaments for baseball and softball throughout the spring and summer.

Currently, the Levelland Youth Baseball and Softball leagues are sharing time throughout the week as they hold their regular seasons at the complex annually.

Additional projects that have already been passed and ready to be com-

pleted from last year’s Levelland Community Development Committee approval have been on hold due to supply chain issues.

Ranging from new park benches for city park and the gaga ball court for Bartlett Park have been on hold and Reichelt says a timeline for those isn’t even possible at this current point in time.

At the sports complex, the soccer fields located to the north are on the list to receive lighting and were expected for this season, but getting in parts has been difficult as well.

Reichelt explained that their decision was to hold off installing the lights all together and revisit the project after the season is concluded in hopes of wrapping up the project collectively. For community members that utilize the soccer fields at the complex can expect the lights to be installed and working properly closer to June.

For this year’s LCDC projects, demolition and renovations of the L.G. Griffin Park Pavilion, and the George C. Price Park Pavilion began at the end of March.

Previous projects that are in place are things like the fishing dock at Lobo Lake that is also

ADA compliant for all fishing enthusiasts. The restocking of fish in the lakes can always be expected in the summer and winter. There are two types of fish that fill the lakes which are rainbow trout and catfish, depending on the season.

Another recreational activity community members can always expect is the snow hill during the winter at Lobo Hill. In the effort to bring an experience to children who may not have played in the snow before, the snow hill is an opportunity to bring another fun experience to the area.

While parks is a cornerstone of Reichelt’s responsibilities, there is also the cemetery side of things.

Currently, Reichelt has three full-time employees overseeing the cemeteries for the city.

Their main jobs focuses on maintaining the grounds and making sure the rules are being followed on the grounds.

“Those three take their jobs seriously and have a considerable amount of pride in taking care of the cemeteries,” said Reichelt. “They help grieving families bury their loved one while showing the utmost respect for everyone involved.”

Under the scope of Reichelt’s care, the two cemeteries in Levelland include the Memorial Garden cemetery located on Highway 114 and the City of Levelland cemetery located on Avenue H.

LEVELLAND YOUTH BASEBALL

Baseball in Levelland is alive and well as the Levelland Youth Baseball League con tinues to bring the game to the community.

Spearheaded by President Mi chael Wiiest, this year’s board is com prised of Treasurer Emily Johnson, Mary Engledow and Joe Timmons.

Working to get the 2023 season to gether and ready for spring ball, Weiist shared his thanks for the current board.

“Obviously, we can always use more help with board positions and in this case, it’s about showing up and volunteer ing to help out,” said Weiist. “We don’t have a lot of big decisions to make and it mainly consists of helping getting signups out, getting signups back, but those four right now are handling most everything.”

Coming into the spring season, John son has taken the role as the new treasur er. She took over for Lance Edwards who had to step away before the season began.

“We appreciate Lance, he did a great

the league in terms of getting signups out in the first part of February. Typically, the league will conduct sign-ups through the end of February, but this year there was a breakdown in communication with the community schools.

“Normally we take signup forms to the schools and they hand them out,” explained Weiist. “This time around they weren’t aware they were handing them out, so they kind of set in offices for two weeks and we didn’t realize that happened.”

To accommodate the lapse in time, the league expanded signups to let late sign ups filter in.

the kid’s opportunity to play,” said Weiist.

The league was able to get t-ball drafted, coaches signed and all taken care of. Major League and Minor League have both been drafted and assigned as well.

“We were able to get the ball rolling in early April for the leagues, but getting to this point, we had some problems getting the rookie level setup,” explained Weisst. “We had to go out and do some fairly hefty recruiting for all levels this year which hasn’t been a problem in the past.”

T-ball filled up a little late coaching wise and we had the same problem with finding rookie coaches. Weiist added that all teams and leagues will play fairly heavy schedules up through the end of May. Once May hits, the league will progress into the All-Star categories and play in tournaments.

Since the completion of the Oxy Sports Complex located on the South side of Levelland, baseball games, tourna-

ments, softball games and tournaments have been held there successfully. The tradition continues as the league has continued to work with the city of Levelland to hold their season at the complex.

“Working with the city is fantastic and honestly working with the City Secretary Andrea Corley quarterly down at the city to schedule everything has been great,” said Weiist. “Working with Dustin Reichelt, they have always gone above and beyond.”

Weiist continued to praise the work that the Parks Director Reichelt and his crew have done year in and out.

“I’ve been involved in leagues in which you had groundskeepers, I have been involved in leagues whereas coaches you had to go rake, chalk, and mow and I’ve been involved in leagues where you’ve had to have volunteer cleanup days to get things accomplished,” explained Weiist. “The parks department and the city do a fantastic job. I couldn’t ask for anything more from those people if. If I have

For youth baseball, Levelland has continued to have a strong history of successful All-Star groups. That tradition has continued following an impressive showing from last year’s group. Additionally, the Levelland community played host to two simultaneous state championship tournaments for two different levels.

“All-Stars has been kind of a weird situation this year. Normally we’ve participated in a district with Shallowater, Muleshoe, Lamesa, Sudan, Parmer County and that group of folks,” said Wiiest. “I found out very late in the process at the end of February that they have redistricted Levelland and they have moved us to a district further South which includes places like Lamesa, Brownfield, Andrews, Seminole, Denver City and that thing goes all the way down to Kermit.”

Weiist added that he had not been contacted yet in regard to hosting any district or state tournaments, but hopes if they choose to do so, it is sooner rather than later.

“They have not reached out to us from the standpoint of will you host,” said Weiist. “Last year’s state tournament went very well and we had a lot of great volunteers step up for that thing. I haven’t been contacted as of yet, we are certainly hoping they want to come back to Levelland.”

While tournament time is far off from the beginning of the regular season, a lot of planning and preparation gets put into motion beforehand.

“We’re always willing to host, we’re always willing to invite people to come and we’ve got the best facility of anybody out there,” said Weiist. “We’ve got the nicest town of anybody out there and we’ve got the best accommodations of everybody out there.

LEVELLAND YOUTH SOFTBALL

Heading into another season for the Levelland Youth Softball League, the league is continuing to see growth, and they are also getting their footing as a league that is here to stay for the community.

Setup with a hard-working board, the league is led by President Jacob Tucker. Helping Tucker grow the league is Secretary Jessica Tucker, Vice Presidents Megan and Danny Villarreal, Darrien Basquez, Andrea Torres and Tamara and Dustin Whitley.

“We’ve added a few people and more hands makes a lighter load,” said J. Tucker.

Coming on board this year, Basquez is handling officials and umpiring crews

for the season as she wanted be more involved from an organizational standpoint.

Torres has taken the position of director of concessions and is organizing when teams have concession duty and what is needed for the stand itself.

For the Whiteley’s, Tamara is the treasurer of the league as she has experience with finances, and Dustin has taken the role as the utility player. Aiding the board in whatever needs to be done, Mr. Whitley is the person who handles the extra responsibilities.

“A lot of our board is husbands and wives because it winds up being a family affair,” said Tucker. “It’s all hands-on deck all the time and I can’t ask for we can’t ask for a better board. We’re pretty excited about the group that we have and everybody cares about the community and providing something for our kids.”

For the 2023 season, Tucker is excited for the potential that could be had as an overall league. In addition to that, Tucker and the board have serious goals they would like to get closer to in making sure the softball league is well taken care of for the future.

“We’re taking some good steps to becoming legit,” Tucker said jokingly. “We’re already legit, but we could be further along in the process. One of our big goals is to be a 501(c)3, to be a true nonprofit.”

Tucker added that every single penny that is made through the league is continuously put back into itself to keep everything going.

“Every single dime rolls right back into the league. I don’t get paid, shoot my kids don’t even get comped in the season man,” said Tucker. “We’re really trying to make some good steps to cement a future for softball in Levelland.”

While some form of softball has been in Levelland, Tucker and his board are trying to make some good financial steps this year to set up seasons in the future.

“It’s all about being good stewards of the game and making sound financial decisions long-term,” explained Tucker. “We have to take care of the money that the communities put in and like I said like seeing

an increase of support last year,” Tuck er continued to thank the community of Levelland for the constant following.

“The community has been top notch, everybody’s been great and we’ve got great sponsors,” said Tucker. “We’ve got great sponsors out on the four signs out on the fields. We’ve had businesses that have renewed their signs with us and a few new ones.”

On top of signage, Tucker added that a particular sponsor made the deci sion to sponsor three teams this season.

On top of community sponsors and support, the league has developed rela tionships with businesses such as Lev elland Chevrolet who recently donated equipment to the league. Thanks to a pro gram that focuses on donations to youth softball and baseball, the company selects one league to donate necessary equipment.

Now with back-to-back recipients, the softball league was able to add more necessary items such as a couple of sets of Cathers equipment and helmets.

“It’s really cool to see everyone come together to give these kids a great experience,” said Tucker. “We’ve got parents who don’t even have kids playing and they want to coach or they want to coach t-ball because their daughter plays in 10-U and they want to just watch.

As far as numbers in players, Tucker believes the leagues and numbers are roughly the same as last season. This year’s numbers consist of four teams for 8-U, three teams for T-Ball and three teams for Betty-Ball.

“For any low spots, people are hold ing a little tighter to their pocketbooks, but everybody who needs to be here is,” said Tucker. “For the kids that we have, they’re excited and ready to play.”

While winning is the goal when play ing the game, Tucker explained that his coaches are more focused on showing the kids how to play the game proper ly. In turn, that will help the kids grow through the years and keep the kids en couraged to continue to pursue the sport.

“Last year was all hopes and dreams for us and this year we’ve seen a lot of the reality of kids seeing, learning

and moving forward,” said Tucker. Similar to the Levelland Youth Baseball League, softball games will be held at the Oxy Sports Complex. Playing a full season from the beginning of April until May, the softball league will take two afternoons out of the week to hit the field hard and play games.

Looking past the 2023 season, community members with little girls who are interested in softball can look forward to potential softball camps held by the league.

Currently in the early planning stages, Tucker believes July may be the targeted month to hold the camps and encourages parents and community members to follow the league soft-

DISTRICT ATTORNEY’S OFFICE

Angela Overman’s, District Attorney for the 286th district, goal for 2023 is to protect and defend victims’ rights and ensure community safety through enforcing the law in a fair and efficient manner.

“I want Hockley County and Cochran County to be safe and to do that we have to move these cases in a much more expeditious fashion,” Overman said, “all the while considering the public, our communities, the state of Texas, the laws

of the of the state of Texas and the offender.”

Before beginning her legal career, Overman attended Texas Tech University to receive a bachelor’s and master’s degree. She proceeded to join the United States Marine Corps. She also attended Texas Tech School of Law.

“I was a teacher’s assistant and taught data analysis - under supervision - at Texas Tech University,” Overman said.“I taught government courses for South Plains College and its satellites while working on the master’s degree. I joined the USMC and following graduation from law school, I taught eighthgrade English and seventhand eighth grade Theatre Arts in Olton. I started practicing law soon after being licensed in 1996.”

Overman began her career as a lawyer in private practice focusing on family and civil law before being appointed the 286th District Attorney in 2019.

“I opened a practice in Levelland, Texas. After approximately 22 years of private practice, I was appointed as the County Attorney by Cochran County Commissioner’s Court in July of 2018,” Over-

man said. “I was appointed by Governor Abbott in 2019 and elected as District Attorney in 2020.”

While Overman and her office have many duties, its focus is to see that justice is done.

“The all-encompassing duty of a district attorney is to see that justice is done,” Overman said. “As part of that duty, I prosecute criminal offenders. There are simply some cases that must be heard and resolved by a jury to see that justice is done, however, I pick my battles wisely, so to speak, by prioritizing trial cases involving violence, death and habitual offenders.”

The District Attorney’s office has the option to extend a plea deal or pretrial diversion program to an offender after considering the facts of the case.

“Another aspect of seeing that justice is done involves plea negotiations. After consulting with victims, law enforcement and witnesses, and reviewing the offender’s criminal history, a plea offer may be extended,” Overman said. “Offers require the defendants to take responsibility for their crime. Some offenders with mental health concerns or who are first time drug offenders may be referred to a pretrial diversion program or placed on deferred adjudication where participation in drug or alcohol treatment is mandatory.”

The office represents the victims of crimes in many ways and advise them on the where the case is and the next steps that will take place.

“I represent victims who need protection by seeking protective orders and providing victims with resources to obtain assistance - whether pretrial or post-verdict - including counseling services, repayment for loss of property and medical treatments,” Overman said. “We advise them where the case is and what will happen next, and we seek their opinion on whether they want to prosecute, whether they want to continue, whether they’re willing to testify and whether they find the plea offer to be acceptable.”

Overman has a multitude of administrative duties to ensure the efficiency and integrity of the office.

“I have administrative roles, including applying for state grants, reporting case dispositions to State Agencies, accounting to the County Judges, County Commissioners,

State agencies and Federal agencies,” Overman said. “My duties include fiscal budgeting and the hiring and training of new team members. To uphold the integrity of the office, I write and update office policies.”

Overman expressed her gratitude towards the other members that make up the District Attorney’s Office and further explained the office’s goal of seeking justice.

“We are a team: Jami Newsom,Keeli Harris, Kay Caroland,Chris Prentice, Jody Guerra, Candice Capperton and on assignment for appeals, Gary Goff. While at times the work is seemingly an uphill battle that is mentally and physically demanding, their dedication and perseverance while steadfastly focusing on the 286th shared objective - to see that justice is done- makes Cochran County and Hockley County terrible places to commit crimes.”

Overman explained the importance of reducing the backlogged number of cases resulting from COVID-19.

“In the aftermath of Covid, the State courts and prosecutors face backlogs. Our response is to diligently and equitably move cases and reduce the number of cases on the docket which requires the coordinated effort of the D.A., county attorneys, District and County Judges, Municipal Judges, and justices of the peace,” Overman said, “because the wheels of Justice must spin in coordination and in an equitable and efficient manner.”

The District Attorney’s office works closely with local and state agencies to gather all relevant information for a case.

“I workclosely with law enforcement, victims and other agencies, to further investigate a case by obtaining additional evidence including mental health records, child or adult protective services records, educational records, employment records, and medical records of the accused and the victim,” Overman said.

Overman reiterated the main goal of the office is to seek justice and defend the rights of victims and the community.

“Our main goal is to protect and defend victims’ rights and our community’s safety by vigorously enforcing the law in a manner that is fair and efficient,” Overman said.

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AD INDEX

Guardian Insurance Agency pg. 42

Macha Insurance pg. 58

McDonald's pg. 21

McIlroy Chiropractic pg. 50

AFLAC- Kellie McDonald pg. 74

Ag Texas pg. 76

Ahava's Honey Farm pg. 23

Alvo's pg. 8

Atchison's Fine Jewelry pg. 3

Head Durante Funeral Home pg.32

Hockley County Abstract pg. 25

Hockley County School Employee

Credit Union pg. 46

Mosaic Coffee pg. 62

Outer Space Portable Buildings pg .28 P

Pate, Downs & Pinkerton pg. 7

Petro Products pg. 74

B & B Laundry pg. 31

Best Inn Texas pg. 56

Bill Ashley pg. 51

Brent's Tint & Off Road pg. 30

Best Western pg. 82

Jackson Real Estate pg. 51

Plains Motor Supply pg. 51

L & L Construction & Landscaping pg. 8

Lamco pg. 39

Levelland Chamber of Commerce pg. 11

Levelland Chamber of Commerce

Quick Lane pg. 50

Renegade pg. 93

Capital Farm Credit pg. 80

City of Levelland Sanitation pg. 20

Clean-Co pg. 67

Commercial Printing pg. 31

Covenant Clinic pg. 63

Crescent Park & Motel pg. 68

pg. 13

Levelland Chamber of Commerce

Cotton & Crude pg. 71

Levelland Chamber of Commerce

Keep Levelland Beautiful pg. 89

Levelland Christian School pg. 24

Levelland & Hockley County News-Press pg.92

Levelland ISD pg. 48

S & D Oil Change pg. 44

Scooter's pg. 68

Silverado pg. 14

Smith Auto Family pg. 96

South Plains College pg. 16

South Plains Community Action Association pg. 6

SPARTAN pg. 53

Stix & Stones Nursery pg. 8

Michael & Dianna Stueart (realtor) pg. 28

Edward Jones-Brian Lewis pg. 95

Edward Jones-Tanner Terrell pg. 67

Levelland ISD pg. 49

Levlland Liquor pg.68

Levelland Main Street pg. 62

Long S Gin. pg 76

Sundown State Bank pg. 27 T

T & S Craft & Antique Mall pg. 59

TriCare Medical pg. 29

Farm Bureau pg 15

Forrest Tire pg. 37

Lou Dee's Gift & Floral pg. 2

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