EDITORIAL New obituary system honors loved ones

connection.

So, this paper has partnered with Legacy.com to offer a memorialization platform worthy of our loved ones. It is searchable and offers modern ways to remember and share.

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But we should always remember to honor our loved ones. The Standard-Radio Post has invested in a new system to improve our obituaries beyond traditional print remembrances, and there is an interactive element that can ease the process.

But first, why should we honor our loved ones, and deal with the additional expense? We can break down the reasons with an acronym of the abbreviated word, “OBIT.”

O is for Observe.

We observe the passing of our loved one and all the special things about him or her — their substance, their character or their distinction. What did our ancestor like to do? How did she serve her community? Where did his family originate? What were her religious preferences? How did he connect to friends with his sense of humor or humanity?

B is for Bereave.

We place an obituary to honor our loved one and remember in word and story why these people were so special to us, to our community, to their friends. Their contributions to all will be archived for future generations to see.

I is for Inform.

This is so we state the fact our loved one is no longer with us in as public a way as we can. The only issue with leaving it to social media is lack of reach and social media’s impermanence. (Will these same channels even be available a decade from now?) There is an added timeliness benefit, particularly for a weekly publication. Information travels instantly now, so this will help inform more rapidly.

T is for Track.

We build an ancestral trail and we add another branch to our family tree. This helps those in the present to make connections, as well as those who may be researching family ties decades or centuries from now. We leave the breadcrumbs for families searching for clues about hen a loved one dies, there are lots of details to attend to, in addition to the normal grieving process. Funeral arrangements, notifying friends and family, setting up memorial contributions, visiting with a pastor — it can all seem overwhelming, particularly in the cases of early or unexpected deaths.In addition to our print design and archiving, the new platform offers permanent online archiving and helpful links to send flowers, plant a tree, or donate to a preferred charity. The site also includes a way to leave memories or offer condolences, as well as share other end-of-life resources.

Our funeral homes in Fredericksburg are professional and trusted with the care of our loved ones’ final hours before burial or cremation. They have decades of service behind them and experience dealing with this platform. The families that own Schaetter Funeral Home and Fredericksburg Funeral Home have been serving the community since the 1800s. That longevity doesn’t happen without trust.

They are also familiar with this new system and will continue to be the family’s first point of contact.

We’ll still be working out a few details, and our Sherrie Geistweidt, proofreader and obituaries editor, is still available to help, if needed. She has handled thousands of obituaries in this community over the years and is familiar with many family ties.

We know when a loved one dies, there is lots to do. But don’t let the chance pass to honor them in a public way.

We hope our changes will ease the way things are done to inform the public, remember and share, while still entrusting the care of loved ones to funeral service professionals.

See the new system online at https:// www.legacy.com/us/obituaries/fredericksburgstandard/browse

Funeral

Guest Column

By Christine Granados

When I think about funding a brand new Fredericksburg Middle School, I am reminded of the blue, button-down shirt I’ve had in my closet for the past 15 years.

When I started to, ahem, “grow into” my favorite shirt, I noticed that I could no longer button it. Even though the stitches on the blouse were pulled so taut around my biceps that I couldn’t raise my arms above my navel, I thought it still looked good.

What our middle school is experiencing right now is those stitches groaning from the weight of all the students we are packing into this campus.

Let’s just take the nurse’s station at FMS as an example. There are 650 plus students on the middle school campus with one nurse who works in a room the size of a toll booth. If a sick student needs to lay down to wait for a parent, they have leave the closet-sized room and lay on a cot in the hallway because of space limitations.

She also patches up students’ sprained wrists and ankles from all the trips and falls they received walking and running between buildings on uneven cement with steep inclines. They’re in a rush because they have to make it to gym class, art or the band hall in a five minute time-frame. To complicate their lives even more, they have to do this while lugging all their textbooks, notebooks and supplies for every class daily, because there are not enough lockers for every student.

housing the technology brain of the school system in portable buildings to make room for students, dividing the art building in half to make room for a math class and trying to accommodate students in wheelchairs, who cannot get to the second floor of the seventhgrade building because there is no elevator. It was built in the 19th century.

FMS has been stitched together seven times in its 146-year existence (in 1924, 1926, 1938, 1946, 1951, 1997, 2003). One of those times involved President Franklin D. Roosevelt’s Works Progress Administration Grant (WPA). Depressionera workers built the flagstone wall in front of the school, the 600-seat grandstand and a cinder tract around the playing field.

The building that educates our community’s seventh graders was built in 1879, when women were wearing horsehair-ruffled petticoats. Fredericksburg College, served 150 adults from as far away as Galveston until 1884. Today, 217 seventh graders rush up and down its narrow staircase to the second floor.

The 300 building wasn’t ADA compliant when my two children roamed those same halls between 20122017. Walking the hallway with our eighth-grade tour guide Cassidy Kothmann and a handful of adults felt like being in a sardine can.

The 400 building was built for 130 students. Today, 224 eight graders settle into its classrooms.

Both my pre-teens were in PE and athletics at the middle school and they never once mentioned that the old gym’s sixth-grade locker room was prone to flooding during heavy rains and couldn’t be used on those days. In a gymnasium built in 1951, it’s no surprise that shower heads pop off plumbing fixtures when the water is running and that all toilet seats are blistered and peeling.

The new gym on the campus built in the 1990s isn’t much better. It has no air conditioning. A group of adults stood in it for five minutes and were drenched in sweat. Students have dubbed it “the plastic room,” its red-tile floors that look like plastic move from sideto-side, which is why sporting events are no longer played there.

Our tour guides joked that the middle school track is made of kitty litter. Because of the track’s small size, the track team has to run five laps to equal a mile. The small storage shed for equipment allows for only five hurdles because of space limitations.

Congress

“I have seven classes and I’ve started wearing two backpacks,” said Rylie Schmidt, an eighth-grader giving adults a tour on Sunday. “I wear one in front and another in back.”

It’s not just students who are dealing with worn-out facilities. Our teachers have adapted and made the most of this aging campus like

Capitol Highlights

By Gary Borders

Early voting began Monday for local elections and two proposed constitutional amendments relating to property tax reductions. Early voting continues through Tuesday, May 3, with election day on Saturday, May 7. One proposed amendment would authorize the Legislature to limit property taxes on homesteads of elderly or disabled residents, while the other would increase the homestead exemption for school taxes from $25,000 to $40,000.

Despite those conditions, my children received an excellent education thanks to the teachers, aides, librarians and counselors at FMS. My youngest who is at University of North Texas said he was glad Naomi Pyka drilled his seventhgrade English class on simple, compound and complex sentences. He said his FMS education is still helping him today.

The eighth-grade building also has a second floor, and it has an elevator because it was built in 1923. The passenger elevator fits two people and is operated by a key that doesn’t always catch, according to tour guides.

Voters return to the polls later in May for runoff elections in both the Democratic and Republican primaries. Voters cannot switch parties if they voted in the March 1 primary, but voters who didn’t vote in the primary can participate in either party’s runoff. A full list of runoff races can be found on the secretary of state’s website: sos.texas. gov. Early voting for the

Speaking of small, the standard classrooms sizes in all three buildings are not to Texas Administrative Code that mandates space requirements for a certain number of students in a space. The campus is not ADA compliant either.

These things listed here are just the tip of the iceberg at the middle school, there are many other needs.

I haven’t even touched on what the 26-member Advisory Committee made up of Fredericksburg residents said was needed at the elementary, primary and high schools.

The only solution I see is for Fredericksburg to either lose weight or buy a new blouse. Since losing weight isn’t a viable option, especially with our student population continuing to grow, I vote for the new shirt.

May 24 runoff begins on May 16.

“With multiple opportunities to vote in the upcoming May elections, I strongly encourage all Texas voters to get informed about what’s on the ballot and make a plan to cast one,” Secretary of State John Scott said. To find out what is on local ballots, contact your county’s local election office. Gary

Henry L. Joseph, a member of the Hill Country Memorial Hospital board of trustees since 1967, was re-elected president at the group’s annual meeting last Tuesday.

Local residents will have the opportunity to see the Gillespie County Fair float Thursday evening as it travels down Main Street from the Fredericksburg Coca-Cola corner (Edison Street) to the Nimitz Center corner. The Stonewall Peach JAMboree float will also be participating. Leading the floats will be the Fredericksburg High School Band.

The Arion Maennerchor is hosting the 70th Saengerfest of the Gillespie County Saengerbund, Sunday at the Turner Hall.

Vernon Doss has been elected the first president of a newly organized retired teachers’ group in Gillespie County. The Pedernales Retired Teachers Association has the distinction of being the 100th organization of its kind in Texas.

Twenty-five new trash receptacles are being installed in the downtown section of town this week. The wood and metal backet-type containers were built by the Industrial Arts classes at Fredericksburg High School. Plastic liners will be placed inside for easy removal of the trash.

Hill Country Memorial Hospital reported two births during the past week. A girl was born to Mr. and Mrs. Richard Prokopetz, April 18, while a boy was born to Mr. and Mrs. Timothy Morgan, Stonewall, April 21.

During a Sunday banquet, Stonewall

Letters To The Editor

Time to step up

I joined the staff at Fredericksburg Middle School as an assistant principal in 1978. Prior to that, all my teaching experience had been at the middle school level. I have a special place in my heart for the Middle School and the students who have attended that campus.

We all have a very important decision in the upcoming election. I know there has been much discussion about the proposed site and the utilization of the old campus. I appreciate the efforts of the citizens’ committee and respect their recommendation for a new site.

The plans for the usable buildings to house educational support services and reduce the number of portable buildings in the district are sound.

For me, however, the bottom line is that several of the buildings on the current campus are unacceptable as classrooms. One visit to the campus makes this fact very clear.

These are very important formative years for our kids. They deserve a better learning environment. We have the opportunity to avoid the state Robin Hood program, keeping 100% of our tax dollars local, while not increasing the tax rate. It is time for us to step up and do what is best for the students in our community.

Marc Williamson Fredericksburg

Not the ‘good doctor’

Concerning Tim Koock’s article about “Dr.” Schubbert.

I’m certain that I don’t have the credentials of Dr. Kearney and, unfortunately, I missed his presentation on April 21. However, and I don’t want to sound snippy here, I wrote an article in the October 1996 issue of the late, great “Enchanted Rock Magazine” about Mr. Schubbert.

Though Dr. Kearney and I agree about his arrival in Texas and his travels within the region, Schubbert’s preand post-Fredericksburg history is worth note.

Mr. Schubbert left a trail of dead bodies from Germany, to New York City, to St. Louis (he was a crack pistol shot and duelist) and into Texas. Also, he was no doctor.

Mr. Koock’s article may have glossed over many of the “Doctor’s” more nefarious exploits, but to me, they personify the endurance and determination of our early settlers to persevere despite the poor manage-

Mutual Aid Fire Association honored Hugo Weinheimer who is retiring from the board or directors of the association. For 50 years, Weinheimer was a member of the board and secretary of the organization.

Louis Jordan Post and Auxiliary of the American Legion hosted the 21st District Spring Convention over the weekend.

Diana Lynn Crenwelge, bride-elect of Vernon Haverlah, was complimented with a miscellaneous bridal shower Sunday afternoon at the American Legion Hall.

The St. Mary’s Indians baseball team defeated St. Anthony’s, 2-1.

The Indians’ track team finished in second in the TCIL District 4-AA meet in San Antonio last Saturday. The Indians qualified eight athletes in 11 events for the state meet to be held May 6 in Beaumont.

The Parish Softball League season begins Tuesday evening when Bethany plays the Methodists in the first game, and Zion and St. Mary’s clash in the second game.

The Boerne White Sox put the skids under the Fredericksburg Cubs Sunday afternoon as Boerne romped home with a 9-6 victory, the Cubs’ first loss of the season.

Hindsights Michael Barr ment and rivalries that must occur when you are trying something new, like settling raw country. After all, here we are.

See Mike Barr’s Hindsights column on page D5 of today’s edition.

The Standard welcome responsible letters provided they are of 300 words or less, free of libelous content and written in good taste. Letter writers are asked to submit their name, home address and phone number so we can verify you want your opinion published. Anonymous and chain letters will not be run. Letters may be edited for clarity, grammar and/or length, and writers may submit one letter per 30-days to give all a chance at participation. Letters may be delivered at the Standard-Radio Post at 712 W. Main St., Fredericksburg, TX 78624 or emailed to fbgnews@fredericksburgstandard.com.

Cork Morris Willow City

Visitor water use

In a recent editorial, it was suggested many water-saving practices we in Fredericksburg could implement to reduce our water consumption.

Fredericksburg has the second-largest daily consumption of water per capita outside of Travis County.

The editorial is right: water — or the lack of it — will be the death of Fredericksburg’s phenomenal growth.

One aspect that was not mentioned, however, are the motels, hotels and shortterm rentals that get booked every day of the year. This pseudo population consumes an extraordinary amount of water compared to the “per capita” of surrounding towns.

I’m not suggesting we do away with them. The direct and indirect revenue they bring to our town keep many people employed who are the lifeblood of the county.

However, it may explain why Fredericksburg is so high compared to our neighboring cities.

Edward J. Smith Fredericksburg

Day of Prayer

The first Thursday in May has for many years been officially called the National Day of Prayer. On May 5, a great many Americans throughout this great nation will take time to pray for our nation and all facets of our life — our state, national and local governments, our schools and colleges, and so on.

Locally, we have also observed this day in community prayer, and if ever our nation and our state and community need to pray, it is now! So far, I have not heard as to whether there will be a local observance of NDP, come May 5. If there is such an observance, would somebody please let me know where and when we’ll come together on that day.

I hope our community and all communities throughout the Hill Country will take time to come together, asking for God’s mercy on us.

Cordially,

Duncan Holmes Fredericksburg