SPORTS
ORANGE COUNTY
Commentary
FISHING
Kaz’s Korner
Capt. Dickie Colburn Page 1 Section B
Joe Kazmar Page 2 Section B
Outdoors
“My Two Cents”
Capt. Chuck Uzzle Page 1 Section B
Sen. Robert Nichols
HUNTING & FISHING
Page 7 Section A
County Record TheRecordLive.com
Vol. 58 No. 36
The Community Newspaper of Orange, Texas
Week of Wednesday, January 4, 2017
New justice Hershel Stagner set for ‘People’s Court’ Dave Rogers
For The Record
After 40 hours of training and a couple of weeks of shadowing his peers on their daily rounds, Hershel Stagner has a better understanding of his new job. And beginning today, it’s go-time for the new Justice of the Peace of Orange County’s Precinct 1. Stagner officially ended the only other full-time job he’s ever had with a Tuesday night country club send-off by his employers of 36 years, Claybar Funeral Home, and he’ll be sworn into office today. “I was looking for a way of continuing my service to the community,” he said, “and I’ll be doing that, especially for the citizens of Precinct 1, and for all the citizens of Orange County when I’m on call.
Then I’ll be Justice of the Peace for the whole county.” Precinct 1 covers the northeast portion of Orange Stagner County. How the county’s four JPs work their one-week a month rotations as magistrate for the county jail and on-call to attend to deaths other than of natural causes are among the things Stagner has learned since Nov. 29, when he was appointed to fill the nearly two-years unfilled term of Judge David Peck, who retired because of his health. But you can bet Stagner did his homework. He said in a November interview he was looking into running for of-
fice as JP in 2018, before he heard of Peck’s early retirement. And he said Monday he knew early on he wanted to be a funeral director.
“In the seventh grade I wrote a paper for class and said a funeral director was what I wanted to be,” he said. Stagner said he always liked science and he was impressed
by an early exposure to funeral directors. “In junior high I started experiencing the deaths of my grandparents and I talked to funeral directors then and
that piqued my interest,” he said. “I’d always had an interest in science, but I didn’t know STAGNER Page 3A
New Year, New Terms For Elected Officials
WO-S grad rolls with Crimson Tide Dave Rogers
For The Record
Deionte Thompson just missed out on back-to-back state high school championships with the West OrangeStark Mustangs. Call it bad timing. Or not. Thompson is looking to help Alabama win back-toback national college football championships next Monday when the Crimson Tide faces off against Clemson. While WO-S knocked off Celina 22-3 and won the 2015 Class 4A title, Thompson was redshirting his first season at Alabama, watching as the Tide defeated Clemson 45-40 to win the NCAA championship. This time, the 6-foot-2, 190-pound defensive back is a special teams stalwart and backup safety for coach Nick Saban’s Tide, which is 14-0 and attempting to be the first wire-to-wire No. 1 ranked
“Cast all your anxieties on him, for he cares about you.” 1 Peter 5:7
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TheRecordLive.com
Orange County elected officials smile for the cameras after taking their oaths of office at a Swearing-In ceremony at the 128th District Courtroom on New Year’s Day. From left, they are constable Lane Mooney, sheriff Keith Merritt, county clerk Brandy Robertson, county commissioners John Gothia and Johnny Trahan, tax assessor-collector Karen Fisher and constable Mark Philpott. All were elected or re-elected to office in November with their new terms starting Jan. 1, 2017. RECORD PHOTO: Dave Rogers
Deionte Thompson is looking to help Alabama win back-toback national college football championships next Monday when the Crimson Tide faces off against Clemson.
team to win a national championship since Southern California in 2004. That seems like a pretty good consolation prize for missing the 16-0 Mustang season that ended just before Christmas with a 24-6 win over Sweetwater. “It’s a big thrill to see one of your athletes on TV like that,” West Orange-Stark coach Cornel Thompson said of Deionte Thompson. “He’ll make a big contribution there before he’s through. He’s smart. He doesn’t make mistakes and he makes great decisions. So his time is coming.” Deionte Thompson has been credited with seven tackles for the Southeastern Conference champs in 2016, including two each against Ole Miss and Florida. At WO-S, Thompson intercepted 15 passes as a two-way standout, playing both receiver and defensive back. He was a senior on the Mustangs’ 2014 state championship runner-up squad. He was one of the top recruits in the nation in the winter of 2015, picking Alabama over Florida State, LSU, Stanford, Texas, Texas A&M and Southern Cal.
‘Catastrophe’ averted Carlton reports Dave Rogers
For The Record
A stable tax rate and a substantial increase in the fund balance are the highlights of a “2017 State of the County” report compiled by Orange County Judge Stephen Brint Carlton. “Our decisions have saved the county from a financial catastrophe,” he said. But the report shows the fund balance (also known as “rainy day fund”) still needs improvement and goes on to highlight unfunded employee and retiree benefit obligations that are on “an unsus-
tainable trajectory.” Carlton, beginning the third year of his four-year term as the top executive for a Carlton county of 83,000 population and about 400 employees issued a fourpage version of his “State of the County” report to media members and promised more details online at http://www. co.orange.tx.us/County_ Judge.html . A half-dozen charts accom-
panied the form sent to media members. They showed that the fund balance had increased from a deficit of $3 million in fiscal year 2013-14 to a positive balance of $7.8 million for 201617. But he prefaced the chart by saying the Texas Association of Counties recommends counties have a fund balance equal to 25 percent of annual expenditures, which would be $11.5 million for 2016-17. Charts also showed that unfunded liabilities in health and life insurance benefits for current and retired employees nearly doubled in four
years. Carlton includes a chart that shows county tax rates, taxable values and revenues from 2000 to 2016 to counter a question posed by some county employees in recent budget hearings – why doesn’t the county just raise the property tax rates to pay for increasing benefit costs and expenditures? It shows that while the tax rate did not increase in 2016, since Y2K the tax rate has gone up 10 percent as taxable values in the county increased at a 59 percent rate, STATE OF THE Page 2A
Sky is the limit for Oragefield vaulter Dave Rogers
For The Record
To say that Brooklyn Goldsmith has lofty goals is putting it mildly. But what else would you expect from a pole vaulter? Goldsmith, a senior at Orangefield High, set a school girls pole vault record of 10 feet, 9 inches a year ago when she finished eighth at the state meet. She is looking to jump up
in results in 2017. “My goal this season is for 12-9,” she said. And that’s not all. “She told me last year Goldsmith that she went to state, and she got to witness that and do what she could,” recalled Joe Peevey, Orangefield’s pole vault
coach, in a recent interview. “This year, she wants to medal.” But first things first, after all. “We’ve got to start the season first,” she said. “That’s very wise,” Peevey said. “You can’t get too ahead of yourself.” Goldsmith began her vault training in December, working out at the West OrangeStark track while the Orangefield track undergoes a reno-
vation. Her first competition will be Jan. 14 at the McNeese Invitational Indoor track meet. She will compete there with the Beaumont Track Club since her Orangefield track teammates will wait for their 2017 debut. It will be her first indoor meet. Goldsmith actually began training for her senior year SKY IS THE LIMIT Page 2A
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