Sweetwater Reporter (Sweetwater, Tex.), Vol. 113, No. 132, Ed. 1 Sunday, April 17, 2011 Page: 3 of 20
twenty pages : ill.View a full description of this newspaper.
Extracted Text
The following text was automatically extracted from the image on this page using optical character recognition software:
Sweetwater Reporter
Sunday, April 17, 2011 ■ Page A3
Obituaries
RONALD GENE HOWELL
RONALD GENE HOWELL
ARLINGTON — Ronald Gene Howell, 79, beloved hus-
band, father and grandfather, passed away on Tuesday,
April 12, 2011 in Arlington.
A memorial service will be held at 1 p.m. on Saturday,
April 16, 2011, at Fielder Road Baptist Church, 2011
S. Fielder Road in Arlington. Interment will be at 10
a.m. on Saturday, April 16, 2011,
at Moore Memorial Gardens in
Arlington. The family will receive
friends on Friday, April 15, 2011,
from 6-8 p.m. at Wade Family
Funeral Home, 4140 W. Pioneer
Parkway, Arlington.
Memorials: AWARE Foundation,
P.O. Box 152091, Arlington, TX
76015-9993-
Ronald was born on June 30,
1931, in Colorado City, TX to Buford
B. Howell and Minnie Alice Vest
Howell. He worked as a research
chemist for Johnson and Johnson.
Ronald was a member of Fielder
Road Baptist Church. He will be
dearly missed by all those who
knew and loved him.
Ronald is preceded in death by his parents; first wife,
Ann; and brother, Jerry Howell.
Survivors include his wife, Sherry Kever Howell; sons,
Ronald Gene Howell, Jr. and wife, Brenda and Brian
Howell and wife, Heather; daughter, Alice Browder
and husband, Jim; step children, Marsha Wolfe and
husband, Dr. Paul Wolfe and Lisa Harry and husband,
Dr. David Harry; seven grandchildren; and six step
grandchildren.
JUANITA MARIE DICKERSON
Funeral services for Juanita Marie Dickerson, 82,
of Sweetwater, will be held at 10 a.m. on Monday,
April 18, 2011, at Avondale Baptist Church with Rev.
Jason Shuttlesworth officiating. Interment will follow
at Newman Cemetery under the direction of McCoy
Funeral Home.
Visitation will be held from 2-4 p.m. on Sunday, April
17, 2011, at McCoy Funeral Home.
Dickerson died Thursday, April 14, 2011, in Abilene.
She was born Sept. 1, 1928, in Brownwood. She mar-
ried Thelbert L. Dickerson on Jan. 24,1945, in Sylvester.
Juanita lived in Fisher and Nolan Counties most of her
life. She was a member of Avondale Baptist Church of
Sweetwater and was a longtime member of the VFW
Ladies Auxiliary. She had worked as a bookkeeper for
Western Auto, "the Village Market as a cashier and 18
years for the Sweetwater Reporter as a bookkeeper. She
and T.L. retired in 1989. Juanita and T.L. were married
for 66 years.
Survivors include her husband, Thelbert L. Dickerson
of Sweetwater; sons, Larry Dickerson and wife Cyndi of
Midland and Michael Dickerson of Sweetwater; daugh-
ter, Teresa Kratzer and husband Deryl of Hudson, Ohio;
brother, Paul McCollum of Sweetwater; seven grand-
children; six great-grandchildren; and two great-great-
grandsons.
She was preceded in death by her parents, Luther and
Stella McCollum; two brothers; and two sisters.
Pallbearers will be Aubrey Crowley, Montie Williams,
James Williams, Mike Corley, Randy Petty and Gary
Watson.
Honorary pallbearer will be Lowell Williams.
Nolan County hosts
small acreage
landowner workshop
SWEETWATER - The Texas AgriLife Extension
Service office in Nolan County will conduct a four-part
series of small-acreage landowner workshops. The first
was held from 6-8 p.m. on Monday, April 11 in the
Extension Meeting Room on the third floor of the Nolan
County Courthouse in Sweetwater.
Other sessions are scheduled for April 26, May 10 and
May 24, said Zachary Wilcox, AgriLife Extension agent
in Nolan County.
'These workshops will each have different subject-
matter material, but all are geared to the person with
a few acres seeking information on what to do with it,"
Wilcox said.
The first workshop's agenda will include topics on
plant identification, controlling annual and perennial
weeds, sprayer calibration, herbicide modes of action
and resources featuring online plant identification.
Two Texas Department of Agriculture continuing edu-
cation units will be available in the general category.
Individual registration is $10 and payable at the
door.
For more information call Wilcox at 325-236-6912.
Calmer winds could
help Texas firefighters
ANGELA K. BROWN
Associated Press
GRAHAM, Texas (AP) — A Texas official says winds
are calming down and that should help efforts to control
wildfires that have killed one firefighter, destroyed doz-
ens of homes and forced hundreds of evacuations on the
state's parched ranchlands.
Steve Deffibaugh of the Texas Forest Service said
firefighters should be able to make progress Saturday
in containing blazes that have consumed hundreds of
square miles in recent days.
Deffibaugh says roads reopened Saturday around
Possum Kingdom Lake, allowing residents to assess
damage in an area about 120 miles west of Dallas where
at least 30 homes burned.
Another official says an evacuation order has been
lifted in a small West Texas town.
The National Weather Service says winds should be
around 10 mph Saturday. They were about five times
stronger the day before.
% w
rTIia/t/i J/oit
^Tlte t77oioetss\ ox
(xf/v/s'i {/h( tfi/Httje/ss /n
f7u/ie Seed. c/(l'< (/.t/weciateS/t.
t/'/e/ie (/fb//e/'
105-year-old Texas cowboy
loses houses to wildfire
ASPERMONT, Texas (AP) — N.L. Winter says that in
his 106 years on die rolling plains of West Texas, he has
never seen anything like the fires of the past week.
The man known to friends and family as "Boss" saw
three of the homes where he has lived" burn in a vast
wildfire that spread across his ranch and parts of four
counties north of Abilene.
"It is the worst fire I've ever seen," he told the Abilene
Reporter-News.
Among the places reduced to ashes was the half-
dugout where he was born on April 30,1905. Five years
later, his father built a two-room house about a half-mile
away. That's gone now, too. So is the house where Boss
and his late first wife, Leta, raised their three children
He's cried a few* fears," said daughter Betty Rash
Whigham, 81, of Abilene.
Gladys Winter, Boss' 99-year-old second wife who
married the lifelong cowboy in 1991, lost the home
where she lived for 46 years.
"It was devastating," she said.
The houses, all unoccupied, were among eight build-
ings that burned on Boss' 1,400-acre Winter Estate
ranch thai burned in what the Texas Forest Service
had named the Swenson Fire. That fire blackened 162
square miles of rolling plains about 50 miles northwest
of Abilene and 170 miles west of Fort Worth.
Boss says he remembers the day in 1910 when, at age
5, his family moved into the two-room house. His chin
quivered as he used two canes to move up close to its
ruins.
"It stood right where he put it until last week," he said.
"When I see this, I think about home sweet home."
Boss still likes a chew of tobacco, saying that he started
sneaking chew from his father when "he was 4.
"He kept it in-between the mattresses to keep it
moist," he said. "I'd slip in there and get me a little chew
while he was out."
Although this week has been the worst, Boss Winter is
no stranger to drought.
When e was 13 in 1918, a drought forced his father
and him to drive their horses and cattle about 110 miles
to the northwest to near Palo Duro Canyon on the High
Plains. He remembers the covered wagon they used to
get there and the tent in which they lived.
Fires
Continued from page A1
homes on Friday, officials said.
Strong winds were fueling fires that spanned about
655 square miles, according to the Texas Forest Service.
Some of the fires have been burning for a week or more,
including three in West Texas that h ve charred a com-
bined 400,000 acres.
Volunteer firefighter Gregory M. Simmons, 51, died
while battling a 3,000-acre laze Friday afternoon near
Eastland, a town about 130 miles west of 'alias, Mayor
Mark Pipkin said. Simmons had been a firefighter for
two decades, including 11 years with Eastland's fire
department, the mayor said.
"Apparently he was overcome by smoke, fell in a ditch
and was consumed" by the fire, said Justice of the Peace
James King, who pronounced Simmons dead at the
scene along a rural road
No other injuries have been reported.
A blaze destroyed about 30 homes and left a thick
gray haze across the sky as it burned about 20,000 acres
around Possum King. 5m Lake, a p< jular recreation
spot a be t 120 miles west of Dallas. Officials closed the
surrounding state park and evacuated campsites, fear-
ing that the fire would block off the only access roads to
the wooded area.
"The fire, it's a bad one," Texas Parks and Wildlife
Department spokesman Rob McCorkle said. "This is
pretty unusual to have this many fires going across the
state at the time."
Three large fires burning in Wichita County, about
150 miles northwest of Dallas near the Oklahoma
border, had lestroyed about 30 homes. Wildfires also
prompted officials to evacuate Gorman, a city of about
1,200 residents.
"The school, the nursing home and the whole city has
been evacuated," Gorman City Clerk Jill Rainey said.
Evacuations also were ordered for about 200 homes
in the Possum Kingdom area and some in small com-
munities north of San Angelo and Andrews, along the
Texas-New Mexico border. Shelters were set up for
people who had to leave their homes.
A military housing complex near Sheppard Air Force
Base in Wichita Falls was evacuated for about wo hours
as the fire threatened to move in, but no buildings were
damaged, base spokesman George Woodward said.
"It got close enough to scare a lot of people," Woodward
said.
Some of the fires have been raging for days, though
winds on Friday helped flames race across pastures and
roadsides to consume areas the size of a football field in
a minute.
Strong winds are typical for spring, but this March
was the driest in Texas since 1895, said Texas Forest
Service spokeswoman Holly Huffman.
In West Texas, a fire that started by a 10 days ago
had grown to about 105,000 acres in Stonewall, King
and Knox counties by Friday, while another 149,000-
acre fire that began earlier this week continued raging
in Kent, Stonewall and Fisher counties. A separate fire
in the area that started nearly a week ago has spread to
165,000 acres in Jeff Davis County, about 200 miles
east of El Paso.
"There's an overabundance of very dry vegetation and
it serves as kindling," Huffman sail
McCorkle said strong winds were increasing the
chance that the fire near Possum Kingdom State Park
could close off the only roads accessing the area, so
county officials asked that the park be closed,
This being a weekend, it would probably be pretty
full," MeCo le said. "They wanted to get everybody
out."
Associated Pi-ess writers Juan Carlos Llorca in El
Paso, and Matt Curry and Linda Stewart Ball in Dallas
contributed to this report.
McVeyi
fflkrserjj. c
Native Texas Trees & Plants • Bedding
Herb & Vegetable Plants • Hanging Baskets
Pottery & Wrought Iron
502 FM 1170 • Maryneal, Texas 79535
1 Mile South of Maryneal
Monday - Friday 9am - 6pm • Saturday 9am - 2pm
325.370.3815
Nobody hurt in Central
Texas fire at storage site
TEMPLE, Texas (AP) — Nobody has been hurt in a fire
at an industrial business in Central Texas and crews moni-
tored the blaze as it burned for a second day.
Temple Fire Department spokesman Thomas Pechal
(PEK'-ul) says the fire was under control Friday at a storage
facility at Forta Corp.
Pechal told The Associated Press that the fire site origi-
nally was identified as a recycling facility operated by
Temple Iron arid Metal Co. Pechal says it was later deter-
mined that the fire, which broke out Thursday night, hap-
pened at the Forta facility located on Temple Iron and
Metal property.
He says the area that burned is a storage facility for bulk
laminate, which is commonly used to make countertops.
Trip
Continued from page A1
the men ended up in an area outside of Reynosa with about
500 people, many who lived in shelters made up of any
and all kinds of materials. Much to the surprise of Stowe,
the houses were very clean and the people were doing their
best to make a home in spite of the oppression and poor
economy and work situations.
Surrounded by a river, the men crossed into an area that
went from bad to worse. Goff had been in the area only six
weeks before but as he and Stowe went back, they found
that a flood had come and wiped everything away, and the
people were gone.
In some time, however, a few survivors were found.
Stowe and Goff distributed Spanish bibles to the people
and small pamphlets to the children. Stowe was reassured
in meeting with them that through their trials, the people
still trusted in God.
And even though Pastor Stowe experienced some dif-
ficulty in communicating with the people, he knew that
God led him to speak to the Mexican people and connect
with them.
One of the most vibrant memories of his time in Reynosa
was when the men were approached by who they believed
to be the cartel. Stowe knew going in that the cartel could
prove to be dangerous, but he felt God's grace in the situa-
tion. Through their taxi driver, they told the cartels that the
men were giving rice and beans to the people in need. The
cartel praised their efforts, and simply drove away.
Stowe believes that God gave them favor with the cartels,
in light of the spiritual warfare that was and is present in
the area.
The second area the men entered into was slightly differ-
ent, as Stowe recollected their 19 year old taxi driver who
took them to an area called "White Christmas", a very poor
populated area.
Some people were reached but due to the livelihood of
poverty, most of the people had left and moved on. The
men ministered and fed the people and were even surprised
to learned that the people still prayed though the place had
no pastors or churches. By the end of their time with him,
the nineteen year old driver showed interest in the men's
efforts and was excited to take part in the mission.
The final stop was in the town of Nuevo Laredo, in which
Pastor Stowe said was "totally different" and didn't have
as much activity as the other towns. The town was very
desolate and was heavily barricaded by the strong sense of
military presence.
They even had trouble finding a taxi driver and finally
found the only one in the area. Though somewhat hesitant,
the taxi driver told the men that the poor were taken care
of yet reluctantly took part. Stowe remembered this leg of
the trip being led completely by faith because with stores
closed down, Stowe and Golf didn't know where to go.
Finally, the men found people to feed and were eventual-
ly led to other groups of people who lived in a building, who
were too scared to initially come out to the men because of
fear, some which stemmed from the cartel.
"We're trying to fight a spiritual battle," said Stowe, "but
not against the cartel. We're in a spiritual battle against
Satan."
One special impression from the time in Nueva Laredo
was when the people directed Stowe and Goff to a lady
named Rosita, a woman who fell and hurt her back. And
because of the lack of medical care, she became paralyzed
in her legs and could not walk.
Rosita was surprised by the visit, but the men told her
their reason for coming and gave her money and food. She
was moved by their mission work and told them that she
had been praying to God for someone to visit her to ward
off her loneliness. Through Pastor Stowe and missionary
Goff, her prayer had been answered and the men prayed
with her for God's comfort and healing.
Stowe found the people of Reynosa to be very accepting,
while the other two areas shied away from the men at first.
But as he recalled, by the time they left the cities, they left
seeing people with smiles on their faces.
He strongly believes his trip brought the light of Christ to
a very dark place and is inspired to go back to Reynosa and
shepherd the people. The next trip is scheduled for April
28-30, with trips to follow about once a month and take
part in the same efforts.
His eventual goal is even to hopefully connect with the
cartel, but as for now he is waiting for God to open that
door. Also, as God leads, Stowe plans to make trips to other
areas as well.
Once he shared his journey with his congregation, the
people were touched by the trip. One member is possibly
joining Stowe on the next trip to minister as a mother fig-
ure and to pray with the women and children and reach the
people as God directs.
Pastor Stowe extends his appreciation to those who
prayed for him on the trip, citing that he could feel the
prayers and knew God's presence was with him. As the
trips to Mexico continue, Stowe also asks for the prayers to
keep coming.
And whether he goes with a large group or goes on his
own, Pastor Stowe will go back to Mexico, because as he
plainly put it, "There's still a need."
Lucky Brand Shoe Sale!!
Take 40% OFF
our Instock Lucky Brand Shoes
AprirWth - April 23rd!
Hackf eld's
Qta
(MOop Stimm Sta 3393D
Upcoming Pages
Here’s what’s next.
Search Inside
This issue can be searched. Note: Results may vary based on the legibility of text within the document.
Tools / Downloads
Get a copy of this page or view the extracted text.
Citing and Sharing
Basic information for referencing this web page. We also provide extended guidance on usage rights, references, copying or embedding.
Reference the current page of this Newspaper.
Sweetwater Reporter (Sweetwater, Tex.), Vol. 113, No. 132, Ed. 1 Sunday, April 17, 2011, newspaper, April 17, 2011; (https://texashistory.unt.edu/ark:/67531/metapth229448/m1/3/: accessed April 30, 2024), University of North Texas Libraries, The Portal to Texas History, https://texashistory.unt.edu; crediting Sweetwater/Nolan County City-County Library.