News

By Curtis Chubb, Special to the Herald

Two positions on the Cameron ISD school board and three positions on the Cameron City Council will be up for election May 7.
The seats subject to the school board election are currently held by trustees Alan Patterson and Jason Dohnalik. The trustee terms are for three years.
Current board President Patterson and former president Dohnalik are both C.H. Yoe High School graduates. Dohnalik was first elected to the board in 2007 and Patterson has served since 2010.
Positions up for the city council election this year are mayor and council representatives for Wards 2 and 4.
By law, the elections are held jointly the first Saturday in May.
Connie Anderle has served as mayor since 2009 and current representatives are Bobby Schiller, who has served three terms in Ward 2, and Roselee Mondrik, who is completing her 13th term as Ward 4 representative, serving since 1990.

The Cameron Chamber of Commerce will host its annual banquet Tuesday, March 8.
In preparation for the annual event, chamber officials are asking the community for input on candidates for several of the annual awards. The awards are Organization of the Year, Citizen of the Year, Business of the Year and Volunteer of the Year.
According to a press release, nominations - including brief descriptions of how the nominees meets the criteria for the awards - should be submitted by Feb. 22.
The Volunteer of the Year award is given to an individual who has demonstrated involvement and enthusiasm by giving time and service to a variety of events in support of the community.
The Organization of the Year award is given to a non-profit community organization that shows commitment and volunteerism in community projects and demonstrates compassion, humility and nondiscrimination.

By Curtis Chubb, Special to the Herald

The Milam County Courthouse, Cameron city offices and the campuses and offices of Cameron ISD are closed today for the Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. holiday.

The Cameron City Council meeting regularly held on the third Monday of the month has been rescheduled for Tuesday at 5:30 p.m. in City Hall.

Also observing the holiday are financial institutions, state and federal offices, including the U.S. Postal Service.

This year is the 30th annual observance. The bill creating the federal holiday to honor the late civil rights leader was proposed by Representative Katie Hall of Indiana and signed by President Ronald Reagan at the White House Rose Garden on Nov. 2, 1983, President Ronald Reagan. It was observed for the first time on January 20, 1986.

At Monday’s school board meeting, Yoe High School National Honor Society students (front) Carrie Pommerening, Jasmin Castillo, Elizabeth Gutierrez, and Rocio Saucedo helped their principal Ken Driska (far left) and Assistant Principal Brian Stork (far right) honor the Cameron ISD School Board during School Board Appreciation Month. Behind them are trustees James Burks, Daniel Willie, Alan Patterson, Greg Hoelscher,  Jason Dohnalik, Franci Denio and James Thompson with Superintendent Allan Sapp.

Although Monday’s meeting of the Milam County Commissioners Court was the first of 2016, the meeting’s discussions and actions centered on the events of last year.
Milam County Judge David Barkemeyer reviewed the financial status of the county at the beginning of the meeting. He focused on the general fund first – the general fund is everything except the finances for the four road and bridge precincts.
Although the 2015 budget counted $900,000 of reserve funds as part of the budgeted income, the reserves weren’t needed because other income exceeded expectations by $427,600 and the total expenditures were $578,700 less than budgeted.
The end-result was that the county was able to protect the general fund reserve account – and even add $106,300 to it. The county starts 2016 with $826,000 in the general fund reserve – instead of zero as predicted when the 2015 budget was approved.

By Curtis Chubb, Special to the Herald

A Belton man who led law enforcement on a deadly high-speed chase through three counties last spring has pleaded guilty to murder in the death of a pedestrian.
John Fitzgerald Page, Jr., 26, of Belton, entered a plea of guilty to first degree felony murder before Judge John W. Youngblood Monday afternoon, according to a statement released by District Attorney Bill Torrey.
The incident occurred March 15, 2015 when the car Page was driving struck Guadalupe Rodriguez of Buckholts during the high-speed chase.
Page will be sentenced by the judge after a hearing next month that will include results of a pre-sentence investigation and testimony from witnesses for both the defense and the prosecution. Torrey said the hearing will likely be held in April.
Sentencing range is five to 50 years and Page is not eligible for probation, Torrey said.

44 Farms of Cameron ranked fourth in the 2016 Beef Seedstock 100, the beef industry’s premier listing of the top 100 bull sellers in the U.S.
The list is published in the January issue of BEEF magazine. The operations were ranked by the total number of bulls each operation sells annually.
The news comes just weeks before the annual 44 Farms Spring Bull Sale, set Feb. 27 at the farm off CR 227 near Cameron.
“Last year, the response to our Seedstock 100 list was tremendous. We heard from cattle producers throughout the country about how valuable the list was to them. Cow-calf producers are spending more money on genetics to increase the value of the calves and we want to provide more information as they make cutting edge decisions,” says Burt Rutherford, senior editor of BEEF magazine.