From left, Westlake High School juniors Dana Capotosto, Raina Kishan, Angela Jin and Andrea Núñez-Smith get into the spirit of the evening prior to the school prom Saturday.

By Jessica Stenglein
Special to the Picayune

Westlake High School students dressed in some of their fanciest clothes Saturday and gathered at the Austin Convention Center for the annual junior and senior prom. This year’s theme, Somewhere Over the Rainbow, was chosen by Chemistry II teacher Denise DeMartino.
Prom was put together in part by the prom committee, a group of juniors who were selected to give their input and come up with ideas for decorations and invitations. This year, the committee was headed by junior Angela Jin who was selected by DeMartino. Other student volunteers made up the rest of the committee.
“[My job on the committee was] to oversee the progress, give input to design ideas, make the prom posters with other committee members and make the prom playlist,” Jin said.
The prom committee met several times throughout the year and hired a designer and carpenter to help make their ideas a reality. Music was provided by a DJ and a playlist created by Jin. The committee worked hard to make this year’s event successful.
“The best part about being on prom committee was getting to give my input on what I thought would be good ideas for decorations and other aspects of prom, and then getting to see all of the ideas that the committee came up with come to life,” junior Mary Travis said. “My favorite thing about prom was coming in the morning of the dance with the rest of the committee [to set up] the decorations and getting a sneak peak of what was to come.”
Before attending prom, many students took pictures with their friends, rented limos and went to eat at some of Austin’s more upscale restaurants. Getting ready for all of this starts hours before for many students however.
“Getting ready for prom is a really crazy and long process, but it’s fun,” junior Casey Sutton said. “My mom and I made a day out of it, so it turned into a good mother-daughter bonding experience. Every girl loves to feel like a princess so the prom preparation process is incredible.”
After parties are an important part of prom night and students continue their fun after leaving the dance.
“After prom was by far my favorite part of the night,” Sutton said. “I made some new friends and became closer with old friends, and everyone just had an all-around great time. It was by far a night that I will never forget.”
Throughout the night, students made memories that will last a lifetime. They were able to focus solely on having fun especially after many students took Advance Placement exams over the previous two weeks.
“My favorite thing about prom was seeing everyone all dressed up and having [fun],” Jin said. “For once, there wasn’t any stress about school, and we were all just there for a good time.”
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PhotoS by Esther Robards-Forbes

P. Terry’s burger stand is set to open June 1 in the Village at Westlake shopping center. Photo by Esther Robards-Forbes

Representatives of two long-awaited restaurant in the Westbank have set opening dates and are in high gear to prepare for their big days.
First on the menu is the newest location of P. Terry’s burger stand in the Village at Westlake shopping center, 701 S. Capital of Texas Highway. It is set to open June 1.
The new location will be the company’s largest at 3,500 square feet and will feature two drive-through lanes and seating for 100.
“We have a lot of friends, a lot of good customers that have been asking for this store for almost seven years and to be able to finally land a great location in West Lake is incredibly exciting,” said owner and founder Patrick Terry.
The restaurant has faced a few challenges over the past few months to prepare a former bank location to become a restaurant, everything from parking to staffing.
As for opening-day plans, Terry said, “We always have some surprises on opening day and June 1 at Westlake will have plenty of fun things going on. I’ll give you a hint on one surprise -we’ve added two things to this menu that are currently not at any other P. Terry’s.”
For more information, visit pterrys.com.
Just down the street at the new location of Blue Dahlia Bistro, which made a name for itself with its popular 11th street location. Crews are hard at work to prepare for the June 8 opening. The restaurant is opening in the former Wild Wood Art Café location in West Lake Court shopping center near the intersection of Westbank Drive and Bee Cave Road.
“It is the coolest thing to watch our dream of a second restaurant unfold and become a reality,” said owner Amy Ramirez.
The French-inspired bistro features elegantly simple food that uses organic and local ingredients whenever possible. The menu features breakfast, lunch and dinner options, as well as beer and wine.
“It’s been quite a rollercoaster of emotions, equally exciting and exhausting,” Ramirez said of the construction process. “We spend so much time working on the place, at some point, we broke down and bought an air mattress to keep at the location so we could get naps in.”
There will be a ribbon cutting with champagne at 5 p.m. June 8 to celebrate the grand opening, Ramirez said.
“I’m most looking forward to feeding and greeting the many people that have popped their head in throughout construction to tell us how excited they are for us to be here in Westlake,” she said.
For more information and a peek at the menu, visit bluedahliabistro.com.

BELOW: Blue Dahlia Bistro is set to open June 8 in West Lake Court shopping center near the intersection of Westbank Drive and Bee Cave Road.

Bus driver Randall Rohr prepares to head out on the Number 30 Barton Creek route for Capital Metro, which takes him through the heart of the Westbank every day. Photo by Esther Robards-Forbes

Randall Rohr lives to move people.

Literally and figuratively.

Each morning, Rohr, 53, rises well before 5 a.m. to start the early morning shift for the Capital Metro Number 30 Barton Creek route that runs down Walsh Tarlton and through the heart of the Westbank. That early, it’s just the stars and moon and the occasional deer, Rohr said, but as soon as he gets to his first stop, there are already a few sleepy souls waiting, heading to work and school.

“I enjoy the public, and I enjoy being outdoors,” Rohr said. “I’m not an office person. I like being on different routes and seeing different scenery and different people.”

For the 26 years he’s been driving the Number 30 route on and off, Rohr has had an eye-level view of the changing city. He’s seen skyscrapers rise and fall, streets change names and all kinds of people come through town.

“I watched the Austonian, the tallest building in town, rise floor by floor,” he said. “I’ve watched most of the skyscrapers get built. And I’ve had to deal with all the construction detours that go along with them.”

He sees people on their best and worst days. He’s even made friends with a few passengers along the way.

“The other day, there was a lady that got on that had just been fired from her job,” he said. “She was crying her eyes out, and I’m trying to drive and tell her it’s going to be alright.”

When he leaves his bus route in the afternoons, Rohr heads over to his second job as house manager for Bass Concert Hall. Just like driving a bus, it’s all about dealing with the public, but when they come to see a show at the iconic venue, Rohr is there to make sure they are moved in a very different way.

“That’s my really fun job,” Rohr said. “We see all different kinds of people. We might have a concert or a ballet or a kids’ show. It’s really challenging and rewarding.”

Over the past 19 years, he has seen just about every show to come through Bass Concert Hall, but the recent production of “Wicked” is his favorite.

This hardworking bus driver recently took a little detour that has nothing to do with road construction. On a recent trip to the iPic movie theater in the Domain, Rohr saw a flier for a short film contest on environmental protection. An avid environmentalist, Rohr was enticed by the $4,000 prize, which he knew a lot of the nonprofits he volunteers with could use. It was also a subject close to his heart, not only because he works in public transportation, but also because he’s been known to spend his free time cleaning up parks and planting trees.

He decided to turn his hand to a new adventure: filmmaking.

The challenge: the deadline was less than a week away.

“I picked up my camera and headed to Zilker Park, Pease Park and filmed under the Montopolis Bridge,” he said. “We got everything done and edited and in to the contest in time.”

Rohr’s film, “Earth Day, Every Day,” clocks in at just over two minutes long and features a simple message, treat every day like Earth Day, imposed over gorgeous shots of some of Austin’s loveliest scenery.

“The whole point of the movie was to educate the public about recycling and being earth-friendly,” Rohr said. “It’s called ‘Earth Day, Every Day’ because I think we should pick up trash every day, plant a tree every day, recycle every day. Do something every day, not just on Earth Day.”

Rohr’s film made it through several rounds of competition online and at screenings in Austin. It was one of two films chosen from among 78 entries from Austin. “Earth Day, Every Day” went up against 15 other films chosen from among hundreds from around the country. He credits his fans with getting him through the competition.

The film didn’t make it past the final round, but that’s not a bad showing for a first-time filmmaker, and Rohr has discovered a hidden talent and a whole new way to move people.

“If one person or two people saw that movie and were inspired to do something, I’ve done my job,” Rohr said.

So what’s next for this budding filmmaker?

“I have to be inspired,” Rohr said. “I don’t just pick up the camera and make a film. This subject was very inspiring. If later on down the road, I get inspired, if it’s my passion, I’ll do another one.”

Visit http://bit.ly/KYTItw to view Rohr’s film.
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Bond money paid for the renovation of the problematic Hill Country Middle School track and field that was deemed unsafe due to constant soil shifts leading to the buckling and warping of the track and dangerous holes in the field area.

Hill Country Middle School is throwing a party Wednesday to celebrate the reopening of its track and field area.

The celebration will begin with a ribbon cutting and a ceremonial lap around the track by former Hill Country athletes at 3:30 p.m. After the maiden lap, students, then staff and finally Hill Country parents will hoof it around the new track surface for  400-meter runs and test out the artificial turf covering the field inside the loop.

“The new playfields will not only increase opportunities for student use, but also provide an improved facility for community members and third-party rentals,” said Claudia McWhorter, district communications director.

The Hill Country track and field was redesigned and rebuilt using $1.53 million in designated 2011 bond money. That renovation solved a costly problem that had plagued the Eanes school district for decades. An unstable clay subsurface and plenty of underground water caused the track to continually buckle and warp, despite frequent Band-aide attempts to straighten it out. The uneven surface was too risky for runners, who couldn’t see the dips and bulges in time to avoid them. Water draining down a hill onto the track and additional water from field maintenance made the problem worse.

The Hill Country field and track renovation involved replacing the faulty subsoil with lime-injected soil, installing erosion controls, and reducing water on the field by replacing grass with synthetic turf. Hill Country wasn’t alone in its field problems. West Ridge Middle School was having its own set of issues with its track and playing field, reducing student use. The bond oversight also approved a renovation plan for West Ridge that evened out a 4-foot elevation slope change on the field, installed a drainage system and retaining wall and replaced grass with artificial turf. The West Ridge renovation cost $785,000 and was also paid for out of 2011 bond money.

Both campus field and track areas will reopen this week, after significant weather-related construction delays. Because they are covered with synthetic turf rather than grass, the fields are ready for immediate use.

As the middle school fields reopen, the Westlake High School Chaparral Stadium shuts down this week to begin its own $2.3 million renovation that will include replacing the track and sub-grade, replacing or improving the structural steel to the visitors’ bleachers and performing Americans with Disabilities Act modifications.

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Members of the Eanes community met in April sessions at Westlake High School to discuss future education ideas.

Local residents who helped plan a series of community dialogue sessions in April are reviewing a draft report by the E3 Alliance that summarizes the ideas about future education that arose during the meetings.

“We are still collecting comments on the draft,” said John Havenstrite, who along with fellow area resident Julia Webber headed the dialogue steering committee. “A final version will be presented to the EISD trustees in a couple of weeks [May 30], and it will be available to anyone who wants to read it at that time.”

The 95-page draft report is detailed and captures everything session participants brought to the table during the four nights of dialogue, Havenstrite said. The report will begin with an executive summary estimated to be 12 pages long. The balance of the report will be background material.

“I think there are a few take-aways from the report, but there isn’t much doubt that the ‘meta theme’ is balance,” he said. “For example, it is clear the community recognizes that science, technology, engineering and math are key to ensuring students are positioned for the tomorrow’s challenges. However, it is equally clear that the community wants curriculum that helps students develop creative, problem solving, critical thinking, communication, and teamwork skills. Balance is key.”

Susan Dawson of the E3 Alliance gave Eanes school board members a peek at the underlying tenets of the report during a special board meeting on May 14. She identified key themes that resonated throughout the meetings. Participants stressed that relevance to the future and foundational skills for the workplace are important. They want the whole community to be more involved with the education of its children. Opportunities for all students, not just the high-achieving ones, were stressed. Participants feel learning should be more fun for the new kinds of students evolving in the high-tech world and they want to see the district look at finding new ways of assessing success.

Havenstrite and organizers were pleased with the high level of community participation in the dialogues and at the energetic ideas that arose.

“I was surprised by how often project-based learning initiatives showed up,” Havenstrite said. “It seems folks really like the opportunities that sort of collaboration presents.”

Now that some clear themes have risen from the dialogue sessions, Havenstrite hopes it will be easier for all members of the community to work together to offer students the best possible education for the future.

“The district is about to revisit its strategic plan,” he said. “I expect that the experience of the dialogues and the themes discussed in the report will be a resource to the trustees, administration and community as that initiative rolls along.”

The open session portion of the May 30 Eanes school board meeting at which the dialogue information is expected to be released will begin at 7:30 p.m. in the board room of the district administration building at 601 Camp Craft Road.
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Photo by Ricardo B. Brazziell/Austin American-Statesman

Motorists should expect little or no relief in the number of traffic jams along Loop 360 such as this now that the Texas Department of Transportation is backing off its plan to install “Michigan lefts” along the busy thoroughfare.

The Texas Department of Transportation is backing off plans to install “Michigan lefts” along the Loop 360 corridor, a department spokesman said this week.

“Last November, we had a meeting at Westlake High School,” said John Hurt, a spokesman for TxDOT. “At that time, we made a commitment to the folks along the corridor that we would not force this if we didn’t have public support. We listened to what they had to say, and it was clear the public support wasn’t there. The point was to listen to the people that live out there and use that road.”

The approximately $1 million project was designed to be a simple fix to traffic congestion along the heavily traveled commuter corridor. It would have stopped traffic on side streets along many of Loop 360’s intersections from turning left onto Loop 360 or crossing over. Instead, drivers would turn right and use signal controlled left U-turn bays.

A consultant working for the agency estimated that the suggested changes, by allowing more green light time for northbound and southbound travelers on the road, would have shaved 11 percent to 29 percent off the time it takes to drive Loop 360 during peak traffic hours, depending on which section of the road a driver was on.

While commuters who use the corridor to get to and from work were in favor of many of the improvements, people living in neighborhoods along the road were mostly opposed.

“I’m nervous about it,” Kathy Chesner, who lives in a neighborhood off of Loop 360, told the Picayune at a meeting last year. “Our concern is that with the continuous flow, we’ll never be able to get out of the neighborhood. We kind of rely on that light to let us out, but if they get rid of it, it’ll be a lot harder to get out.”

TxDOT still plans to improve the Loop 360/MoPac Expressway intersection, as funds become available, by extending turn bays on Loop 360 and possibly adding an additional turn lane from the MoPac frontage road onto Loop 360.

The money that would have been used on Loop 360 needs to be used in the Austin district before August or it could be moved elsewhere, Hurt said. TxDOT officials have recommended that the funds be used on expanding State Highway 71 between Bee Cave and Spicewood to a consistent stretch of four lanes and a protected center turn lane.

As for reducing traffic congestion along Loop 360, Hurt said the agency is continuing to look at all the options. A planned signal synchronization that was linked to the “Michigan left” project will continue, which could shave a few minutes off local commutes.

The agency is also considering a study that will look at the corridor as a whole and examine a variety of options, including overpasses at some intersections. That option is an expensive one, Hurt said.

“We’ve gotten a mixed reaction to overpasses,” Hurt said.
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Photo by Roy Mata
Nicole Summersett thrusts her body high into the air and over the bar during her bid for a state championship Saturday.

Elevated expectations had Nicole Summersett sure she could keep rising, but she felt the sting of disappointment, even as a freshman first-time competitor, at the UIL State Track & Field Championships Saturday.
Summersett stayed with the top competitors up until the bar was raised to 12 feet, where she came up just shy of advancing on to another round.
With a final successful jump of 11’6” to tie for seventh, the Westlake freshman feels that her next trip to the state meet – hopefully her next three trips – will result in a higher vault with the lessons she took away from this season.
“I did good, but I’m disappointed,” Summersett said. “I felt like I could have had 12 if I fixed one thing.”
With a nagging knee injury leading up to the state meet, Summersett injured both of her hamstrings the practice prior to state, possibly because of compensating for the other injury.
Summersett said she had a little tightness, but the distances of her standards – which is the distance of the bar (not the height) as it can be moved closer to or further away prior to a jump – were a little off on her last attempts.
It’s one of a couple tweaks she’ll have in mind as she ramps up training to return to Mike A. Myers Stadium again in a year.
“I think my standards were pushed back a little far, and I didn’t have as much energy as I could have going in,” she said. “It made it hard to get loose today.”
Westlake girls track coach Chris Carter and vaulting coach Bert Bonnecarrere were visibly proud of Summersett following the event, which was won by Desire Freier of Justin Northwest, with a 12’9” jump. There were four repeat competitors at this year’s event from last season, when a vault of 11’6” would have tied for fourth place.
“She’s at the state meet – that sums it up,” Carter said. “She might be disappointed, but she’s among the best in the state. I’m proud of her. I definitely think for her this is the end result; this is where she wants to be the next three years, right back here climbing up, where next year she betters what she did this season and starts thinking about being a state medalist.”
She cleared the jumps of 10’6”, 11’0” and 11’6” in her first attempt, but couldn’t quite get all the way over at 12’6”.
Summersett had a season-high – and school record – jump of 12’4” earlier in the season, and believes she can meet and eclipse that next season with her year-round training and approach.
“It went really well for me being a freshman and everything,” she said. “But next year, I’ll try as hard as I can and do my best – don’t change anything.”

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Jack Kerouac hovers from the store wall as 263 manager Sarah Hannon and owner Dennis Liddy charm grocery customers with plenty of smiles and personal service.

Dennis Liddy drove past the old Mi Gordi taco stand on Cuernavaca Drive every day going to and from his landscaping projects. The empty place reminded him of a long lost love.

For nearly 20 years off and on starting as a teenager, Liddy had been a food guy, before taking some side steps that eventually landed him his own landscaping business. He spent those two decades in love with flavors, textures and delicious aromas. The lure of that never-forgotten love affair was enough to give him the courage last year to take a life-altering step – he decided to open 263 Restaurant and Provisions, his own upscale celebration of food.

“One day, I just looked at the place and thought – ‘Sunday brunch,’ ” Liddy said. “It was too big for the kind of restaurant I wanted, so I thought we would open up the specialty store we wanted too.’”

Liddy has jumped through quite a few hoops and followed many paths to realize his dream of owning a restaurant.  A year into his vocational agriculture studies at Texas Tech, he set aside his books for a more hands-on learning experience in Alaska.  Landing in Eagle River at the In January 1986, the teenager talked himself into a job at the hardware store by working three days free to prove himself. When summer came, Liddy jumped on an All Alaskan Seafood ship to try his hand at fishing.

“I went to Alaska to find the story of my life,” said 46-year-old Liddy, smiling broadly.   “I wanted to see the Aleutians and the Kodiak Islands. I loved it. You’re out on a ship with people from all over the world – people who are doing just what you are doing.”

After his year in Alaska, Liddy moved to New Mexico to reconnect with his father, who he hadn’t seen since high school. It was in New Mexico that he fell in love with the food business, working with Robbie Day at the San Francisco Street Bar and Grille.

“I wanted to learn how to really cook, and I got very passionate about it,” Liddy said.

Aiming for Austin, he landed a job at the West Lynn Café in the early 1990s. There he learned the delicate nuances of how to treat a vegetable. Liddy went on to become the Sous Chef at the Granite Café for owners Reed and Betsy Clemens. Then he auditioned for world-renowned chef David Tanis and earned a job at the prestigious Café Escalera in Santa Fe.

“At Escalera, I learned about flavors,” he said. “I learned about connecting with food, where it comes from. It was not about combat cooking, it was about the highest quality.”

Back in Austin, Liddy added to his experience with Chef Raymond Tatum at 612 and Emmett Fox at the Bitter End. During his varied restaurant expeditions, he learned about more than food.

“I learned that I didn’t want to run another restaurant for someone else,” he said. “The next one was going to be mine.”

It was while he was pondering the financials of that idea that Liddy’s life was again interrupted. His father asked him to help with a general store he purchased in New Mexico, and he went back to help.

“It was hard to do; I was totally in love with food by then,” he said.

After six years, Liddy decided to head back to Austin and learn the landscaping business from icon and Gardens owner James David, whom he had met in New Mexico. He thought the new line of work would offer more time for family than the restaurant business. After starting a landscaping business of his own, he picked up important new clients and eventual friends, John Paul and Eloise DeJoria.

Eventually, the lure of the food business was too much for Liddy. Earlier this month, he opened 263 Provisions to a waiting and excited crowd. The shop carries everything from fresh organic vegetables to anchovy paste to gluten-free pasta. A cross between a tiny Whole Foods and a neighborhood French grocery, 263 offers food that makes everyday life special.

“I like the vibe of this place,” said Bella Lago resident and author Rich Tyson during a recent stop for coffee. “I’ve been waiting for something like this to show up for years. He has an incredible assortment of healthy foods.”

A woman walked into the store and asked Liddy for a fresh shallot. Beaming, he got one for her. That’s all she bought, an expenditure of 29 cents. Liddy couldn’t have been more excited.

“That’s what we are all about,” he said beaming. “That’s what we are here for.”

Box Info:

263 Restaurant and Provisions

1705 Cuernavaca Drive

The263.com and on Facebook

512-263-7330

Store – now open.

Organic and natural groceries, coffee bar, pastries, sandwiches, beer and wine

Open Seven Days a Week, 7 a.m.-10 p.m.

Restaurant – opening soon.

Comfort food and daily specials.

Tuesday-Saturday: 5 p.m.- 9 p.m.

Sunday brunch: 9 a.m.-2 p.m.

BELOW: The Liddy family, from left, Dennis, Kate, Bridget, Jude and Jones, showed up in force to welcome morning patrons to the new 263 Provisions and Restaurant on Cuernavaca Tuesday.

Susan Dawson of E3 Alliance summarizes community dialogues at an Eanes school board meeting Monday.

Eanes school board members swore in new board member Mike Frost and continuing board member Kal Kallison at a special meeting Monday night and designated Kallison president, Rob Hargett vice president and Colleen Jones secretary for the coming year.

The meeting began with a report by Susan Dawson from the E3 Alliance on the recent community dialogues organized by E3 and local parents. The organization has compiled a 90-page report that captures ideas brought fourth during the community meetings. The meetings were developed to allow parents, students, educators and other local community members to identify what they believe needs to be done to successfully prepare local students for the future.

“This is a very powerful process, a very important process,” Dawson said. “We hope and believe the information you will get out of the report will be useful in taking the school district forward.”

A final report should be available in about two weeks, said John Havenstrite, one of the local parents who helped organize the discussion.

Dawson identified eight key ideas on future education that came from the community dialogues:

• Relevance to the future is key in curriculum choices;
• Foundational skills for the workplace are important;
• The surrounding community should be involved in education and supporting students;
• Academic rigor needs to be balanced with a more holistic approach to education;
• There need to be opportunities for all students;
• The district should look at new methods of assessing and measuring the right elements of education;
• Needed support and resources should be identified and the proper integration of academics; and
• Soft skills should be accomplished to make learning fun and help foster innovation.

Board members discussed options for incorporating the ideas coming from the community meetings into the district’s long range master plan, including the option of hiring an outside expert to work with the information. Kallison said that the board planned to involve the community in the process.

The board approved a phased-in elementary and middle school technology pilot plan that would use $1.1 million of bond money for a  the purchase of iPads and an additional $537,574 for the purchase of Dell desktop and laptop computers.

“I think this has been a good process in talking back and forth with where we want to go,” Wellman said. “We had an ‘Aha’ moment several years ago, realizing the importance technology was going to play in our classrooms.”

The phase-in program would equip all students in two grade levels at each elementary school with iPads. The grade levels that receive the tablets at each school will be chosen by campus technology teams.  Both district middle schools will receive iPads for eighth grades next year. The district will distribute a few extra tablets to each middle school for classroom use. Again, those classrooms will be selected by campus technology staff.

The district is waiting to see how textbook companies will eventually decide to provide their information online.

“The textbook companies are in business to make money,” Wellman said. “They are trying to figure out how they are going to do that.”

Digital textbooks are a given for the future, said Kevin Schwartz, district director of technology services.

“We’ve gotten rid of that backpack, and it’s a better richer device,” Schwartz said.

In 2011, voters approved $15.3 million in bond money for the purchase of district technology. Including the new $1.6 million expenditure approved by the board Monday, the district has purchased $4.1 million in computers and tablets. New infrastructure and other technology costs have brought the total district use of bond money to $7.1 million, leaving $8.2 million for future technology purchases.

Wellman said she may be bringing a request for more iPads to extend the elementary and middle school pilot program into additional grade levels as early as October of this year.

“I see our students being interested in their own individual projects, learning and interests,” Wellman said. “This device marries that individualized interest with education; it moves that whole transition of education forward. This device facilitates that.”

Kallison said the phased approach would allow students who receive the tablets next year to demonstrate the benefit to parents and teachers and allow the district to learn things rather than go all the way with purchases in one step.

“I think this is a very rational approach,” he said. “There are some parents that did voice some pretty significant opposition to a complete one-to-one roll out. It’s still not 100 percent across the board in terms of complete acceptance of a device they are not completely comfortable with.”

District head of business services Larry Keiser told board members the Chapter 41 recapture payment to the state would be approximately $1 million higher, around $54.3 million, next year due to higher than expected property values and thus anticipated higher tax collections. In the last few years, budgeted amounts for general fund balance withdrawals to balance deficit budgets have been overstated. Fund balance pulls will likely be closer to budget in the future, due to increasing costs, state-mandated frozen revenues and tighter budgets, Keiser said.

Board members nominated Wellman for the Texas Association of School Boards Superintendent of the Year Award, eliciting applause from the audience. The honor is awarded based on outstanding achievement and excellence in public school administration.

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Photo by Dane Anderson

Rollingwood Shell station owner Randy Coe leads a simpler life on weekends, traveling by horseback with wagons and friends on historic Texas trails.

On the last Friday in April, Randy Coe left his Rollingwood Shell station on Bee Cave Road a little early. He wanted good start on the weekend.

Coe wasn’t looking forward to a Saturday morning golf game or Friday night with beer and the boys. Nothing that tame. He was high-tailing it out to a stable on his property near Buda to load a gray stallion named Pasqual into his trailer. The two were heading to the Gillespie County Fairgrounds in Fredericksburg to join the annual spring Texas Heritage Trail Ride -17 wagons, 100 other people and more horses and mules than you could shake a stick at on a trek from Fredericksburg to New Braunfels. It’s a five-day, 79-mile journey back in time, with stops in Luckenbach, Sisterdale, Kendalia and Spring Branch. It’s a chance for day-long conversations with friends and family to the sound of turning wagon wheels and the pattern of hooves through fields of tall grasses and wildflowers, down back roads and along the wide shoulders of Farm-to-Market roads. It’s long nights under the stars and trailers with warm bunk beds. It’s mornings that start at 5 a.m. with fresh coffee, neighing horses and waiting roads.

This isn’t Coe’s first rodeo. For nearly 20 years, he and his brother, Darrell Coe, have been joining trail rides. When he met up with his cousin, Paul Ihlenfeldt, and Paul’s wife, Jean, two years ago, he began spending even more time in the saddle.

“I love to ride horses whether it is trail riding , roping or just piddling around at my pasture,” Coe said. “I just have a general love for the animal, but the trail rides are just special, and the people you meet are the most genuine people in the world. To me, there is just something about people and horses that seem to make the people better. Will Rogers said that the outside of a horse is good for the inside of a man. I really believe that.”

Paul Fensky and L.D. Durbin came all the way from Missouri to sit around the camp table with the Coes and Ihlenfeldts Friday night.  Durbin runs three  hospital gift shops in Joplin. Fensky is a cattleman. He brought two mules and a wagon for the ride.

“I like the science of the mules and the wagons, watching what they are doing and figuring out why,” Dubin said. “It’s as far away from the hospital as it gets. It’s a whole other world.”

There is a lot of camaraderie to be found in the camps and on the rides. Somehow, everyone seems like family. It’s like a family reunion where only the good relatives show up.

“Most of the people are just plain old country folks or as close to country folk as you can get,” Coe said. “I have met so many good people. If I needed something today, I could call on any one of them and they would be here to help before you know it, and I would do the same. It just seems like you build a relationship with these people in a short period of time that last a lifetime.”

Before dawn on Saturday, most people are up, saddling horses and harnessing teams. Some wagons have the traditional wood or metal wheels, some have modified with rubber wheels that make the rough terrain an easier ride. Before 8 a.m., everyone had formed a line. Randy rode at the back of the line, making sure that everybody keeps up. Darrell and Paul rode point ahead of the line.

“Used to be the point riders watched for Indians,” Randy said. “Today it’s cars.”

“What we do is make sure that everybody gets down the road safely,” Darrell said.

The Comal County Sheriff’s Posse and the New Braunfels Chamber of Commerce started a trail ride from Indianola to New Braunfels in 1970 on the 125th anniversary of the founding of New Braunfels, said Sandy Self, a member of the Heritage Trail Ride Association. HTRA took over the ride in 2001, as well as the annual ride from Fredericksburg to New Braunfels. HTRA holds the Indianola ride every five years, retracing the steps of the German settlers who landed in Indianola in 1845 and, led by Prince Carl of Solms-Braunfels, trekked on foot to found New Braunfels. Some of those German immigrants went on to found Fredericksburg in 1846.

There are numerous trail rides in Texas, at least one during most months of the year. The HTRA annual ride is one of the most popular. More than half the people who came this year had been on the ride before.

“People like the view, with the wildflowers and the cooler weather,” Self said. “It’s a shorter ride than some, and it’s a good ride for wagons.”

Coe goes on as many rides as his business will allow. He might have been born a century too late.

“I think that in the back of everyone’s mind that they really would like to be a cowboy and ride the open range,” he said. “This is the only way to do it. I like the open country, the vision of the wagons and horses and the fact that I am doing something that my forefathers used to do. I like the peacefulness, old and new friendships. There is no stress, no cares or worries, no hustle and bustle where everyone is trying to be better than the next guy or girl, no competition and no bull crap. It’s me, my horse, the country side and the good Lord above.”
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