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Running a large summer camp without a dining hall can be a bit difficult, but that is what John Knox Ranch, the Presbyterian camp down Wayside Drive, has had to do since the Memorial Weekend Floods of 2015 – but not anymore.
“Our dining hall is probably 80 to 100 yards from the river,” Kathy Anderson, director of John Knox Ranch, said. “When that wall of water came down the night of the flood it slammed right into the dining hall, and it basically ran right through it. The bones of the building were ok because it was steel framed, but everything else was destroyed.”
Over the summer, a few hundred children at a time will pack into John Knox Ranch for summer camp. Without a dining hall, things were a bit different.
“We went old school,” Anderson said with a laugh. “It was one step beyond cooking your own food over the fire. Campers actually loved it.”

Dave Eubank was faced with an incredible decision as Islamic State gunfire rained down from snipers in the distance. A child lay among the dead that had been slain by the gunfire. She was one of the few still living. 

“I thought, ‘If I die doing this, my wife and kids would understand,’” Eubank told the Los Angeles Times.

Two soldiers stepped out from behind a tank to provide cover fire. Eubank took off at a sprint into the rubble not fearful for his own safety. With one arm he grabbed the five-year-old Iraqi girl, swung her around his hip and headed back for safety. 

Eubank made it back to the cover of the tank with the young girl in his arms. The entire ordeal was caught on tape. The video of the harrowing rescue has gone worldwide and was even featured last Friday on CBS News. 

The Hays County Sheriff’s Department hosted three blood drives throughout Hays County last weekend including at the Wimberley H-E-B.

“It’s a very worthy cause,” Hays County Sheriff’s Officer Steven Traeger said. “We have done this for several years now. It serves the hospitals in our area. People like to give back when they can, and we think this is a good way to do that.”

The donation centers were run by We Are Blood, formerly known as Blood Center of Central Texas. 

“Everybody knows somebody that has been affected in some way and has had some type of blood product transfusion be it accident patients – which we generally think of the most – cancer patients or childbirth issues,” Michael Dale Miller, training coordinator with We Are Blood in Austin, said. “There are all kinds of things that require some type of blood donations.”

The first big grass fire of the year started on Sunday around 1 p.m. and burned somewhere between 40 and 60 acres on a ranch off Ledgerock Road.

The fire was started when a welder was working on a fence.

“The sparks caught the grass on fire, and he didn’t notice it right away,” Wimberley Fire Chief Carroll Czichos said. “He tried to put it out himself, and it got away from him. By the time we got out there, it had already gotten over the hill, into the valley and burned a couple of acres.”

The fire was about a mile down a rough dirt road making it a difficult spot to reach. It was also exasperated by wind.

“It felt like it was almost going to rain,” Czichos said. “But we didn’t get any of the rain, just the wind that was blowing in. It carried the fire right on through.”

The Meadows Center for Water and the Environment at Texas State University has been awarded Clean Water Act funding on behalf of the Cypress Creek Watershed to continue implementation of the Cypress Creek Watershed Protection Plan. The Plan, drafted by community stakeholders over a period of several years, was accepted by the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) and the Texas Commission on Environmental Quality (TCEQ) in 2015.

Wimberley kicks off five days of Independence Day activities on Friday night with what has become the area’s premier family event of the summer; the 72nd annual Veterans of Foreign Wars Rodeo.

Sponsored by Oldham-Cummings VFW Post 6441, the rodeo runs Friday, Saturday and Sunday nights at the Chester Franklin Rodeo Arena, 401 Jacobs Well Rd. four miles north of Wimberley.

Each action-packed performance includes bull riding, calf roping, bareback and saddle bronc riding, steer wrestling, team roping, women’s breakaway roping and women’s barrel racing.  For the younger cowboys and cowgirls there are two mutton busting and two calf scrambles nightly.  Famed bull-fighter, clown and barrel man Leon Coffee will be featured each night.

Non-conforming structures in the city of Woodcreek have a new lifeline as the city council dramatically changed the ordinance that called for their removal.

In 2000, the city of Woodcreek passed an ordinance that required non-conforming structures, which are structures like certain fences and above ground swimming pools that do not meet code, were supposed to be brought up to code within 15 years. This included issues of too much impervious cover, which could have caused some driveways to fall outside the code. It also required any non-conforming structure with repairs equal to 51 percent or more of the value of the structure to be brought up to code at the time of repair.

Courtney Goss is a Wimberley homegrown product and a graduate of Wimberley High School. It is her love of Wimberley that has propelled her statewide. 

Although she is very humble, her achievements reached far and wide. 

She recently was awarded the state of Texas’ first ‘Hometown Hero’ Award for her efforts during the flood. Since Memorial Day of 2015, Goss has been instrumental in helping Wimberley and other communities recover from the devastating effects of the flood.

It all started during the Memorial Weekend Flood. 

The Wimberley Lions awarded eight scholarships to local teens, totaling over $60,000. Each scholarship is awarded in the memory of a deceased Lion from the Wimberley club. Both the student and the family representative received a Commemorative Certificate in the name of the honored Lion.

Eric Sibley received the Bruce DeHart Academic Scholarship. He plans to major in Engineering at Purdue University.

Mariel Mayhew received the George Seaman Academic Scholarship. She plans on attending Baylor University to study medical humanities.

Bobby Watson received the Rod Rose Academic Scholarship. He plans on attending Trinity University to study political science.

Jessica Lenz received the Ross Jackson Technical Scholarship. She will be attending Austin Community College to pursue a degree in Business Information/Technology.

The office of Congressman Roger Williams, who represents Wimberley, sent out the following statement about the shooting in Virginia:

WASHINGTON, DC – Congressman Roger Williams’ office (R – Austin), released the following information Wednesday after shots were fired at the Republican congressional baseball team practice in Alexandria, Virginia.

At approximately 7am ET this morning, an armed gunman arrived at baseball practice and opened fire. Congressman Williams was not shot, however a member of his staff was shot and is receiving medical attention. The gunman has been detained and at this time we do not have any further information but will continue to release it as it comes to surface.