News

Getting individuals to show up and volunteer to build a house for a deserving family is one thing but to do it for 19 times in 19 years in Wimberley is amazing. The start of a new house is a sign that spring is truly here. 

Habitat for Humanity (HH) has been building homes for worthy families since 1969. The concept is for recipients to work on their own future home, along with volunteers. The criteria for being chosen is based on need, ability to pay and willingness to partner. The family has to pay the monthly mortgage at 0% interest, show the actual need of the home and agree to perform 300 hours of sweat equity in building the house.

The high school club Model UN (MUN) is still in it’s rookie year, but the students participating have performed well. They have won awards and have competed in meets in Austin, Baylor and Trinity.

But their most exciting event of the past year was going to Washington D.C. for five days. They traveled there to compete in the International Conference for MUN, where there were over 1,300 students competed from 14 different countries.

Funds to attend the meet were raised in the community and the cost of each student attending was only $200 plus the meals.

MUN, through the use of debate, helps to enhance debating and speaking skills while tackling international issues, current events and exploring the world’s history. Parliamentary procedures and how the UN works are learned. Each participant must work together with others from throughout the world.

When diving into the missing Hays County votes from the General Election, it appears there were some small changes in certain situations. On Nov. 8, 2016 the voting for the place three San Marcos City Council seats was extremely close. When all the votes were counted Jason Montgomery had the most votes, besting Ed Mihalkanin by one vote. The problem is, all the votes weren’t counted.

If all votes had been counted, then Mihalkanin would have had a total of 3,017 votes to Montgomery’s 2,907, winning by 110 rather than losing by one. Because neither candidate received a majority of the votes a runoff would still have been required. Mihalkanin went on to win that race, so ultimately the outcome didn’t change.

Hays County Constables took one step closer to partnering with the city of Wimberley for expanded local enforcement. 

A new food truck is opening this weekend bringing both Asian food and Cajun food to Wimberley.

“It’s not a fusion,” Pho-Lisha’s owner Alisha Spencer said.  

The flagship offering of the food truck will be a “phorrito,” a Texas style twist on a Vietnamese classic.

“The phorrito takes the dry ingredients of a pho, which is your beef or meat, rice noodles, cilantro, mint, basil and hoisin sauce, and puts that in a tortilla,” Spencer said. “You wrap it up light like a burrito and throw it on the flat grill. Then you dip the burrito into the broth. It’s almost like an Ashu French dip. It’s great, because it’s a Texan style since we try and put everything in a tortilla.”

The steady tide of growth has slowly eaten away at the available power within the Wimberley Valley. Pedernales Electric Cooperative said that current projects show the transmission lines will max out around 2019, and that means the cooperative is trying to upgrade the power lines coming into the Wimberley Substation.

“We are out of capacity on the existing facilities to continue to serve the electric needs of the community,” Lance Pettigrew, with Schneider Engineering, an engineering consultant with PEC, said. “The equipment has a capacity limitation that under current growth trends will be reached by 2022 or 2023 but in order to build the project we need to build it by 2019 or we wont’ be able to accomplish the construction and pick up the load from other sources. We ran out of the capacity to pick up the load from other sources in 2019.”

Tractor Supply gave a presentation to the Wimberley community about a proposed store on the south side of town and the speakers at the Wimberley Community Center replied back with a very forceful “No!”

Tractor Supply is asking the city of Wimberley for a Wimberley Planned Development District, which would allow to store multiple variances. The store is planned to be 19,000 square feet with an additional 17,000 square foot fenced in yard. The property is located just south of the South River Business Park on Ranch Road 12.

The design of the store was created to try and “fit in Wimberley,” according to Travis Knoll, a representative of the property developer.

Tracie Ferguson is thanking her Guardian Angels this week— and rightfully so.

Ferguson’s mobile home was directly in the path of the EF 1 tornado that touched down late Sunday night in near the intersection of Ranch Road 12 and Hugo Road and traveled northeast.

She’d been in bed, texting with a friend, and recalled saying “goodnight” around 11:30 p.m.

That was four minutes after the National Weather Service says the twister touched down not that far away.

“I could feel the barometric pressure drop and then the wind hit,” she recalled. After that, a tree branch came through her hallway roof. “I jumped up and started putting my clothes on and of course my dog was glued to me.”

Parker Pridgen has been named chief financial officer of Central Texas Medical Center (CTMC) in San Marcos, Texas, effective March 5, 2017.  He currently serves as assistant chief financial officer for Willamette Valley Medical Center in the state of Oregon.

“I’m thrilled that Parker has accepted the offer to join the team here at CTMC.”  stated Anthony Stahl, President and CEO of CTMC.  “His financial leadership will be a blessing to our hospital and our community.”

Pridgen began his healthcare career when he was recruited to Adventist Health in California.  There he held multiple financial roles at a hospital and corporate level.  Later he joined Community Health Systems’ Mckenzie-Willamette Medical Center and then Willamette Valley Medical Center—both in Western Oregon.