News

William Parks ‘Bill’ Johnson, Jr., 93, of Wimberley, passed away on Jan. 1, 2017.

His family will hold a public memorial service at 2 p.m. on Saturday, Jan. 14 along Cypress Creek on Sabino Ranch, celebrating 93 years of an extraordinarily full life.

“I couldn’t have been with anybody who was boring,”  Mary Frances ‘M.F.’ Brown Johnson, Bill’s wife for the last 69 years, said.

Growing Up “Vox Pop”

Hays County has sent out a press release confirming the first local Zika Virus case. The release also said that there is "no risk to contagion to residents of Hays County."

Press Release:

The Hays County Local Health Department has received confirmation from the Texas Department of State Health Services (DSHS) and Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) of a local, travel-associated case of Zika virus infection in Hays County. The individual, who is not contagious and does not pose a risk to Hays County residents, contracted the illness while traveling to Puerto Rico in August 2016.  

Blanco National Bank will soon have a new name as the company merges with Texas Regional Bank. The sale is waiting on regulatory approval in mid-February.

But that doesn’t mean that large changes are coming for the company that has been owned, in general, by the same family for more than 100 years.  Executives say it should be a “seamless transition.”

“It is going to be an easy transition for our customers,” Kay Smith, Vice President and Branch Manager for Wimberley’s Blanco National Bank. “They will see the same friendly faces in the bank, and they are not going to see much of a change other than a new name and few extra services we are going to be offering.”

The Wimberley Branch is one of four for Blanco Bank including the headquarters in Blanco along with branches and Fredericksburg and Bulverde. 

The testing will soon continue on the Electro Purification wells near the Rolling Oaks subdivision.  Since October, two of the seven wells have been tested and a third well is expected to be tested this week. 

Only three of the wells will be tested as they span the property.

“In the aquifer test plan, they identified three wells that effectively covered the full area of the well field and were representative of the entire well field,” Barton Springs Edwards Aquifer Conservation District General Manager John Dupnik said. “Two wells are on the ends and one is in the middle to give us representative data…”

Electro Purification is also working with the BSEACD to convert some of the wells into monitoring wells.

In the early parts of December there have been at least five burglaries in the Wimberley Valley. 

Two homes were burglarized in Woodcreek while a home and two vehicles were burglarized in Woodcreek North.

“We have had several cars broken in to and guns were taken,” Hays County Constable Elect Ray Helm said. “We have a vacation watch at our office, please feel free to call (us). I had one of my deputies giving some safety tips to a resident and they said ‘This is Wimberley and nothing happens here.’ Unfortunately things do happen here, and the thieves know this.”

The Hays County Sheriff’s Office, which is in charge of investigating the burglaries, did not give any information about any of the burglaries reported after multiple requests for comment from the Wimberley View.

A flood control basin on Hog Creek was proposed to the Woodcreek City Council by the Hays County Transportation Department last week.

The Hog Creek Basin project has been discussed and studied for around 15 years, but potential federal grants for flood mitigation have reopened the possibility.

The area under discussion is 17 acres just south of Mountain Crest. An earthen dam would be built to create the basin.

If the project were to come to fruition, it is estimated that 16 of the 24 structures would be removed from the 100-year floodplain while eight structures would still be in the floodplain.

The basin project would also come with drainage improvements to Mountain Crest Drive and Brookhollow Drive. Some of the culverts that could be installed on Brookhollow could help alleviate some drainage issues on Brookmeadow Drive. 

It was a week before Christmas and along RR 12, there were animals stirring, but no Santa or elves. Apologies to the Clements Clarke Moore’s Christmas poem, but it was the Chapel of the Hills annual live Nativity scene. 

Actual people and animals recreated the scene of Jesus’s birth in a manger, as they have for the 27th time out of the last 28 years.

“It was a very moving scene, with the biblical characters, the animals, a donkey, llamas, and goats and Christmas carols broadcasting from the Chapel’s bell tower as people drove by,” parishioner Deborah Scott said.

People got out of their cars and were able to get close up and personal with the scene. The entire church pitches in and about volunteers helped with the production. Donations from the community also help make the annual recreation possible.

The last repairs are finished on the River Road project, between Wayside Road and the top of the hill going into town. The construction and repair took approximately 30 days.  The road was closed on November 10 and finished last week. The repairs were 15 days under the 45 days scheduled under contract and were on budget. 

“The repairs will serve the purpose well, it will stop the washing away the road in future high flows…the repairs were needed and came from the May flood of 2015. The undercurrent washed away underneath the road. Now (after the flood) the fortified bank won’t wash it away,” City Manager Don Ferguson said.

Her teacher at Danforth Junior High, History Honors teacher Tommy Bennett, gave Kathryn “Kat” Mendoza an assignment. It consisted of an assignment by the Texas General Land Office and entitled Save Texas History.

The big question was asked, “What history in your community, or in Texas, is worth saving?”  Kat finished her paper in two class periods and moved on to her next work. She never takes work home and always completes it before she goes home.

She did her paper on the Battle of the Alamo, the Historic 6th Ward of Houston and close to home, Jacob’s Well. 

The next big step is ready to be taken for the Wimberley wastewater treatment facility and collection system as the city is prepared to send the system out for bid.

The city staff was unanimously given the authority to put the project out for bid once the Texas Water Development Board gives approval. That approval is expected within the next week or two. The bid process is expected to take around 30 to 45 days from that point.

This means that within the next two months, the city could have official bids from contractors on how much the system should cost.