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He only entered six number letter combinations in the Brookshire Brothers current contest, but Lane Hartsock, with his grocery-shopping wife Beverly, hit the jackpot. 

“It was one in a million for me!” Lane said. And it couldn’t have come at a better time. The floods hit them and they lost everything.

“We lost our house and all our vehicles. We borrowed cars from friends. We got new vehicles but we’re deeply in debt,” Lane said. “It’s the first huge thing I ever won.”

The contest  “Good Times Summer Giveaway,” has more than $4 million dollars in prizes, and yes, there are still more trucks and all sorts of prizes to be won.

The contest started in May and runs through September and has weekly drawings. For more information, see the rules at the store.

The Blanco River ebbs and flows. Water that starts above ground rolls in and out of springs and caves as it falls into the aquifer and then is pushed forward back into the river. This process happens over and over as water travels from Blanco County, through Wimberley and on to San Marcos. 

This somewhat unique process may have been known by those who have lived in Wimberley for years and enjoyed the river, but it is now scientific fact as the Barton Springs Edwards Aquifer Conservation District released a study detailing just how interconnected the river is with the aquifer.

“It’s been real fascinating study,” Brian Smith, a hydrologist with the BSEACD, said. “As we got into it and looked at more detail, we saw this interesting pattern of water that is going back and forth between surface and ground water to surface again and this convoluted path that it is taking.”

After two slower months, Sales Tax allocations jumped back up to normal growth levels.

Sales representing March of 2016 were two percent lower than the same month the year before. It was the slowest two-month stretch of sales tax growth since 2011. The numbers recently released for May make those months appear to be a blip on the radar.

“You look at trends,” Wimberley City Administrator Don Ferguson said. “You try and identify reasons for the change as best you can, but you look for trends. I think we are back on track as far as the trend we have seen over the last 12 to 18 months, but you are going to see peaks and valleys. I think those two previous down months were just part of the cycle.”

On Tuesday July 12, Christy Degenhart and Ace Hardware organized Praying Over Law Enforcement event, in front of the big oak tree at Ace. The events of the past few weeks, such as in the shootings in Dallas and other law enforcement deaths, have shown how fragile law enforcement is. Putting their life on the line everyday can be a thankless job, otherwise known as the “Thin Blue Line” that protects us all.

“I thought it was amazing, moving and peaceful. Law enforcement and supporters from the community and from the area turned out for the event. It was a kind of healing for everybody,” said Degenhart.

Included in the crowd of 75 or so were the City Marshal, EMS, the Fire Department, the Constables and Sheriffs’ departments. There we even retired first responders’ attendance.

Hays County motorists enjoy a much-improved road system since area state highways were first built decades ago, and on Tuesday the Hays County Commissioners Court pointed out the credit goes to voters who, by a 2-to-1 margin, passed the 2008 Road Bonds (Proposition 2). 

“We told the voters what we intended to do, and we followed through,” Precinct 3 Commissioner Will Conley said. “The people gave us a tremendous amount of trust in our desire to keep up with the exponential growth we’ve experienced over the last several decades, and it has paid off. Almost all of our projects are completed or underway, while we’ve maintained a lower tax rate than originally projected in 2008 and an enviable AA bond rating. Also notable is that $133 million of the debt incurred will or has already been paid back by TxDOT much sooner than expected.”

Back in 2007, Hays County voters approved $30 million in parks bonds by an almost two to one vote.

On Tuesday, the Commissioners Court heard that the money has been well spent.

“We have completed the mission the citizens authorized us to fulfill,” Pct. 3 Commissioner Will Conley said, noting that the funding, matched nearly 1.6 to 1 by municipalities, non-profits and other associations, benefited programs from one end of the county to another.

Four people have been arrested for the burglaries of multiple residential and commercial buildings in the Wimberley area.

A press release from the Hays County Sheriff’s Office said that Julius Chambers, 27, Joseph Robuck, 37, Mason Berning, 22, and Darbee Wesson, 19,  were arrested on charges of theft, unlawful possession of a firearm, prohibited weapon and possession of a controlled substance.

All four were identified as Wimberley residents.

“During these crimes, jewelry, power tools, and vehicles were stolen,” the press release said. “As a result, the Hays County Sheriff’s Office initiated an extensive investigation in an attempt to identify and apprehend those responsible.

“Detectives developed enough evidence to charge a number of suspects and to obtain search warrants for residences and vehicles associated with the investigation.”

UPDATE 2:05 p.m., Thursday, June 14

It didn't take long for the downstream dam to be fixed. Swimming at Jacob's Well is back up and running. 

ORIGINAL STORY

Swimming at Jacob’s Well Natural Area is closed and all reservations until this Friday, July 15 have been cancelled until early next week, due to a private dam collapsing downstream from Cypress Creek. The hope is the dam will be fixed by Saturday. The dam was built in 1938, according to Park Interpretive Guide Alison Tudor.

The level of the water has dropped significantly, where was waist high is now under a foot of water. The springs of Jacob’s Well is still flowing normally, but the surrounding water is very low. The park is letting people get their feet wet but there is no swimming or jumping.

Wimberley Veterans of Foreign Wars Post 6441 will donate the proceeds from a special Friday night bingo to a fund benefiting the families of the five police officers killed July 7 at a downtown Dallas protest.

Proceeds from the regularly scheduled bingo night for Friday, July 22, will be turned over to the Assist the Officer Foundation which has launched a fundraising effort to assist the families of the slain officers.

“This tragedy represents a loss to all of us,” Post 6441 Commander Don Wheeler said. “The whole world mourns their deaths, and this special bingo is a small gesture on our part for their grieving families.”

Bingo games are held at Oldham-Cummings VFW Post 6441 at 401 Jacobs Well Road in Wimberley.  Early bingo begins at 7 p.m. with regular games starting at 8.

When the shooting started in Dallas on Thursday night, no one knew what was happening. That included former Daily Record staff member Ashley Stephenson Landis, now a photographer with the Dallas Morning News. 

She was one of three DMN photographers assigned to cover the Black Lives Matter protest and her official role was to document the event on social media though, of course, she also carried a camera. She said in a telephone interview on the Friday morning after the shooting that the protest had been peaceful and “more diverse than I’ve seen in that group before.”