News

Tina Pennington

Tina Pennington is running for Wimberley ISD School Board Place 4, which was left vacant by Gary Keil, against Thomas Kingsley. The unexpired term will be up for re-election in 2016. 

Pennington is a teacher with 20 years experience and currently acts as a substitute teacher. She and her family moved to Wimberley about five years ago. She has two daughters Chloe and Sophie who attend Jacob’s Well Elementary and Wimberley High School respectively. 

Pennington attended both Houston Baptist University and the University of Houston and has primarily been an English teacher for the past two decades.

Pennington stated that she decided to run for school board after the Memorial Weekend flood destroyed her house.

Lori Olson

Lori Olson is running for Wimberley ISD School Board Place 1, against Mark Hunter Bursiel. The term will be up for re-election in 2017. 

Olson runs a non-profit organization called the Texas Land Trust Council, which is a coalition of 31 land and water conservation organizations in the state of Texas. She and her family moved to Wimberley nine years ago. She has two daughters, Lea and Maia, who are in the third and fourth grade in Wimberley.

Olson is a graduate of the University of Texas and the University of Oregon.

She said she is running for school board to help provide opportunities for all of Wimberley’s children.

The Steering Committee for the Blanco River Monument met to select a finalist from the six submissions that were displayed on Sept 11 and voted on by the public. Public voting was just one of the criteria mix. We narrowed down the field to three and are seeking more public opinion. Each of these finalists have considerable merits. These three sculptures will be displayed at Wimberley Alive (October 24-25) in the Artist’s Village, River Monument Tent for visitors to see and vote for their favorite. We are also inviting the artists to be there for at least some of the time so they can hear feedback. The hours are Saturday, 10/24 from 10am to 6pm and Sunday, 10/25 from 11am to 5pm.

The three finalists are:

1)      River Pillars by J.J. Priour and David Hesser, Damian Priour Studios

Donning a variety of silly hats, the occasional costume and colorful signs, Head of St. Stephen’s Episcopal School Marsha Acock has been persuaded on many occasions to be a living billboard for families dropping off their children for the school day. It is commonplace for students to giggle with delight at her efforts, but regardless of the antics, she makes it a point to greet students and families nearly every morning with enthusiasm. Thursday, October 8th however, she was put in a sticky situation.

Despite the many possible long-term effects of trying to cope with events such as the Memorial Day 2015 floods, little research has been done to examine the interdependence of how parents and children affect one another as they recover and rebuild. A team of researchers at the University of Texas, Texas State University, University of California Santa Barbara, and the University of Iowa are looking for participants to take part in surveys about their experiences in the aftermath of the floods. The purpose is to ensure that future supportive services can be designed to address the real needs of families.

When it comes to professional awards in the U.S., the ones that roll off the tongue are the Oscars, Pulitzer, Grammy and the Emmys. These are ones that usually go to famous people like actors, singers, writers and TV people.

Though he may not be famous – yet – one of those people is Forrest Wilder, a 1999 graduate of Wimberley High School, after he recently claimed an Emmy. 

Wilder, along with his fellow reporters at the Texas Observer and the British newspaper The Guardian, received and Emmy for their articles on the plight of immigrants entering the country at Brooks County.

Sunday, October 4, the EmilyAnn Theatre & Gardens dedicated the Annanette Harper Children’s Memorial Plaza.  The new plaza expands and improves the existing children’s memorial at the EmilyAnn flag pole.  Tiles at the base of the flagpole honor many children whose lives have been lost, including Emily Rolling for whom the EmilyAnn Theatre & Gardens is named.

Since the morning after the Memorial Day Flood event the county has made the Fischer Store Bridge projects (both temporary and permanent) a daily priority. A tremendous amount of time and resources have gone into finding a solution to this important transportation issue. We all understand how important this is for the public safety and the quality of life in this area of Hays County. We immediately moved forward to rebuild the permanent bridge while working toward temporary bridge to relieve transportation needs in the interim. I am writing to report on these two projects as they stand today.

The city of Wimberley is one step closer to a permit for a wastewater system downtown after all parties agreed upon a settlement during the contested case hearing.

“The city and this community are committed to protecting its natural resources and Cypress Creek and the Blanco River,” Wimberley Mayor Steve Thurber said. “With the settlement, the city is about to accomplish something this community has been working towards for over twenty years – to address the failing septic systems in the downtown area by bringing centralized sewer service to the area,”

The settlement has generally been characterized as being more environmentally friendly.

As numbers continue to come out giving insight into how Wimberley’s local economy faired after the flood, it may be surprising to some that current sales tax allocations show the city continues to thrive.

Despite the flood, July’s sales tax numbers show a 14.67 percent increase over the same period the previous year. 

“It’s somewhat surprising considering the hit the community took on Memorial Day,” Wimberley City Administrator Don Ferguson said. “These numbers indicate that the economy remains solid. I think it has bounced back from the flood. We have seen continuous growth in recent months in sales tax numbers, so I think it’s encouraging.”

It’s obvious from talking with local business owners that not everyone is doing well, but there are also sectors of the economy that are thriving.