Dike VFD Recognized For 34 Years Of Service
Hopkins County Commissioners Court and Fire Chief Andy Endsley recognized Dike Volunteer Fire Department as part of Hopkins County Fire Department’s year-long 20th anniversary celebration. Each month a different volunteer fire department is recognized for their ongoing contributions to the community, responding alongside county firefighters.
“Dike has always been there, like the ones we’ve honored throughout. We have one more VFD left. We didn’t start this celebration until the end of January, so we’re still in that year’s scope of time to get all of these departments in there,” HCFD Chief Endsley said.
Hopkins County Judge Robert Newsom, when presenting a framed proclamation to three members of Dike VFD Monday morning, gave a brief synopsis of the department’s history.
Dike VFD’s first station was built by Dike residents G.R. Romans, Pat Potts, Archie Collins, Scott Tubb and others.
Gerald Hazelwood, A.G. Sandifeer, Ricky Massey, Jay Sandifeer, Daniel Eppars, Joel Pace and Archie Collins were the first members of Dike VFD, with Collins as the first chief.
Currently, Dike VFD has nine members — Fire Chief A.G. Sandifeer, Assistant Chief Joel Pace, Jack Towers, Clint Rubb, Ralph Calhoun, Allen Nelson T.G. Sandifeer, Chad Jones and David Joslin.
Dike VFD’s first fire apparatus was an old fire truck donated by North Hopkins VFD. Dike later received a one-ton chassis cab purchased by Hopkins County. Department members fully equipped the chassis cab to operate as a brush truck for the community of Dike. At present the department has four fire apparatus.
Initially, all calls were received by telephone. The phone was later replaced by beepers, and radios are currently used by Dike VFD members to communicate with dispatchers.
“You can always depend on Dike to show up. I don’t know that I ever recall them missing a call. One of these guys are always there. Once there, they are very good help. We appreciate all they do for Hopkins County,” Endsley said.
Precinct 3 Commissioner Wade Bartley to extended personal thanks to the members of Dike VFD for their continued dedication.
“No matter what time day or night they are there. I appreciate it and the community does too. But, I don’t think everybody realizes how much time they devote to the volunteering. Guys, I just want to tell you I appreciate appreciate it very much,” Precinct 3 Commissioner Wade Bartley said.
Newsom encourages all county citizens to join HCFD and the Commissioners Court in applauding “the outstanding efforts of the Dike Volunteer Fire Department,” recoginzing “the dedication in their perseverance to provide protection for each citizen and their property” and, offering “heartfelt appreciation for the servanthood of each one.”
“Thank yall for this. We’ve worked a long time for this. We’ve been doing this for 30-something years and we hope we continue to help the community. Thank you,” said Dike VFD Chief A.G. Sandifeer.
Don Julian's Top 16 SSHS Sports Stories for 2019 Begins With #16: Lady Cats Soccer
A review of the sports files recently produced a list of 16 top stories involving Wildcats and Lady Cats teams during 2019. The list begins running Monday (December 23) and will continue through the first day of the New Year. On January 2, a story will provide the entire list of 16. # 16 involves the Lady Cats Soccer Team that overcame injuries and a very tough schedule, especially in early tournaments, to qualify for the playoffs. In bi-district, the Lady Cats were matched up with old district foe, Hallsville. The Lady Cats hung with Hallsville fairly well but the Lady Bobcats came out on top 3-0. The game was the last for Lady Cats Coach Joel Bailey, who was a longtime assistant coach, was interim head coach about ten years ago and was head coach for the past two years. The past two years Coach Bailey’s Lady Cats suffered from a lot of injuries. Coach Bailey may have retired from coaching but you can still find him teaching at Sulphur Springs High School. Javier Aguayo moved over from Wildcats assistant soccer coach to take the job as Lady Cats head coach and his Lady Cats have looked good in a couple of December scrimmages. My #16 sports story from SSHS in 2019, the Lady Cats soccer team making the playoffs.
Lady Cats Basketball Team Gets Good Points From Sophomore and Three Freshman Against Princeton Last Friday
The Lady Cats Basketball Team had a very competitive game at Princeton last Friday (December 20) with major point production coming from a sophomore and three freshmen. According to the Dallas Morning News, the Lady Cats were led by sophomore post Hannah Cordell who scored 12 points. Freshman Kenzie Willis had 9 points. Freshman Addisyn Wall added 8 points. Freshman Serenity Lewis scored 6 points. Junior Nylah Lindley had 4 points. Senior Kate Womack scored 3 points. The Lady Cats led 19-16 at the half, then fell behind 42-32 in the third quarter but then rallied in the fourth quarter to get to within 47-42 at the end. The Lady Cats are now 4-12 for the season and they have lost six games in a row. After a break for Christmas holidays, the Lady Cats will play in the Kaufman Holiday Tournament on Friday and Saturday. Pool play takes place Friday with Gold, Silver and Bronze Bracket play on Saturday. In pool play Friday, the Lady Cats play Dallas Christian at 11:40 a.m. in the Kaufman Junior High Gym and Wills Point at 3:40 p.m. in the Kaufman Arena.
Wildcats Basketball Coach Clark Cipoletta Discusses Dallas Jesuit Win on Friday
After the Wildcats Basketball Team lost to Denton Guyer last Tuesday (December 17), Coach Clark Cipoletta told his team they needed to play with more physicality. His staff counted 82 missed block outs against Guyer. On KSST Radio and Cable Channel 18’s Saturday Morning Coach’s Show, Coach Cipoletta said physicality was a big emphasis going into last Friday night’s home game against Jesuit of Dallas. Coach Cipoletta said he was pleased with his team’s physical play against Jesuit. He said the team also executed traps as they put the pressure on Jesuit. He said the goal was to disrupt the Rangers’ offense. Coach Cipoletta said the Wildcats battled from start to finish in the 65-52 win. Jesuit did make a run in the fourth quarter carving into a 17 point lead to get within 7 points. Despite some fourth quarter turnovers, Coach Cipoletta said the Wildcats did enough good things to get the win. He said all the Wildcats shooting numbers exceeded goals: 53% from the field, 40% from three-point range and 89.5% from the foul line (17 of 19). Coach Cipoletta said the Wildcats did a good job of moving the ball around well creating good shots. Down the stretch, the Wildcats hit 11 of 12 free throws to hold off the Rangers and increase the lead. Coach Cipoletta said the Wildcats 20 turnovers was too high. He’d rather see a figure closer to 10. He was pleased that the Wildcats out rebounded Jesuit, 30-18. Sounding like a volleyball coach Coach Cipoletta said a key to success for the Wildcats is kills. A kill is defined as three defensive stops in a row. He said when the Wildcats have 7 kills they are unbeaten. The #17 ranked Wildcats are now 12-5 for the season. Thursday they open play in the Whataburger Tournament against Harris County Atascocita, the #6 ranked team in Class 6A. Game time is 7 p.m. in the Mansfield Legacy Gym.
Cumby Police Arrest Rowlett Woman, McKinney Man On Felony Warrants
December 23, 2019 – Two traffic stops over the weekend resulted in Cumby police arresting two Dallas area residents on felony warrants, according to arrest reports.
Cumby Police Sgt. Ray Embro reported stopping a Lexus IS3500 at 1 a.m. Dec. 22, after seeing it pass him at the 110 mile marker on I-30 west, traveling at a high rate of speed — 86 miles per hour in a 75 mph speed zone.
After identifying the driver and passenger, a records check was conducted. The passenger, 38-year-old Nikki Nicole Allen of Rowlett, was reportedly found to be wanted in Dallas County for theft of property valued at less than $2,500, but with two or more previous convictions, which enhanced the charge, according to police reports.
Allen was taken into custody on the warrant, while the 36-year-old female driver was released with two citations, according to arrest reports. She remained in Hopkins County jail on the charge Monday, Dec. 23, according to jail reports.
Cumby Police Chief Paul Robertson reported stopping a vehicle on Interstate 30 west at mile marker 110 at 4:15 p.m. Dec. 22 for a traffic violation, according to arrest and dispatch reports. John Rodney Holley, 57, of McKinney was a passenger in the car. A records check showed the warrant for Holley’s arrest, Robertson alleged in arrest reports.
Holley was transported to the county jail, where he remained Monday, Dec. 23, on the Collin County warrant for violation of parole, according to jail reports.
KSST Listeners Receive a Holiday Gift from Sulphur Springs Community Players on Christmas Eve, Morning
KSST listeners will have two opportunities this holiday to hear an hour-long adaptation of Charles Dickens tale, A Christmas Carol, performed by cast members of the Sulphur Springs Community Players. The play’s title is ‘A Christmas Carol: Adapted for Radio On Stage’ and it was first presented to local audiences from the stage of Main Street Theater earlier this month. Now, through a special arrangement with the author and with KSST Radio, the audio will be aired twice; at 7pm on Tuesday December 24 Christmas Eve, and aired again on Christmas morning December 25 at 10am. Viewers to Cable Channel 2 will also be able to hear the presentations. The play, performed live in the style of the Golden Age of Radio, tells the timeless Dickens tale with two dozen different voices performed by the actors and the accompanying sounds produced by a sound effects team onstage. KSST was allowed a special audio recording to be presented to our listeners, with permission from playwright Anthony Palmero who adapted and arranged the classic. Please tune in to KSST 1230AM and let this gift enhance your holiday celebration as well as your listening pleasure!
It’s never easy to have a perfect performance where every actor executes his or her lines and entrances perfectly, but this presentation is as close as they come. Plan to listen and enjoy live local theater at it’s best in these two special playbacks. Here are some photos of a few of the cast and crew of the 2019 ‘A Christmas Carol; Adapted for Radio On Stage’.
Brashear Man Jailed On Controlled Substance Charge, Warrant
Hopkins County sheriff’s deputies responded at 1:45 a.m. Sunday, Dec. 22, to a complaint of a vehicle running, but sitting stationary, in the middle of County Road 1100; the driver in the vehicle appeared to the 911 caller to be passed out, according to sheriff’s reports.
Deputies reported finding a 25-year-old Brashear man inside of a Ford F-250 pickup on CR 1100, west of County Road 1157. After a period of officers knocking on the windows and door of the vehicle, the man awakened, HCSO Sgt. Scott Davis alleged in arrest reports.
Davis alleged open containers were visible next to the driver and a vape pen was seen in the console. When asked if he had anything illegal in the truck, the man handed the vape pen to deputies and admitted it held THC oil, deputies alleged in arrest reports.
The man, identified in arrest reports as Bradley Cole Peek, was taken into custody for possession of a Penalty Group 2 controlled substance. A records check reportedly showed Peek to be wanted in Schleicher County for failure to appear on a possession of marijuana charge.
An inventory of the pickup allegedly revealed multiple containers marked with warnings advising the products contained THC. The containers had no products in them, but did appear to contain marijuana residue, Davis alleged in arrest reports. A water-tight box also allegedly contained a dug falsification device, according to arrest reports. Deputies Lance Burdick and E. Jamie were credited with assisting in the arrest.
Peek was arrested at 2:22 a.m. and taken to jail on the controlled substance charge and the warrant. Jail reports show he also had outstanding warrant for not taking care of speeding and unsafe speed citations. He was released from the county jail later Sunday on $20,000 bond on the controlled substance charge and $1,500 on the Schleicher County warrant, according to jail reports.
Proposed Solar Projects In Dike, Pine Forest Receive County Officials' Approval
Hopkins County Commissioners Court Monday unanimously approved 318 agreements granting tax incentives for solar projects in Dike and Pine Forest communities
“They pay taxes and pay us a fee which is equal to a portion of their taxes, That way when we bring that money into the county’s coffers it doesn’t impact the property taxes,” Sulphur Springs/Hopkins County Economic Development Corporation Chief Executive Roger Feagley told the county commissioners.
The Dike project is proposed to encompass 1639 acres and requires approval of tax incentives from the hospital district and any school districts in which the projects is located. The matter has yet to be presented for hospital district approval. Sulphur Bluff School District Board of Trustees reportedly gave approval for the project Thursday night. Sulphur Springs ISD tabled action on the proposed matter at their meeting, also Dec. 19.
Altogether, the proposed farm is projected to bring about $15,609,900 at a rate of about $1.5 million a year into Hopkins County through the taxing entities, according to Feagley.
The first year, the county would receive $400,000, including a $144,000 road fee to help pay for any damages to county roads used during the construction phase of the Dike project. After that, the company would pay $256,000 a year for the remaining nine years of the agreement. That’s a total of $2.704 million the county will receive from the project.
The hospital would receive $102,000 each year for the 10 years of the tax incentive, for a total of just over $1,024,900, Feagley reported. Sulphur Springs ISD is projected to receive $7.398 million over the 10 years of the Chapter 313 limited tax value limitation agreement. Sulphur Bluff ISD with the same type of tax agreement, would receive $4.563 million, Feagley reported.
The Pine Forest Solar project will cover 2,155 acres, and is dependent on the tax incentives from the county, school and hospital districts. It is projected to bring in more than $9,248,800 in revenue into Hopkins County over the 10 years of the tax incentives, Feagley said.
The annual payments the county is projected to receive for the project are projected at $342,000 a year. The first year with the road maintenance fee, the county would receive just over $514,300. Over the 10 years of the agreement the county would receive over $3.6 million.
This project as proposed would bring in $110,000 to the hospital district annually, for a just over $1,104,900 over the 10 years of the agreement. Revenues for Como-Pickton CISD are estimated at more than $4,543,000.
“The farmers that are leasing their land to them enjoy this because they get paid a fee each year for agricultural purposes. And at the end of 30 years, they take up their posts. They don’t set them in concrete. They set them in the ground with a pile driver. They pull them up out of the ground and they get the land back to use for agricultural purposes, or who knows, 30 years from now you might be building houses there or something,” Feagley noted.
Precinct 3 Commissioner Wade Bartley extended appreciation to Feagley, who he said has done a lot of the ground work, for all of the work he’s put into the reaching the agreements.
Precinct 1 Commissioner Mickey Barker asked that it be added to the motion to approve the agreement, that the funds coming in to the county that first year for road repairs be used for road repairs in the precincts in which the farms are located.
The motion receive approval unanimous approval of the commissioners court.
Meet Dr. Thi Pham, Podiatrist with CHRISTUS in Sulphur Springs, Winnsboro
Originally from Vietnam, Thi Pham came to the United States in the 1980’s as a young teen. She completed public school in the Dallas area and earned an undergraduate college degree from UT Dallas. She then entered Temple University in Philadelphia and after four years, she graduated in 2005 with a Doctor of Podiatry degree, then spent four more years in residency at U.T. San Antonio. Her first years of practice were spent in Winnsboro, Texas, before and since the CHRISTUS Health Care System came to Winnsboro. During that same time, she married and started a family. Now, she is in practice in Sulphur Springs four days per week, and one day each week with her existing clientele in Winnsboro. Earlier in 2019, she purchased the practice of Drs. Brancheau and Minchew of Family Foot Care, and in addition to the clinic building, it’s address and phone number, she retains the patient charts of the former practice. So, Dr. Pham of the new Foot Specialties of Tri-County invites former patients as well as new patients with foot and ankle needs, from children through adults. In a KSST Good Morning Show interview, Dr. Pham stated she sees all conditions of the toes, feet and ankles and especially enjoys providing foot care for diabetic patients. Her slogan is “leave your feet in my hands”. The phone number for Foot Specialists of Tri-County is 903-885-2754.
SSISD Tables Decision On Reinvestment Zones For 2 Proposed Solar Farms
Sulphur Springs Independent School District Board of Trustees was poised Thursday evening to vote on an amended reinvestment zone for one proposed solar farm and a reinvestment zone and application for appraised value limitation on qualified property for school maintenance and operations taxes for another.
However, after hearing concerns voiced by at least seven community members regarding the proposed projects — especially the Solemio solar project — and an executive session discussion, the school trustees voted Dec. 19 unanimously to postpone all actions regarding the requests. School officials afterward said they’d like to speak more with community members regarding their concerns and further investigate them.
The board did all indicate none had any conflicts of interest, either by owning property in or near either project or otherwise, and thus approved resolutions to that effect regarding the two proposed solar projects.
Hopkins Energy LLC
Property in the proposed Hopkins Energy LLC is located in the Dike area and encompasses land in both the Sulphur Springs and Sulphur Bluff school districts. The project, according to information presented to SBISD board members in June, is a nearly 3,000-acre $240 million solar project, $96 million worth of it within SSISD..
The proposed Hopkins Energy LLC project would encompass 2,962 acres in northeastern Hopkins County and be a 320 MW-AC solar electric generating facility, with 1,625,000 photovoltaic panels, and 140 central inverters. Of those, an estimated 1,184 acres is expected to be in Sulphur Springs ISD; that would include 128 MW of capacity, 650,000 photovoltaic panels and 56 central inverters in SSISD. The rest would be located on land with Sulphur Bluff ISD.”
The project is contingent on receiving tax incentives from four local taxing entities: Sulphur Springs and Sulphur Bluff school district, Hopkins County and the county hospital district.
Sulphur Springs ISD trustees on June 10 accepted an application to agree to consider a value limitation for the 40 percent of the proposed facility to be located within the school district boundary and hired Powell Youngblood & Taylor to assist the district with legalities of the project.
Sulphur Bluff ISD Board of Trustees Thursday, June 20, accepted an application for an appraised value limitation for Hopkins Energy LLC and also hired the attorneys to represent them.
The Comptroller’s Office returned their reviews of the application ruled that the Hopkins Energy LLC is “reasonably likely to generate tax revenue in an amount of offset the school district’s maintenance and operations ad valorem tax revenue lost as a result of the agreement before the 25th anniversary of the beginning of the limitation period.” The comptroller issued a certificate for a limitation on appraised value.
SSISD and SBISD were both this week scheduled to consider approving a reinvestment zone for the Hopkins Energy project and tax value limitation. SBISD reportedly approved both for the Dike project.
Solemio Solar LLC Project
The Solemio LLC project agreement received approval from SSISD on Dec. 10, 2018, after the Comptroller’s Officer reported it met the Chapter 313 agreement requirements, provided total employment requirement is waived. The project was to be for a 100 MW solar electric generating facility to be constructed on four properties in the Arbala area which would provide full-time jobs with competitive salaries. It was to have a 100 megawatt capacity, feature 277,812 photovoltaic panels and 32 central inverters. The project was formerly an Alpin Sun project, but is now a Pattern Development project.
Pattern Development officials in January said the project is actually a $65 million project due to limited topographical issues. The Pattern representatives at that time said they were looking for more land to add to the solar farm project.
SSISD is now being asked to consider approving an amended appraised value limitation application, which required a hearing for the now proposed reinvestment zone for the Solemio project.
The prior agreement remains in place, even without the amendment, according to Rick Lambert with Powell, Youngblood and Taylor, attorneys for SSISD on the solar projects.
“The Solemio, we are deep, deep in. They need a reinvestment zone adjustment is the taxes. All the money was figured on our $1.04 tax rate and we’ve dropped to 97-cents because of the latest legislative stuff. That changed the number. That’s dictating the need primarily here for that one,” SSISD Superintendent Mike Lamb explained.
