WEDNESDAYOCT. 4, 2017VOL. 110 • NO. 41

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P. O. Box 817 • 809 First StreetPalacios, Tx. 77465

(361) 972-3009/Fax 972-2610E-Mail: palaciosbeacon@gmail.com

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Except for paid advertising, all articles, photos or other infor-mation submitted on Monday will be published on a space available basis only.

Open 8:30 a.m.-5 p.m.Beacon Closed Wednesday

Observing Our

110Year1907-2017

• Beacon Deadline 5 p.m. Friday For Articles & Advertising •

NRC approves 20-year license renewal for STP

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BY ALAN C. SCHULMANPalacios Beacon - Reporter

(See ROTARY, Page 3)

PalaciosHigh School

CheerleadersSee Page 9 See Page 12

POWERSETInducts New

Members

PalaciosPalaciosBEACONBEACONProudly Serving The City By The Sea Since 1907USPS 418460 1 SECTION, 12 PAGES

PCMC takes center stage at Rotary

■ Blood Drive Tues. at PCMC

The Palacios Commu-nity Medical Center will be holding a blood drive on Tues. (Oct. 10) from 1:30 - 6 p.m. at the Hyett Conference Room. For more information contact Angie Yeager at 361-972-2511.

(See CITY, Page 2)

Homecoming King & Queen candidates....

City plans fornew sidewalks for Main St.

(See STP, Page 4)

PHS Class of 1998 will be having their 20 year reunion on Fri. (Oct. 6) at the Outrigger and Shark Homecoming football game from 7-12 p.m. Families will met on Sat. (Oct. 7) at the Palacios Marine Center Saturday from 1-3 p.m. For more info visit https://goo.gl/forms/qMpST1KeGQm-Wmzdd2.

■ PHS Class of ‘98 reunion this weekend

County’s LawEnforcement

Team UpSee Page 3

CANDIDATES for the Palacios High School’s 2017 Homecoming King & Queen are: (front) Marian Gomez, Ka-tilynn Brown, Elizabeth Ortiz, Summer Brandstatt and Tamara Perez; (back) Americo Pena, Morgan Segovia, Johnny Gatica, Mark Hall and Juan Cantu. See page 11 for Homecoming Court. (Beacon Photo by Ryan West)

(See BAND, Page 4)

The Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC) approved STP Nuclear Operating Company’s (STP) request today to ex-tend the operating licenses of the South Texas Project an additional 20 years.

“The significance of this milestone cannot be overstated,” said Dennis Koehl, President and CEO of STP Nu-clear Operating Company. “The license renewal of the South Texas Project is part of our ongoing commitment to pro-vide Texans with safe, clean and reliable energy for decades to come.”

STP filed its request for license re-newal in October 2010. During the past several years, a dedicated team coordi-nated site inspections and audits by the

NRC. There have also been numerous meetings where the public was provided with opportunities to offer comment on the proposed license extension.

“We appreciate the trust that the lo-cal community has in our operation,” said Koehl. “We never take that trust for granted. With the support of our em-ployees, we will continue to work hard to maintain and build on that trust in the future.”

Nuclear power facilities are federally licensed to operate for 40 years and may apply for a 20-year renewal.

STP’s initial 40-year operating licens-es were set to expire in 2027 and 2028 respectively. The two-unit facility will

now be licensed through 2047 and 2048 respectively.

In terms of economic impact, STP is the largest employer in Matagorda County with approximately 1,200 direct employees. In addition, STP also sup-ports approximately 3,500 jobs in other industries and accounts for $2.2 billion in annual economic output.

Environmentally, STP provides more than 25 percent of the carbon-free elec-tricity produced in Texas. This equates to approximately 14 million metric tons of carbon avoided annually –equivalent to the emissions of three million cars.

“STP has been a positive force in

If there’s one thing to be taken from last Tuesday’s public hearing regarding the Texas Department of Agri-culture’s CDBG Program, it’s that sidewalk repair is ex-pensive.

The City of Palacios is applying for a grant in the amount of $250,000 with a possible use of the funds for sidewalk repair on Main St. The public hearing was held to receive public input on the use of funds from the grant, and while no opposing views were stated as to the use of the funds, the ‘bang for the buck’ did come into question. Local resident Bonnie Ben-son asked, “For $250,000 all we can do is three blocks on Main St.? It’s that expensive, huh?”

Three blocks on Main St. from 3rd St. to 5th St. that are considered the ‘Historic Dis-trict’ are the target for side-walk repair on the north side of the street, and the grant requires a 10% match by the City. Kelly Odom of Grant-works was on hand to explain the process and answer ques-tions.

The Palacios High School Fighting Shark Band has taken the history of one of Palacios’ own heroes and built this year’s marching routine around his story.

This year’s rou-tine, “Letter from War” will tell the story of Palacios World War II veter-an Leonard Kune-fke, in music and movement.

“This show will be the biggest and most meaning-ful show the Pala-cios band has ever done,” said band and color guard directors, Jim and Maria Popham.

“We are trying to educate the students the sacrifices our heroes made for their freedom.

“Our show will be narrated using Mr. Leonard Kunefke’s story from The Rare Breed, a collection of stories written and published by the Palacios Beacon’s late

publisher and late editor, Nick and Bert West.”

The show will feature an enormous 30’ x 60’ recreation of a letter, emblazed with Kunefke’s name and address he lived at the time after returning home from war, along with 45 crosses on

the field to repre-sent heroes, as the show’s focal points.

“This will be a very touching show,” added the Pophams. “The Palacios band will perform the show to remind all spec-tators of the sacri-fices that have been made, and are made every day to keep our country free. The music was pur-posely written for

“One of the things that real-ly surprises me when I’m out and about in the community is people actually say ‘do we have a hospital?’ “ said John Garr, Marketing Director for Palacios Community Medi-cal Center, at last Wednes-day’s Rotary Club of Palacios meeting.

It is evident that, as market-ing director, Garr has some work to do, and he was do-ing that work as he sang the praises of PCMC to the at-tentive Rotary members in attendance. “We have prob-

BY ALAN C. SCHULMANPalacios Beacon - Reporter

BY RYAN WESTPalacios Beacon-Publisher

PHS Band brings local history to life with ‘Letters from War’ marching routine

■ CFS dinner fundraiser Sun. at KC Hall

The Knights of Colum-bus is having a Chicken Fried Steak Dinner Fun-draiser on Sun. (Oct. 8) from 10:30 a.m. - 1 p.m. at the KC Hall located at 710 Main St. Tickets can be purchased for $9 per plate from the Faith Formation students or may be picked up in the St. Anthony’s church office located at 1004 Magnusson from Mon-Thurs. 9a.m. -4 p.m.

DEADLINE 5 P.M. FRIDAYPage 2 - Palacios Beacon - Wed., October 4, 2017 DEADLINE 5 P.M. FRIDAY

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AND HAVE ITDELIVEREED

Dr. Alan Barker, DO, MBA Dr. Barbara Hayes, DNP,FNP-C Shanna Bellamy-FNP-C

Joe Vasquez, A-GNP-C

You have a lot of options when it comes to your healthcare and it’s comforting to know that no matter your age the Palacios

Medical Clinic is here to meet your specific needs. Our providers have training in both pediatric and geriatric care. Our specialty

physicians include an allergist, a dermatologist, a clinical psychotherapist and a general surgeon. With extended hours starting in November we will be able to see our patients from

9am - 7 pm Monday through Friday. The Palacios Community Medical Center...

We are close to home and here to heal!

We are very happy to announce the arrival of Joe Vasquez, A-GNP-C

to the Palacios Community Medical Center family.

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Citizens Forum“What we’re doing is, we’re adjusting

our budget to reflect what we’ve actu-ally done this year. It looks like we’ve spent money before we’ve approved and budgeted it. We’re doing it backwards, I think,” stated resident Chip Woolf, as he critiqued the city’s budgeting process during the citizens forum. But, he wasn’t finished, as he gravitated to his biggest objection to the city’s budget. “Then the

final question I ask, and this is a personal problem I have, and I’m going to try and get a psychiatrist or somebody to help me (laughs). Somehow I remember, back a few months ago we borrowed $700,000 and most of that money was already spent, because we had to do it in a hurry or we wouldn’t be able to use the money on what it had already been spent on, and I don’t see any adjustment to the budget or any recognition in the

budget of the Pa-vilion project. I think it’s important that, somehow, it’s in there.”

Patricia Lov-ing reported that the leak on Harri-son Ave had been fixed, but asked for a written report de-tailing the process of the repair and a timeline for re-

moving the temporary fill material and repairing the street. Ms. Loving also asked for monthly reports on Police Department activity and better commu-nication between City Hall and citizens regarding budgetary matters, etc.

Harvey UpdateCity Manager David Kocurek report-

ed that city and county workers had been on the job until 7:30 p.m. daily picking up storm debris, and the work was 95 percent complete as of Tuesday. Kocu-rek announced that Bayfest has been postponed until January 12-13th, and the Harvest Moon Library Fundraiser will be on October 21.

Approved ItemsCity Council approved the appoint-

ment of Charles Lobstein to the Airport Committee, and Ordinance 2016-O-6 for a Budget Amendment.

Also approved were the Minutes of the Sep. 18, 2017 Regular Council Meet-ing, and Council excused the absence of Mayor Smith from the August 22 and 29

meetings and the absence of Councilmember Erdelt from the Sep. 12 meeting.

Next MeetingThe next Regular City

Council Meeting will be on Tues. (Oct. 10).

CITY (Continued From Page 1)

Full Automotive Repair

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Several folks have reported seeing Wood storks. Many more birds are flying through the area...Fall has arrived. See Bob’s notes below.

“117 Wood Storks at Saha Fish Farm and a beautiful adult Peregrine Falcon harassing the peeps. 128 Buff-breasted Sandpipers at Saha Turf Farm

A Yellow-billed Cuckoo (late) and Philadelphia Vireo along with Green Herons at the Matagorda County Bird-ing Nature Center. Also exciting is the pair of Great Kis-kadees that have been here all summer though apparently they were unsuccessful in their nesting attempt.

In fence rows and riparian areas, there have been lots of Wilson's Warblers and Yellow Warblers around with the occasional American Redstart. Good numbers of fly-catchers too.

Blue-winged Teal and Green-winged Teal have arrived in decent numbers but most of the other ducks are still further north.

Today over Hwy 35 toward Pt Comfort there was a small kettle of Broad-winged Hawks accompanied by a Merlin, a Cooper's Hawk, 2 Sharp-shinned Hawks, an Osprey and mix of Vultures. Folks should look to the sky periodically. Raptors are migrating now. There is a chance to see large kettles (over a 1000), especially if Broad-winged Hawks.”

Miss Murphy reported seeing American Kestrels west of town.The Black walnut trees, in central Wisconsin, are dropping their walnuts. A flurry of flickers, (one book calls them common, or Yellow-shafted), were flying through the trees, landing on the walnuts that were about to fall. I assume they were pecking insects out of them?

Bird NotesCathy Wakefield(361)404-1198

International Crane Foundation - Volunteer

PALACIOS BEACON

Area BriefsTee Pee Motel will not reopen

WHARTON: The effects of Hurricane Harvey and the river floods have hit Wharton County and its businesses hard. Some businesses have decided not to re-open after the devastation. One of those is Wharton’s most eye-catch-ing historic location, the Tee Pee Motel. “Unfortunately, I don’t think we are going to be able to open the motel back up,” said owner Bryon Woods. Woods said that the motel wasn’t the most profitable business on the lot and that the RV Park that he owns located behind the motel was the main source of revenue from the property. The mo-tel rooms were originally designed in 1942 by George and Toppie Belcher but construction was delayed until 1947 because of WW II. It closed in the 1980s and remained that way until Woods bought it in 2004, refurbished it and re-opened in 2006. - Wharton Journal-Spectator

The one and only....• PALACIOS BEACON •

City’s FallClean-Up

a success...DUMPSTERS were stuffed with an assort-ment of trash and debris at the City of Palacios’ annual Fall Clean-Up last weekend. (Submit-ted Photo)

ROTARY(Continued From Page 1)

Palacios Beacon - Wed., October 4, 2017 - Page 3DEADLINE 5 P.M. FRIDAY

ARRESTSMarco Antonio Trujillo-Fuentes, 26,

Reynosa, was arrested in the 800 block of Welch Ave at 10:00 p.m. on Sep. 27. Parked Facing Traffic.

INCIDENTSTheft: Officer was dispatched to the 1000

block of Main St. at 4:53 p.m. on Sep. 22 in reference to a civil issue, possibly theft.

Theft of Services: Two male subjects purchased food at a local restaurant at 3:00 p.m. on Sep. 23 and did not pay.

Domestic Dispute: Officers were dis-patched to the intersection of 1st St. and W. Craymer Ave at 9:15 p.m. on Sep. 23 in reference to a domestic dispute.

EMS Call: Officers were dispatched to Palacios Medical Center at 7:18 p.m. on Sep. 24 in reference to narcotics usage.

Fire: Officer was dispatched to the 1100 block of Johnson Ave at 10:45 p.m. on Sep. 24 in reference to a house fire.

Failed to Stop at Designated Point (Stop Sign): Officer conducted a traffic

stop near the intersection of Ritchie Ave and 4th St. at 5:45 p.m. on Sep. 28.

Motorist Assist: Officer was advised at 8:00 p.m. on Sep. 28 of a school bus stuck in a ditch at 4th St. and Henderson Ave.

Individuals listed have been arrested and/or charged with an offense. Inclusion in this report does not imply that the person is guilty of any crime. The following are offense and arrest reports submitted by the Palacios Police Dept. to the Palacios Beacon as of noon Friday.

• Palacios Police Reports •

From the Police ChiefBy Police Chief David Miles

Clean up ef-forts have been underway all week and days before. It’s going to take a while to get everything picked up. Don’t add to the piles with new brush or debris and don’t mix them up. They have to be hauled to separate locations.

County’s three law enforcement agencies team up to take drugs off the street

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The three law enforcement agencies in Matagorda Coun-ty teamed up to take a bite out of the drug world recently.

On Saturday, Sept. 23, after a lengthy narcotic investiga-tion, the Matagorda County Sheriff’s Office along with the Bay City Police Depart-ment and the Palacios Police Department executed a nar-cotics search warrant in the 1000 Block of 4th Street in Bay City.

The Bay City Police De-partment SRT Team made en-try into the residence which was secured with no injuries. Located inside the residence was a large amount of co-caine, methamphetamine, over $3300 in cash and 2 shotguns. George R. Wilson, 46 years old, was arrested and charged with 2 counts of Possession of a controlled substance and 1 count of Fel-on in Possession of a Firearm (3rd degree felony). The 1st

count was for cocaine 4g to 200g (2nd degree felony) and the 2nd count was for meth-amphetamine >1g (state jail felony). Sheriff Skipper Os-

borne said he is very proud of the work between the three Departments and looks for-ward to taking more drugs off the street.

The Palacios Yacht Club (PYC) recently made The Outrigger Event Center its new home but, thanks to Hurricane Harvey, their first scheduled meeting there in September was cancelled.

“In order to make up for lost time and celebrate that Palacios escaped the worst of the damage, time to celebrate in a big way,” stated PYC

President, Barney Gulley.The fun starts on Saturday,

October 14 with the Rag-tag Regatta at noon, which is open to any type of boat, launching at South Bay, and following a course that will make a turn somewhere in East Bay, and returning to South Bay.

At 6 p.m., an Oktoberfest party will begin at The Out-

rigger which will include German music, German food, and a cash bar. This family-friendly event is open to members and non-members in hopes of being joined by all to celebrate a successful regatta, recognize Palacios’ first youth sailing team, and thank all the sponsors that help with the regatta. Non-members are asked to con-tribute $5 per person to cover the cost of the meal. Gulley continued, “The membership of PYC have been wanting an expanded social calendar and this is a great way to invite people to see what PYC is all about and join the fun.”

Gulley reminds everyone that “All you need is a love of the water and good fellow-ship to be a member. Several of our members do not even have a boat.”

Palacios Yacht Club’s Oktoberfest Party, ‘Ragtag’ Regatta next Sat.

ably the most impres-sive group of people I’ve ever worked for,” stated Garr. “You have a CEO in Claude Man-ning and I have seen a lot of growth since he came to that hos-pital.” Garr also sang the praises of the pro-viders there, including Dr. Alan Barker, Dr. Barbara Hayes, and Shanna Bellamy, FNP-C, and touted the ser-vices available at the hospital and clinic that now include allergies, nephrology, dermatol-ogy, x-rays, lab, and CT scan, with more new services to come including a hyperbar-ic chamber for faster wound healing.

PCMC had a very successful ‘Box Sup-per’ fundraiser last Thursday, and as John Garr continues to spread the word, even-tually everyone will know that, yes, we do have a hospital.

Upcoming EventsThe Harvest Moon

Dinner and Dance Fundraiser for the Pa-lacios Library will be on Oct. 21.

Next Meeting The next Rotary

Club of Palacios meet-ing will be on Oct. 11 at noon at Palacios Mexican Restaurant.

DEADLINE 5 P.M. FRIDAYPage 4 - Palacios Beacon - Wed., October 4, 2017

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