Big Discounts for the Big Apple & Bermuda
Well we promised you one travel deal each week, but we already have another before the week is out. If you are looking for a great deal on a cruise going to Bermuda, then this is the best we have found!! The Norwegian Breakaway ship cruises out of New York City to Bermuda, and the best deal we found today is to travel in August of this year. We have been to Bermuda a couple of times (once on a cruise, and once direct flight/hotel). I can tell you that direct flights to Bermuda can get expensive and the hotels are certainly pricey. The best way to go is definitely by cruise ship. I would also recommend flying to NYC a day early to sightsee before your cruise and maybe do a little shopping. I have found flights to NYC for the dates around the cruise on American Airlines for around $250 each/ round trip. So this makes for a wonderful trip to see NYC And Bermuda and enjoy big savings. I just priced out a 7-day cruise from NYC to Bermuda in outside cabin for 2 for a total of $2795.30 plus Air ($506) and there is a stateroom credit of $150!! Click on the link below to get started looking at the dates, but you will need to email: [email protected] to get the extra savings available for the August voyages of: $100-$250 per stateroom credit.
Click here for Bermuda Cruise Pricing
Additional Stateroom Credits per voyage are as follows:
Inside Cabin: $100
Outside Cabin:150
Mini-Suite:$200
Suite:$250
Burglary Suspect Flees, But Cannot Hide
Darien Tre Sims, 23, was arrested Wednesday morning on a charge for Burglary of a Habitation. Sulphur Springs Police Department officers responded to a residential burglary on the 600 block of Houston Street where they learned that the resident had observed subjects inside of her home before the subjects fled the scene. Officers located Sims walking around the 500 block of Connally Street. The victim identified Sims as a suspect. Sims was then taken into custody and transported to the Hopkins County Jail where he sits on a $20,000 bond for Burglary of a Habitation.
Assault on County Road Leads to Arrest
Nathaniel Ryan Lisenbee, 26, was arrested Wednesday night on a charge for Assault/Family Violence by Impeding Airway. Lisenbee also had two outstanding warrants for Failure to Maintain Financial Responsibility and Driving with an Invalid License.
Hopkins County Sheriff’s Deputies were dispatched to County Road 4761 in reference to an assault report. Upon arrival, arresting officers met with a victim where it was found that Lisenbee had been involved in an altercation with the victim while inside of a vehicle. According to the victim’s account of the incident, Lisenbee assaulted the victim by punching her in the face and then threw her to the ground after attempting to place her in a choke hold to impede her breathing. The victim was found to have marks and bruising consistent with the stated actions. According to the victim, Lisenbee removed the keys from the victim’s vehicle and threw them into a nearby pasture and proceeded to take the victim’s cellphone to prevent her from calling law enforcement. Lisenbee then left the victim along with 3 minor children on the side of the road as he walked away calling for a ride.
Officers located Lisenbee in a friend’s vehicle during a traffic stop and took him into custody where Lisenbee admitted to the details of the incident. Officers then transported Lisenbee to the Hopkins County Jail where he now sits on $30,000 bond for Assault of a Family Member by Impeding Breathing, Failure to Maintain Financial Responsibility, and Driving with an Invalid License.
SSPD Makes Arrest Shortly After Burglary Reported
Carae Martez Williams, 21, a Calvert Street resident, is in Hopkins County Jail following his arrest Wednesday morning burglary of a habitation and for possession of a firearm by a felon.
The resident at 621 Houston Street called Sulphur Springs Police Wednesday morning to report a man in her home looking for a weapon. She said the man was wearing a camo jacket. As SSPD approached the residence, Officer Miller spotted a subject that matched the description walking on Locust Street near Van Sickle. He made contact with Williams and patted him down for officer safety. The weapon was located in the waistband just above Williams’ front pocket. Williams told the officer he was a felon and had been released in 2014. The arrest was made at 10:12 a.m. Wednesday.
Williams’ bond has been set at $10,000 for possession of a firearm by a felon and $35,000 for burglary of a habitation.
Saltillo FCCLA Team Bring Home Medals From State Meet
Saltillo FCCLA students competed in the State FCCLA meeting last weekend in Dallas. The team brought home 12 Gold and two (2) Silver medals.
Kneeling L to R: Ana Gallegos, Lorena Castro, Mason McGill, Katy Perea & Catlin Shelby; 2nd Row L to R: Jodie Tippit, Brianna Harvick, Brenda Castro, Madison Simmons & Rainie English; 3rd Row L to R: BreAnna Reynolds, Paula Boekhorst, Michael Simmons & Malori Hogue.
Cumby High School Robotics Teams Wins Nationals
Cumby High School Robotics Team
The Cumby High School Robotics competed at the National Robotics Meet on April 7-9 at Council Bluffs, Iowa and won first in the nation. Eight students competed, including Landon Mabe, Preston Salinas, Brent Brewer, Jacob Simonek, Hannah Jarvis, Presley Clampitt, Jesslin Bond, and Lacy Jacobs. “Nationals was pretty amazing, especially since we’re all best friends,” Robotics student Hannah Jarvis said. “Three of our guys are seniors, and just being with them for their last robotics match was pretty amazing.”
The robotics competition is sponsored by Vex Robotics, who annually releases a new game that require teams to design a robot to play. The theme of the national competition was “Nothing But Net,” where teams had to construct a robot that could pick up and fire foam balls into nets on each side of the enclosed space. “Whenever you’re building a robot, You have to build it to fit the game,” Robotics student Landon Mabe said. “We built the robot in three stages. We started with the drive, which is how it gets around, then we worked on the intake, which is how it picks up the foam balls off the field, then finally the firing mechanism, which we like to call the ‘hammer’. After we built the drive, the intake, and then the firing mechanism, we have to program the robot to incorporate all of the motors that make it move and then hook it up to the remote. We had to document all of this in our Robotics Engineering Notebook, which we kept track of throughout the year. Everything we did, everytime we did something to it, we had to record it in the notebook.”
The primary component used to pick up and then fire the foam balls was rubber bands. According the Robotics student Jacob Simmonek, the robot would pick up the foam balls with two rubber bands tied to gears and then carry the ball to the firing mechanism using a series of chains. Then a square of plexi-glass would nudge the foam ball into the “hammer” which would trigger a light sensor that activates the “hammer” in order to launch the foam ball into the net.
The Cumby robotics team was part of an “alliance” with two other schools, making for three official national champion teams. The two other schools in Cumby’s alliance were from Galveston, TX, named 400X and 400S. “We got to say, to their credit, 400X and 400S had amazing robots and were cool people,” Landon said.
The Cumby robotics team not only won the national championship, but also the “Design Award,” an award which is given only to one team out of the over 400 entries at the High School, Middle School and Open divisions for the most creative and the most time-consuming robot design. “We’re more proud of that than we are even of winning,” Landon said.
The team was lead by robotics teacher Lee Gifford.
Cumby High School Robotics Team
Animal of the Week: Heidi
Heidi
Heidi is a two to three year old boxer mix that was brought into the Animal Shelter after she began following a cyclist down the road two weeks ago. “She followed some guy riding his bike down to the police station and he got concerned so he called the police,” Animal Shelter Officer Barbi Blanch said. “They brought her in a couple of Sunday’s ago. Nobody has claimed her or said anything about missing her, so here she is.”
Heidi is already spayed and shows signs of previous training and is most likely house-broken, based on her behavior in the Shelter. At the off-site adoption last weekend, April 9, the Animal Shelter officers discovered that Heidi had previous owners. “We did find out recently that she had an owner at one time,” Officer Blanch said. “When she was at the Atwoods for the off-site, somebody recognized her. We don’t know who recognized her or who the owner is.”
Heidi is a sweet and playful dog, according to Officer Blanch, and is also shy of strangers. She plays with other shelter dogs her size and is not bothered by the presence of cats. “She does like playing with toys,” Officer Blanch said. “She’s got a squeaky toy that she had at the off-site and she enjoyed it. She’s a little playful and she’ll walk with you, maybe even go jogging with somebody who likes to jog, but as far as being around people, she’s fairly calm.”
Heidi has tested negative for heart worms and due to the fact that she is already spayed, her adoption fee is only $5o.00. Heidi will be at the off site adoption this weekend, April 16 at Atwoods from 11 a.m. to 4 p.m.
Hot and Humid Issues; Coming Events
Mario Villarino DVM, Ph.D.
Hopkins County Extension Agent for Ag and NR
1200B Houston Street
Sulphur Springs, Texas 75482
903-885-3443
by Mario Villarino
Just as I started thinking about this week notes, and as I was watching rain on and off in Sulphur Springs, I recalled the issue related to molds growing in our crops. The critical part of a healthy plant environment is for the rain cycles to have a chance to dry out. Although plants enjoy watering, certainly too much of it can become a problem. A good optimal environment in the ground is to have an appropriate air to water ratio so roots can air out. With water logged soils, this does not happen, so gardens and lawns will suffer because extremely wet weather followed by hot and dry will certainly alter the schedule putting a toll into our already tight schedule of warm days before extreme heat. Insects will also respond to hot-humid weather proliferating. One of the most common problems during extreme wet days are fire ants infestations. Since water occupies air underground, fire ants have the tendency to emerge from it. According to Michael Merchant, Urban Extension Entomologist for Texas A&M AgriLife Extension, among the common questions he receives about fire ants include questions on how to control them within vegetable gardens, compost bins and (increasingly) chicken coops. “My favorite tool for fire ant control is use of fire ant bait broadcast over the entire home lawn and landscape. This is an inexpensive and environmentally friendly way to keep fire ants away. However, the most commonly available baits do not allow direct use in vegetable gardens or many areas with livestock. I suppose the EPA is concerned about baits falling into vegetables, like lettuce, and being directly consumed by people or livestock. Fortunately, there is a simple alternative.In most cases the simplest way to get fire ants out of a small- to medium-sized garden, compost bin or chicken coop is to apply a fast acting fire ant bait around the outside perimeter of the site. This should be a legal application for all fire ant baits (check your label to be sure), and since fire ants do not pay much attention to garden edges or fences, the inside ants will readily pick up bait from the surrounding ground. Yes, the bait does end up inside the garden or livestock area anyway, but only inside the fire ant nests, where there is no risk of it being picked up by chickens or contaminating leafy vegetables. For larger gardens or crop and pasture land where perimeter treatments might be less effective, several fire ant baits may be used. Spinosad and abamectin-containing baits generally allow garden application (e.g., Clinch®, Fertilome® Come and Get It, and Payback®). In addition, Extinguish® (but not Extinguish Plus) fire ant bait containing methoprene has a label that allows use on cropland, pastures and rangeland. Extinguish® is an excellent long-term control option, especially in larger sites; but it is too slow for most gardeners, requiring approximately two months for maximum control. Avoid applying any of these baits to areas where poultry or other fowl are actively foraging. In addition to baits, mounds can be treated directly with any of several mound drenches labeled for use in gardens. Alternatively, ant colonies inside a vegetable garden, chicken coop or compost bin can sometimes be successfully removed with a shovel and a straight-sided 5 gallon bucket. To keep the fire ants from climbing the shovel handle or escaping the bucket, liberally dust both shovel handle and bucket insides with talcum powder. The talc will keep fire ants in for a short while. Shovel quickly and go deep to attempt to remove the queen(s). Once the nest is contained in the bucket, it can be dispatched by flooding with soapy water. For more information in this or any other agricultural topic please contact the Hopkins County Texas A&M AgriLife Extension Office by calling 903-885-3443 or email me at [email protected].
Coming up:
Hopkins County Master Gardeners Annual Plant Swap, Saturday April 23, 2016 9:00 AM to 12 Noon at the Bright Star Veterinary Clinic Parking lot, 744 Gilmer Street, Sulphur Springs, Texas. The Hopkins County Master Gardeners will welcome all who are interested in gardening whether they have something to swap or not.
Texas Watershed Steward Workshop, May 6, 2016, Rains County Texas A&M AgriLife Extension Office, 410 Tawakoni Drive (highway 276) Emory Texas. Workshop with overview of water quality and watershed management in Texas. CEU’s for Private applicators and others. Register by calling 979-862-4457 or http://tws.tamu.edu.
Homeowner Maintenance of Aerobic Treatment Units, May 16, 2016 at the Hopkins County Extension Office located at 1200B Houston Street, Sulphur Springs, Texas. $100 registration. Call 903-885-3443.
SSHS Volleyball Coach Moves to Denton Braswell
Wildcats Head Football Coach and Athletic Director Greg Owens is once again in the market for a Head Volleyball Coach. Volleyball Coach Allison Irvin and her husband Football Assistant Coach Johnny Irvin both had resignations accepted by the Sulphur Springs School Board at Monday night’s meeting. Ms. Irvin has been hired as the Head Volleyball Coach at Denton Braswell, a new school set to open in August. Coach Johnny Irvin is said to be looking for a position in the Denton area.
Coach Owens has hired five volleyball coaches in his ten plus years as Sulphur Springs Athletic Director. Assistant Coach David Carrillo, also Head Softball Coach, was elevated to the Head Volleyball Coaching position at one time. Jerrod Hammack, also Head Baseball Coach, is also a volleyball assistant.
