The Methodist Women’s group invites everyone in the community to enjoy lunch at First United Methodist’s annual fundraising Mexican pile-on dinner this coming Sunday, Feb. 24.

The meal consists of seasoned ground beef, tortilla chips, lettuce, tomatoes, cheese, onions, and additional trimmings. Desserts and drinks will also be served. 

The free-will donation meal will be available for either dine in or carry out, starting at 11:30 a.m. 

Proceeds raised by the meal will go to missions and to the Methodist Women’s scholarship fund. 

The regular dominos crowd, plus a few extras, helped Louise Shelton (front, c) cele-brate her 103rd birthday with a few brisk games of “42” last Friday afternoon at the local library. Shelton is a frequent winner and attends the games almost every week.

Moran High School student JT Holland placed fifth in class 35 medium weight European cross steers at the Fort Worth Livestock Show earlier this month, earning a spot in the exhibition’s Sale of Champions.

Judge Chris Mullinix from Kansas placed Holland’s Simmental steer “Coon” in the top seven percent of the 70 animals in the class. 

Holland had already won the grand champion steer banner at the Shackelford County Youth and Livestock show with Coon on Feb. 2 before exhibiting the animal in the Fort Worth show the following week.

Dakota Fowler, head girls coach at Moran High School, was chosen to be one of the volleyball coaches for the upcoming Big Country Fellowship of Christian Athletes All-Star Festival.

Coaches and players for the teams were announced on Sunday, Feb. 10 at Beltway South in Abilene.

Fowler was named as one of the coaches for the South volleyball team, along with Jamey Wills from Clack Middle School and head coach Natalie Whitewood from Early High School.

The Albany Independent School District and the City of Albany will both hold elections on May 4, while the other three local governing bodies, the Shackelford County hospital district, the Moran city council, and the Moran school board do not have any contested races and are expected to cancel their elections. 

Six new candidates joined various local races before last week’s  5:00 p.m. Friday cut-off.

Don Taggart is the newest candidate for a seat on the Albany city council. 

Rodney Alexander filed to return as mayor of Albany.

A quorum of Shackelford County Hospital District (SCHD) directors voted to order a new ambulance at a cost of $199,775, a purchase that has been discussed for several months and which is included in the 2019 budget. 

The board members settled on a 2019 Dodge Ram 3500 diesel chassis furnished with a Stryker “Powerload” mechanism from Frazer Ltd. in Houston, the company that has supplied the last three units owned by the district.

The new ambulance will replace one of the two 2009 models owned by the district. A 2013 ambulance will remain in service.

Shackelford County 4-H and FFA members brought back an assortment of prizes from the San Angelo Stock Show recently.

“It was a stellar outing for Shackelford County, especially following the wins at Fort Worth,” said Albany ag instructor Chris Beard. “It’s pretty exciting to see all the successes.”

Breed reserve champion banners were won by Hannah Snyder and Huffman Heatly, Tyler Beard earned a belt buckle and scholarship money, and other local youth also placed well.

Junior Heifers

The Texas Junior Livestock Association held its 39th annual year end awards at the Will Rogers Memorial Auditorium during the Fort Worth livestock show, and two local youth placed in the cattle divisions.

Albany eighth grader Gracie Price, a junior director of the organization, led the pledge of allegiance at the heifer presentation on Friday, Jan. 25 and the invocation at the steer presentation on Wednesday, Feb. 6.

Price won year-end awards in the heifer cate-gory.

Both Price and Moran junior JT Holland placed in the steer division.

Almost 94 percent of the 2018 tax levy had been collected as of Tuesday, according to chief appraiser Clayton Snyder, with mailed payments coming in for a week or so with the required Jan. 31 postmark deadline.

He also said that there had been fairly steady walk-in traffic since Feb. 1, with property owners paying a little penalty and interest in addition to their original taxes.

Reports from the Shackelford County Central Appraisal District (CAD) showed that $9,009,400 of the $9,593,390, or 93.9 percent had come in or was postmarked before the Jan. 31 deadline.

A free pipeline awareness class will be offered at no charge next week on Thursday, Feb. 28 at the Aztec Theater.

The 11:00 a.m. class, which includes lunch, is mandated by federal regulations requiring annual public awareness and emergency response training by pipeline owners for emergency responders, public officials, excavators, and the general public.

TCOLE and fire credits are given for the training.

Register at pipeline response.org.