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Newspaper
Comanche Chief
Location
Comanche, Texas, United States of America
Date
Jul 21, 1939
Page
1
The 1939-40 scholastic census for Ca wie County shows total enrollment 4504, down from 4566 in 1938. Data cover 6 to 18 year olds across districts, with declines in several categories and administrative approval by March.
Plans are underway for the Cochman(e) County Old Settlers Reunion at Lake Eanes on Thursday August 17. The executive committee will meet at the Chamber of Commerce building at 2 30 PM Saturday to make a one day program. Citizens, especially oldtimers, are invited to help and suggest. The reunion has been held nearly forty years with hopes for a highly successful event featuring quartet and old fashioned singing.
The Comanche Chief reports community notices and business items including farmers and merchants like G A Beeman and H R Martin trading livestock, family movements, a bank roster led by McDonald and Switze, and local personalities such as Miss Hallie Knudson and W M Hall. The column notes a pink eye death of a horse and family travel to Dublin and Abilene. It mentions Dr. Rogers offering dental chair services and a saddle and harness maker, J W Patrone.
Pat Howard and his sixty five piece Comanche High School Band led the Indian Trail Festival parade in Gorman on Thursday afternoon. The three day celebration honors the Old Indian Trail with the band chosen to lead by the Young Businessmen of German, sponsors of the festival. The band traveled by bus.
Comanche County becomes one of 51 Texas counties where FSA clients may purchase farms with government loans. Loans run 3 percent interest with 40 year repayment. Texas appropriation totals 4,369,398 dollars. 117 local FSA clients eligible. applications due to county committees.
Gustine board members elect E. Y. McCarty of Lamkin as assistant coach. A Southwest Texas State Teachers College graduate and captain of the 1939 Bobcat quintet, he will assist D. A. Swopen in football basketball and track at Gustine.
The 64 year old retired Church of Christ minister Joan Alvin McDowell was found dead in a room at H L Stevens home near Owens. Brownwood County Attorney Powell said the death was a suicide by a 20 gauge shotgun. McDowell had health and despondency in the prior month. Stevens hid the gun and returned to find McDowell dead on the linoleum with the shotgun beside him. Mrs McDowell was visiting her father near Rising Star at the time. McDowell had survived a 18 hour flood ordeal atop a wind mill tower near Winchel during a prior rescue. He had lived in Brown County 16 years and served several area churches including Winchell, buying a farm near Owens last year.
An estimated one thousand Rural Electrification Association members and prospective members attended the first annual meeting and free barbecue at Comanche High School Saturday. Speakers included Senator Penrose B. Metcalfe, Representative Frank Howington, and A E Cobb from Washington DC. A farm and household appliance demonstration accompanied the event and prize winners were named for several appliances.
Roy Bigas was arrested Saturday morning near DeLeon and charged with theft after allegedly stealing $6.75 from Shankles Service Station in Downing. Sheriff Wid Spivey reports immediate notification and recovery of the loss. Biggs is held in jail here.
The Comanchet County Agricultural Conservation Association mails 1939 40 marketing quotas showing allotment, normal yield, and normal production. White cards issued for compliant growers. overplanted farms receive different cards and must keep sale records. Buyers must collect and remit any due taxes to the county treasurer.
Otho Barbee, captain of the 1938 Texas Confer ence champions, becomes Comanche High School assistant coach chosen by the school board. He succeeds Clovis Fletcher and will aid head coach Glenn Frazier in football and basketball while also taking over track duties. Barbee is a three sport letterman with honors in football basketball and track.
With the watermelon season at full swing, trucks from across the state and neighboring states deliver Comanch melons. Buyers use refrigerator trucks for long hauls as prices hold steady around forty cents per hundred for larger melons.
G D Holbrook Deputy State Superintendent says districts with less than 50 cent tax will not share Rural Aid funds next year. Rural aid salaries remain at 45 with minor changes. Transfers must occur before August and contracts require county approval. Comanche County officials with Holbrook led a Brownwood meeting attended by 200 educators from eight counties.
Lamkin Public Schools will open on Monday September 11 for the 1939 40 term. Superintendent McGee Moore announces a banner year with a new bus to bring students to Lamkin, route pending county board. new typing course and third unit in algebra added. same faculty of Moore Baggett Campbell and Moring.
Interest rises as an open air revival on the Post Office lot grows with crowds. The Methodist Church hosts morning services at 10 a.m. in the Methodist Church and lawn song services at 8 15 p.m. led by Robert L Kennedy of Dallas, followed by 8 45 p.m. sermons. Family night aims to gather whole families. Rev E R Gordon speaks on Will We Know Each Other in Heaven. Sunday morning honors the town’s older residents with the topic Heaven.
Two more productive wells were completed in the Amity shallow oil field in western Comanche County. The Homer Smith tract produced fifty barrels per day and the J. W. Smith land thirty?five? or twenty-five barrels daily. Two rigs are active on the Smith tract with future locations planned directly east of the new producers.
The two Comanche banks report combined deposits at June 30 of 747 497 99 dollars, up 22 569 66 from last year’s 724 000. Gustine deposits reach 46 866 99, up from 32 236 24 a year ago.
Construction starts this week on a six room clapboard home in Comanche for Oswell Brightman. The new residence sits on High School street between the O. O. Brightman and Rev. Gordon Barrett houses.
Two hundred and eighteen miles of additional rural electrification lines were approved for Comanche and Eastland Counties. Project B will extend lines into areas missed by the 235 miles of Project A. Staking begins after route mapping and contract approval. Farmers can still sign for electric power without penalties if engineers have planned connections near their homes.
The Comanche baseball club seeks a fourth straight win as it faces May at Comanche Grammar School Sunday afternoon. The game starts at three o clock with May bringing a top pitcher. crowds are expected to pack the grounds. Buster Hicks pitches and Paul Little catches for Comanche.
Merlin Stanton, a church community farmer seven miles east of Comanches, will begin marketing the first of his 1000 bushel grape crop Monday. He farms 16 acres with 8 acres of young growth and aims to contact truckers entering Comanches to sell fruit, melons, and grapes.
The Fourteenth Annual Peach and Watermelon Festival will be held at De Leon August 2 to 5 and organizers including Frederick G. Harmon say it will be the largest festival yet.
Members of the Co-Operative and Comanche National Farm Loan Associations will hold their annual stockholders meeting at 2:00 p m Friday July 28 at the Majestic Theatre. The groups report 564 Land Bank loans totaling 1 140146 and 135 Commissioner loans totaling 179050 with total loans of 1319196. Attendance by Commissioner borrowers and wives is urged. speakers include John V Van De Mark and soil erosion specialist Ernest Johnson. color films on 4 H and farm activities will be shown.
Baggett, five and a half miles north of Gustine, hosts an old fashioned camp meeting starting next Sunday for one week. Rev. James Williams of Pampa will conduct with a tent that seats 1000 people. Campers may stay in the large tent or bring their own tents as the Baggett Creek Church committee invites all to attend.
Hubert Atterbury sold 44 008 pounds of watermelons Sunday from his 92 acre field in Indian Creek, among the county's largest melon growers. Comanche buyers paid 40 cents per hundred for melons. Nearby growers Earl McDonald and Jack Carnes also plant melons, with McDonald at 51 acres and Carnes at 46 acres.
Miss Jerry Slider daughter of Mr and Mrs Lionel Slider will represent Comanche as a visiting princess at the Grand Ball of the Indian Tail Festival in German tonight. J C Helm Jr will accompany her as escort.
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