News

MARTIN COUNTY and WEST TEXAS - Area gins are continuing to bring what little cotton is out there to town. Big Spring has produced 990 bales. Stanton will not open at all this fall. Flower Grove now has 2370 bales this week. Of the five gins that have been busy the most, the Ackerly gin is at 11,615 bales and is finished for the year. The Tarzan gin has turned out 10,290 bales as of the middle of the week, and the gin at St. Lawrence has announced a total of 39,187 bales. In Lomax, the gin just hit the 16,787 mark, while at Midkiff the total this week is at 16,518 bales.

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ODESSA - The cattle show at the annual Sandhills Stock Show in Odessa this past week had a definite Martin County flair to it.

Both the heifer show and the steer show are named for Martin County ranchers and now sponsored by their heirs.

The heifer show is now officially known as the Bob and JoJon Cox Hereford Heifer Show and the steer show is the Tee and Jo Knox Hereford Steer Show.

Both now deceased, Tee and Jo Knox were married in 1954.

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Just get used to it - at least for the next year or more. The interstate is going to be down now that the bridge is down - the one on the west end of Stanton. Work begins now on building the new bridge, one which will carry interstate traffic over, rather than under, the road to the Stanton Co-op Gin.

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MARTIN COUNTY - The annual Martin County Livestock Show begins next Thursday evening when animals are weighed and classified at the Martin County Community Center. The show itself starts Friday morning with the lambs, goats, steers and heifers being shown during the day. On Saturday, the swine show will take up most of the morning hours, giving participants, parents and volunteers time to prepare for the show’s banquet Saturday night, also at the community center. Billy Dale Renfro of Ozona will judge the lambs and goats on Friday morning, with Gary Holder of Andrews coming in later in the day to judge the steers and heifers. On Saturday, Kevin Methvin of Levelland will judge the swine show. Shows start both days at 9 am, with the goats showing first on Friday, followed by lambs, heifers and steers. Weigh-in Thursday evening will be from 4 to 6 pm, while the banquet, which will be catered, starts at 6:30 pm, Saturday.

GLASSCOCK COUNTY - In case it was missed during the holidays, the state approved that long-needed bridge south of Stanton on Hwy. 137 where it intersects with Hwy. 158 in Glasscock County. The scene of far too many wrecks this intersection has screamed for a bridge for many years, but especially now with the growth of oilfield traffic on both highways. A total of $25 million was set aside to build the bridge, which is excpected to go on Hwy. 158 and over Hwy. 137.

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Editor’s Note: The following story appeared in the Dallas Morning News and hits close to home for cotton farmers in Martin County just like the focus of this story from Dawson County.

LAMESA — They call it sorry cotton.

The yellowed, scrawny crop is what Matt Farmer and his son-in-law Garron Morgan say they have too much of this year.

“We’ve got a lot more sorry cotton than we’ve got good cotton,” Garron, 38, said over the roar of the tractors pushing through the fields. Together, the pair farm about 10,000 acres, growing mostly cotton and some peanuts on their West Texas farm about an hour south of Lubbock.

Today was harvest day, typically Matt’s favorite day. He watched as the machines glided across the horizon, raking the cotton balls from their stalks until nearly as clean as a Popsicle stick.

STANTON – Philanthropy is not a term commonly associated with a nine year old child. Kids are generally flexible thinkers and are more concerned with video games, puzzles, television or just having fun. But for one Stanton boy helping others is something that has been on his mind since he was diagnosed as a Type 1 Diabetic on Dec. 30, 2016 at the age of seven. Graham Butler spent the 2017 New Year in a Lubbock hospital learning about how his life had changed and how he would need to take insulin shots the rest of his life. The sudden change of track in his life did not deter him but made him more inquisitive. As he learned the answers to his questions over the next couple years he always had a yearning to help others. “Since there is no cure for diabetes I wanted to help find a cure so that nobody else will get this disease,” said Graham.