December 2023

If it’s the Holiday Season, that means that once again the Fort Stockton Rotary Club will be collecting and distributing toys to the needy children of Fort Stockton and Pecos County. This year a list of more than 350 children was submitted to Rotary Toy Drive Chairman Malissa Trevino, including kids from Imperial as well as Fort Stockton.

New Fort Stockton boys basketball coach Travis Lancaster has said he’s scheduled top competition in order to make the Panthers better. The Panthers certainly are physical, and have taken some lumps this season, and the team’s farewell to 2023 was certainly one of those games as Fort Stockton fell to an athletic Permian squad 108-50 on Dec. 19.

Following the angel’s instructions, the shepherds arrived in Bethlehem to find the newborn baby lying in a manger. Wondering why these strangers had come to see her child, the shepherds told Mary about the angels’ announcement. Luke says, “Mary treasured up all these things, pondering them in her heart.”

The ink was barely dry on a law signed by Gov. Greg Abbott that makes unauthorized entry into the United States a state crime before a lawsuit was filed by civil rights groups and El Paso County challenging its constitutionality. The Austin American-Statesman reported the suit was filed in an Austin federal court by the ACLU and two immigrant advocacy groups on behalf of the county.

Before the Fort Stockton Prowlers varsity basketball squad headed north to the Monahans Chamber of Commerce Tournament today, they first had to travel south and east to Del Rio to face a Queens team that had been struggling of late. But the hosts were unfriendly as they downed their Prowler visitors, 3726.

Dear Editor: The Democrats started the Civil War of 1861-1865, resulting in the deaths of 620 thousand Americans. They backed slavery.

It is important to note that an arrest should not be considered as evidence of guilt. The defendants are presumed innocent until proven guilty in a court of law.

Since two of my daughters are now in college and one is in high school, Christmas just “hits different”– as those crazy kids (and my not-so-secret, sort-of-butnot- really guilty pleasure, Taylor Swift) say these days.

The Pecos County Commissioners Court filled several county board positions at its Dec. 11 meeting, most with terms ending at the end in 2024 or 2025. The court appointed Sophia Franco as the Elections Administrator effective Jan. 1, 2024, and the court also appointed Santiago Cantu as a member of the Pecos County Appraisal District Board of Directors with a term expiring Dec. 31, 2025.