New chamber board members elected

The Wharton Chamber of Commerce and Agriculture board will have four new members effective Oct. 1.<p>

Joining the board will be: <p>

— John Bard, owner of Burr Trading Co.

— Terri Mund, owner of Terri Mund & Associates Real Estate Services.<p>

— Jonathan Jeter, director of the Wharton County Junior College Foundation.<p>

— And, Chad Faucett, Edward Jones financial adviser.<p>

Rotating off the board on Oct. 1 will be Steven Wisnkeski of My Storehouse Mini Storage, Debbie Folks of Wied Realty, and Sandra Kachmar of Mid-Coast Title Co. Inc.<p>

The 13-member body is the governing board of the Wharton Chamber of Commerce and Agriculture. The votes were cast by the general membership.<p>

In other matters, the inaugural class of the Billie H. Jones Leadership Class will have its first session on Friday, Sept. 8. They will spend the morning in a classroom setting and make a field trip in the afternoon to JM Eagle, a plastic pipe manufacturing facility on the southeast corner of U.S. 59 and FM 102.<p>

The group will meet once a month for seven months. The class is under the direction Shannon Haltom, a Maxwell Leadership Certified Trainer and the Owner/Operator of Run Your Race Leadership Consulting Services.<p>

Also, among other matters, the planning is continuing for the Oct. 19 Party Under the Bridge. It’s the sixth annual. And planning is under way for another event, the 43rd Annual Christmas Holiday Parade, set for Tuesday, Nov. 21. Jeff Rainer is the parade chairman.<p>

“Players win games, but teams win championships.”<p>

Barbecue, Wharton County's best-kept secret

 You may be seeing more about something already familiar to Wharton County: Barbecue.<p>

 

We have started something called the “Wharton County Barbecue Trail.”  This trail will spotlight 11 barbecue restaurants in Wharton County.  A promotional campaign will include fliers, stickers, social media, emails, and newspaper and radio advertising.<p>

 

Our intent is to build synergy  — promoting all these restaurants together, from East Bernard to Hungerford, Wharton, El Campo and Louise. We want our barbecue restaurants to be front and center.<p>

 

Sometimes, when things are familiar to us, they may become too familiar. People tell me barbecue is Wharton County’s best-kept secret. <p>

 

We have heard exciting promotional ideas from many people. If you would like to help, we welcome your ideas. It does not start elsewhere, it starts here. With us. If barbecue is our best-kept secret, let’s not keep it a secret any longer. Consider it just the beginning.<p>

 

The complexities of being simple

Albert Einstein explained the universe in five characters. Wouldn’t it be nice everything else could be stated with such brevity?<p>

 

Although those five characters, E=MC², may describe the universe, it would take a million words, alone, to teach me how to make a proper Excel spreadsheet. Or how to fold a bed sheet.<p> 

 

The truth is that simple is not so simple.<p> 

 

So, I suggest we find wisdom somewhere else: advertising slogans. Really.<p>

 

A good slogan will keep it short and simple and say a lot, and cause action, like causing someone to purchase a product or service, in the split second it takes someone to see it.<p>

 

Simple things — like don’t repeat yourself. Don’t say the same thig twice. Once is enough. You don’t have to say the same thing over and over again. In other words, don’t repeat yourself.<p> 

 

Less is best.<p> 

 

So I searched and compiled a list of the elegant advertising slogans that even Albert Einstein would appreciate for getting to the point. My favorites:<p>

 

Nike: Just Do It.<p>

 

Burger King: Have It Your Way.<p>

 

Bounty: The Quicker Picker Upper.<p>

 

Taco Bell: Think Outside the Bun.<p>

 

Apple Computer: Think Different.<p>

 

Maxwell House: Good to the Last Drop.<p>

 

Wheaties: The Breakfast of Champions.<p>

 

De Beers: Diamonds Are Forever.<p>

 

Wendy’s: Where’s the Beef?<p>

 

Trix: Tricks Are for Kids.<p>

 

Budweiser: The King of Beers.<p>

 

So, a few words can say a lot. Even the universe thinks so. <p>

Progress, one decade at a time

 <p>

When I first moved here in 1982, I would occasionally get in my car and drive to Houston and see overpass after overpass going nowhere in Fort Bend County.<p>

 

<p>These overpasses spanned U.S. 59, but stopped abruptly on each side of it. Why? A boondoggle? Pork? A mistake? It made no sense to me.<p>

 

<p>Now it makes sense. I now know why.<p>

 

<p>It’s called infrastructure. Sound growth often comes last. Infrastructure often comes first. <p>

 

<p>Those overpasses in Fort Bend County are an example of one of the many connections that needed to happen when the fourth largest city in the United States started creeping their way, and their leaders wanted to take advantage of it and create opportunities for commerce, jobs and quality of life.<p>

 

<p>Those overpasses don’t go “nowhere” any longer.<p>

 

<p>So, if infrastructure is the first thing that often happens, is Wharton creating that infrastructure? I would argue yes, starting with the generation that created an industrial park, lured Nan Ya Plastics and JM to Wharton, built an airport, lobbied for an interstate, looped water and sewer utilities, developed FM 102 at US 59, and much, much more lately.<p>

 

<p>Yes, some may see mistakes, have differing opinions, and there are always thorny complications of land-use policy. But the big stuff, the infrastructure has truly taken precedence.<p>

 

<p>This process really started decades and decades ago here. I can remember city-council planning sessions 30 years ago, for instance, when the extension of 1301 was launched, plus lifting Wharton from harm’s way from flood waters.<p>

 

<p>Yes, it takes that long. Just like it did with Fort Bend overpasses to nowhere.<p>

Why do we have so many wildflowers in Wharton? Is it the weather?


We don't care to answer, frankly. Here at the Wharton Chamber of Commerce and 

Agriculture, we are just too busy celebrating, instead.


The flowers are all over town! People, including Our Government, are going to extremes to ensure they are not mowed down, too.


People are stopping their cars. They are getting out of their cars. They are using their cameras and smart phones to take photographs of themselves and their children posing among the beautiful wildflower patches.


Facebook is filled with Cute Pictures. You can see people taking these Cute Pictures everywhere.


They are happy. We are happy. We could get used to this.


Wharton, the beautiful.


We already know Wharton is a good place to live, and a good place for people who don't come here to visit here and spend their money on hotel rooms, new construction, shopping, antiquing, dining, visiting museums, saying hello to the dinosaur, enjoying the countryside, our parks, our children learning, and lots of cows, and horses, and pecan trees, diversity, festivals, music, rich farmland, and great people, and great people with wildflowers.
Frankly, wildflowers are good for business. We love wildflowers. We love business.


Keep on keeping on Wharton!


That is all for now.

A press release from Preservation Texas:

The board of Preservation Texas, the only statewide nonprofit dedicated solely to preservation, visited Wharton, aka “Harrison, Texas” in playwright Horton Foote’s terminology, last week to hold its quarterly board meeting.

On Friday, the preservation group conducted their board meeting at the Carriage House at the Morris Ranch, and was hosted by Stewart Morris, whose company, Steward Title, funded the restoration of the Wharton County Courthouse Tower Clock.

That afternoon the group toured the Wharton County Courthouse with Paul Shannon and Jeffery Blair and afterwards held a public reception at the Plaza Theatre.  That evening, it was off to “Bountiful” and Bud Northington’s Egypt Plantation, for a meal and a history lesson to learn how early settlers and a “Sea of Mud” contributed to achieve Texas Independence.

On Saturday, the group toured historic sites and neighborhoods, including the restored Wharton Southern Pacific Passenger Depot Museum, Hopper Elementary and the 2oth Century Technology museum, before heading to Houston to hold the 2014 Preservation Texas statewide honor awards at the restored 1910 Harris County Courthouse.

The Wharton Chamber of Commerce organized the arrangements for the visit to Wharton, including catering from Hinze’s BBQ, and Mrs. T’s.  Special thanks to Colorado Valley Transit bus driver Lloyd Aldridge, who drove the bus for the Saturday tour.

More grim news about surface water

A press release from LCRA on our surface water supply. It's not good:

With parts of Texas in the midst of a persistent, severe drought, the Lower Colorado River Authority will seek permission from the state to curtail releases of interruptible stored water from the Highland Lakes for downstream irrigation for the fourth year in a row.

LCRA also will ask permission to reduce the amount of water required to be released in spring 2015 to support the habitat of the blue sucker, a threatened fish that lives in the river downstream of Austin.

"This was not an easy decision, but we must protect the region's water supply," said LCRA General Manager Phil Wilson. "More than a million people depend on water from the Highland Lakes, and right now, there is just not enough water for everyone to have all they want.

"This is a significant drought. At times, it's been even more intense than the worst recorded drought in this region's history, and we don't know when it's going to end," Wilson said. "This action will help us manage our limited water supply to meet the essential needs of the region's communities and industries."

On Wednesday, the LCRA Board of Directors voted 11-2 to ask permission from the Texas Commission on Environmental Quality to curtail releases from the lakes in 2015.

LCRA is requesting drought relief identical to the relief approved by TCEQ for 2014, which cut off releases of interruptible water supplies for most downstream irrigation.

The Board said it also would continue limiting outdoor watering by LCRA firm customers and their customers to a maximum of one day a week. Firm customers include cities in Central Texas that depend on water from the Highland Lakes.

The LCRA Board decision to seek relief for a record fourth straight year comes on the heels of some of the lowest amounts of water flowing into the lakes from streams and tributaries since the Highland Lakes were formed in the 1930s through early 1950s. January to October inflows were the second lowest for that 10-month period since 1942. The monthly inflows were the third lowest on record for October.

With this vote, the LCRA Board again is asking to deviate from the existing state-approved Water Management Plan, which determines how water from lakes Travis and Buchanan, the region's water supply reservoirs, is managed. Without the state's permission to deviate from the requirements of the plan, LCRA would be obligated to provide about 170,000 acre-feet of interruptible stored water from the lakes for agricultural purposes in 2015. (An acre-foot of water is 325,851 gallons.) Although LCRA recently filed a revised request with TCEQ to amend the Water Management Plan, these changes are not likely to be in effect in time to impact release decisions for 2015.

With combined storage in lakes Travis and Buchanan at about 674,000 acre-feet (or 33 percent of capacity), the Board determined there is not enough water available to meet all requests and still protect the region's water supply.

The request would suspend releases from the Highland Lakes for most downstream agriculture users in 2015. However, even if TCEQ grants LCRA's request, customers in the Garwood Irrigation Division still may be entitled to limited amounts of water because of an existing contract with LCRA.

Requirements for blue sucker fish

LCRA also is seeking permission from TCEQ to reduce the required minimum instream flow from 500 cubic feet per second (cfs) to 300 cfs for six weeks in the spring for the blue sucker fish, which is considered a threatened species in Texas. (One cubic foot per second is equivalent to about 450 gallons a minute.) The request is identical to the request TCEQ granted for spring 2014. If this request is granted, the amount of water that might be saved in 2015 will depend on flow conditions downstream. In 2014, this emergency relief saved about 17,000 acre-feet of water that LCRA otherwise would have had to release.

The lower flow is consistent with more recent science and still protects blue sucker habitat.

Increasing the water supply

LCRA is aggressively working to increase the region's water supply. LCRA plans to break ground on a new off-channel reservoir in Wharton County soon. The reservoir will be the first significant new water supply reservoir developed in the basin in decades. LCRA also has drilled four groundwater wells on property it owns in Bastrop County. The LCRA Board of Directors has committed to increasing the water supply by 100,000 acre-feet by 2017.