Houston County News - Breakout

Write a comment

Royal Court – Back row: Bryson Franklin, Charles Wiley, James Gatlin, Oscar Sutton, Seth Enos, and Conner Martinez. Second row: Zoe Burdett, D’Janyah Simpson, Libby Ray, Aaliyah Jones, Courteney Spoerle, and Magali Castillo. Front row: Hayes Davidson and Ariel Bird. JAN WHITE|HCC

By Jan White
This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.

LOVELADY – The City of Lovelady will commence its 40th annual Lovefest celebration by crowning the Lovefest Queen at a coronation ceremony on Thursday, Feb. 10, at 6 p.m. 

The 2022 Royal Court includes princesses from the seventh and eighth grade, and young ladies from ninth through 12 grade competing for the title of Lovefest Queen. 

When asked if they were either nervous or excited about the event, one-hundred percent of the contestants said they were excited. The young ladies each admitted surprise when they found out they’d been chosen but were also humbled by the experience, saying they were honored to represent their class. 

Zoe Burdett was voted seventh grade princess, and her escort is Bryson Franklin. The eighth grade princess is D’Janyah Simpson, and her escort is Charles Wiley.

The Lovefest Queen will be chosen based on a written essay and an impromptu speech, the topic of which is not known in advance. Queen contestants include ninth grade Libby Ray, escorted by James Gatlin; tenth grader Aaliyah Jones escorted by Oscar Sutton; junior Courteney Spoerle escorted by Seth Enos and senior Magali Castillo accompanied by Conner Martinez. Ariel Bird and Hayes Davidson round out the Court as Pre-K representatives. The 2022 Lovefest Queen will be crowned by last year’s Queen, Kyra Rogers.

Tickets for the Coronation can be purchased on the night of the event. Adult tickets cost $4, and student tickets are $2. 

On Saturday, Feb. 12, the 40th Annual Lovefest will kick off its celebration with a parade that begins at 10 a.m., followed by a jam-packed day of activities. There will be arts and crafts exhibits, food vendors, beauty pageants for babies and toddlers, a Little Miss and Mister Pageant, the annual Chili Cookoff and a baking contest sponsored by the Weldon Civic Club. 

The celebration culminates with the Lovefest Dance on Saturday night at the Lovelady Old Gym, where the Loose Gravel Band will perform. Adult admission is $15 per person or $20 per couple, with a $10 cooler charge. Children accompanied by an adult will be charged $5.

Write a comment

Leo Eddie Kane and Standing with Crockett volunteer Darrell Jones

CROCKETT – Piney Woods Lions Club hosted the monthly free Produce Distribution in Crockett on Thursday, Jan 20. This is normally held on the third Monday, but that was a holiday for the East Texas Food Bank this month. The Lions received 17 pallets of food from the food bank with nine pallets of produce and eight pallets of a mix of frozen bakery and meat.  We have a wonderful group of volunteers from Lions, Leos, Standing with Crockett, and the Brown Family Health Center. About 800 families at this distribution.

Write a comment

By Ashley Bankhead-Keenan
This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.

KENNARD –  Many schools in East Texas are considering or have already moved their calendars to a four-day school week. Latexo Independent School district has been on this schedule since August 2020. The shorter week allows for Fridays to be reserved for extra relaxation for students, teachers, and staff, for doctor appointments and deep-cleaning the campus. 

During its regular board meeting on Thursday, Jan. 13, the Kennard ISD Board of Trustees went into closed session to consider adopting a four-day schedule for the 2022-23 school year.

Once the board reconvened in open session, the decision had been made for the district to continue operating as it had been with its five-day, Monday through Friday schedule. The vote was tended to with a 5-1 majority of nays, with only Keith Cole voting in favor of the four-day instructional week proposal.

Last week, a petition on change.org surfaced requesting that the KISD board re-vote. 

The creator of the petition said, “A survey was sent out to the community of Kennard, Texas, asking if they would want a four day week for the next school year. 

The parents and staff voted, and the results were overwhelmingly positive. The majority of the town wanted to make the switch to four days. It has been working well for many school districts around us. We were excited! However, despite the majority of the town answering ‘Yes’ on the survey, the KISD Board of Trustees voted ‘No’ to the change.”

The petition’s creator went on to state: “Many Kennard students, staff and community members were distraught by the news. We are asking that the vote be re-cast and that the needs and wants of the majority be considered.”

At this time, there are 154 signatures on the petition, and it has not been determined whether the board will revisit this topic.

Write a comment

By Ashley Bankhead-Keenan
This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.

CROCKETT – When you think of human trafficking, what comes to mind? Do you think of a Liam Neeson film or a pimp in a purple suit driving a Cadillac? Human trafficking is quite broad and not usually as simple as these visions depict. 

The actual definition of human trafficking is the unlawful act of transporting or coercing people to benefit from their work or service, typically in the form of forced labor or sexual exploitation. After drug dealing, the trafficking of humans is tied with arms dealing as the second-largest criminal industry in the world.

On Thursday, Jan. 20, the Family Crisis Center of East Texas held an event to bring awareness to human trafficking. The event was hosted in honor of January being Human Trafficking Awareness month. The theme was “End Human Trafficking.” Six speakers, experts in their respective fields, presented information about trafficking.

The first speaker was Maria Villarreal, Sexual Assault/Human Trafficking Specialist. She said that human trafficking is a hidden crime. 

A person who is coerced, manipulated, and even conditioned into not trusting law enforcement will not come right out and let you know that they are a victim. Trafficking is heavily under-reported. Most victims do not want to file a report because they’re scared and threatened. As an advocate and specialist in human trafficking, Maria has not had a new case in nearly a year. This is how often these heinous crimes go unreported.

Crockett’s Chief of Police, Clayton Smith, touched on risk factors and said, “Believe it or not, everybody thinks that Crockett, a small town in Houston County, isn’t going to see that… well you better wake up, because we are.” He went on the tell of an incident where a Crockett citizen was approached at a local store and offered her money for her child. The trafficker even went so far as to follow the mother into the parking lot. “Luckily, we were able to identify and obtain arrest warrants,” Chief Smith stated. “It happens here. Human trafficking does not discriminate.” 

Recently, Smith read an article that said one of the structural causes of human trafficking was weak law enforcement. After reevaluating how Crockett can take action against human trafficking, Smith began working with Homeland Security and received a grant to obtain a license plate reader. “License plates readers are set up on the highway. If a vehicle has been flagged in the system as being involved in human trafficking, child sex trafficking, illegal narcotics, substance abuse, stuff like that, the license plate reader is going to grab that license plate, and it’s going to send us a notification. With the help of our city government, the council, and the mayor, we’re in the process of outfitting our vehicles with in-car computer systems that will allow officers to get real-time notifications of these flagged vehicles and will allow officers to act quickly.”

Kim Riddle, Medical Advocate/SANE Program Director, warned that trafficking, in most cases, happens in the home. Parents traffic their children by producing child pornography and selling it online. It can be a teacher, another student, a sibling, or a grandparent. Many victims grew up in broken homes, craving love and attention. This is where a trafficker steps in and fills that void, giving their victims a false sense of security.

Houston County Sheriff Randy Hargrove spoke about the red flags of trafficking and stated that a study by the University of Texas claims that at any given time, in the state of Texas, 313,000 are being trafficked, including 79,000 children. Red flags that anyone can look for to help prevent sex, labor, and human trafficking include but are certainly not limited to: visible injuries, inconsistent stories, failure to make eye contact, malnutrition, paranoia, submissive behavior, conversations that appear to be scripted and rehearsed, extreme fatigue and tattoos that indicate branding. 

In the world we’re living in today, trafficking of any kind is not just at our doorstep; it’s already in our home. The internet is a gateway for children and even naïve adults to be abused, trafficked, exploited, and murdered. Through the television programs we watch, we’re conditioned to accept and turn a blind eye to things that don’t “seem so bad.” We’re groomed to think that predators look a certain way, and more times than not, they look like a friend or a neighbor. Maybe we tell ourselves to mind our own business or think we’d be bothering police with a lingering gut feeling, but please, involve yourself. You may save someone’s life. It’s better to trust a gut feeling and be wrong than to have the opportunity to speak up and stand silent.