Ben Estlack

Rural voters approve new county assistance district

The Clarendon City Council and the Clarendon CISD Board of Trustees will have some new faces and a new sales tax will be levied in rural areas of Donley County following last Saturday’s elections.

Mayor Jacob Fangman faced no opposition and received 215 votes. Challenger Brittney Wolf and incumbent Alderman Ashlee Estlack were elected to full terms on the city council with 122 votes and 116 votes respectively. Aldermen Eulaine McIntosh narrowly lost her reelection bid with 114 votes. Other candidates vying for the two full terms were Jeremy Jeffers with 71 votes and Richard Dzamko with 20.

Also in the city election, Tom Thompson and Chelsi Shadle were the top choices of voters to fill two unexpired terms. Thompson had 128 votes, Shadle had 113, and Ralph Graves at 108.

In the race for three positions on the Clarendon school board, incumbents Robin Ellis and Donny Howard won reelection with 230 and 215 votes respectively, and Jeff Robertson received 215 votes to secure the third seat over Ginnie Siefkas, who got 39 votes.

Voters outside the cities of Clarendon, Hedley, and Howardwick approved the creation of Donley County Assistance District #2 by a vote of 48 to 30.
The district will levy a 2.0 percent sales tax to help fund county law enforcement expenses.

Turnout was low for the 2025 election. In the City of Clarendon, for example, only 21.1 percent of registered voters cast ballots with City Hall reporting 258 ballots cast out of 1,221 registered voters.

The project to replace the US 287 bridge between Kearney and Gorst Streets will begin May 19, according to information released this week by the Texas Department of Transportation (TxDOT) Childress District.

The $4.4 million project will replace a bridge on US 287 over Clarendon’s main drainage ditch, which has been in place since at least the 1930s and is possibly closer to 100 years old.

Project engineer Louis McDowell confirmed Tuesday that contractors will set up advance warning signs on May 19. Access to certain city streets will be closed June 3. Access to Kearney Street will be closed on the north and south sides of the highway, and Jefferson and Gorst streets will be closed on the south side of US 287.

The project will be led by general contractor Hodges and Sons and is expected to take approximately 19 months to complete, weather pending. TxDOT says the new bridge structure will improve drainage and help alleviate flooding along this corridor.

The project will unfold in three phases with the first phase beginning on the south side of US 287. Due to the location of the bridge, intersections within the work zone will be closed to ensure the safety of motorists and workers. During the project, the traffic signal at US 287 and Kearney Street will not be functional due to the closure of that intersection.

Drivers are reminded to use caution when traveling through the work zone. Reduce your speed, avoid distractions in your vehicle and watch for slow moving equipment and crews.

Two Howardwick residents were sentenced in separate cases when the District Court met in Panhandle on April 7.

District Attorney Luke Inman, along with Assistant District Attorney Harley Caudle, prosecuted the cases for the State of Texas, with the Honorable Judge Dale Rabe presiding.

Joseph Ray Casselberry, 43, from Howardwick, was sentenced to six months in the Donley County Jail for the Class A misdemeanor offense of assault causing bodily injury that took place in Donley County on May 24, 2022.

Casselberry was originally placed on probation for the offense on June 8, 2023. On December 12, 2024, the State filed its motion requesting the Court to adjudicate Casselberry’s probation, alleging eight violations of his conditions of probation. Casselberry pleaded true to the allegations. Casselberry was also ordered to pay a $2,000 fine and $340 court costs.

Thomas Barnum Caswell, 68, from Howardwick, was convicted for the Class C misdemeanor offense of assault that took place in Donley County on August 7, 2024.

Caswell was arrested by Donley County Sheriff’s Deputy Wesley Christopher. Caswell was indicted by the Donley County Grand Jury on October 7, 2024. Caswell was also ordered to pay a $500 fine and $290 court costs upfront.

A project to replace a bridge on US 287 in Clarendon will reduce the highway to two lanes of traffic and close some downtown intersections for more than a year according to information presented at public meeting in the Mulkey Theatre last Tuesday, April 22.

Representatives of the Texas Department of Transportation held the meeting with stakeholders and local businesses to go over plans and safety procedures for the project, which could last up to 19 months.

Hodges & Son Construction Co. will be the contractor for the job that will replace the bridge on US 287, which goes over Clarendon’s main drainage ditch between Kearney and Gorst streets behind the Donley County State Bank and Herring Bank. The project will also see the removal of the Herring Bank parking lot on top of the ditch as well as the smaller bridge structure over the ditch on Gorst behind Herring Bank near the former Signs Plus building.

Work will begin in May with the replacement of a sewer line underneath the bridge. Traffic restrictions and construction will begin in June.

In order to maintain traffic flow on US 287, TxDOT engineers say it is necessary to close Kearney Street access to the highway as well as the Gorst Street intersection and the south side of the Sully Street intersection for the duration of the project.

“We want to keep it safe by eliminating turning and crossing movements as much as possible,” TxDOT District Engineer Darwin Lankford said.

Project engineer Lewis McDowell said the project would be completed in three phases and said the way the bridge was built and supported prevents it from being removed in two sections. Phase One will work on replacing the south side of the bridge, Phase Two will be the middle of the bridge, and Phase Three the north side.

The tight space makes it impossible to safely allow highway access to and from Kearney Street during the construction period, officials said, particularly during Phase Two when workers will be confined to working on the center of the bridge as highway traffic continues on the north and south sides of the project.

Officials also said diverting traffic from the highway to Third Street would not be feasible because of the wear and tear on the city street.

Mayor Jacob Fangman, along with representatives from the Clarendon Chamber of Commerce and the Clarendon Economic Development Corporation, expressed concerns about the impact that restricting highway access, particularly on Keaney Street, would have on local businesses. TxDOT officials said they understood the inconvenience and impact the work zone would have but reiterated their commitment to the safety of the traveling public as well as to those working on the project.

“We had three fatalities in work zones in Donley County alone in the last three years,” Lankford said.

Officials also said a project in Hedley that temporarily restricted the highway to two lanes also saw a fatality and said they did not want to see that happen again.

TxDOT did say, however, that they would stay in contact with local officials and would remain open to reevaluating the placement of barricades and traffic flow during the course of the project.

City officials will, however, have to consider plans for how to maintain access to businesses in the 100 and 200 block of Kearney without traffic going through the highway. The next phase of downtown revitalization is also scheduled to begin in the 200 block this year.

Concrete barricades will block Kearney traffic at the highway, and the stop lights will not be operational.

TxDOT documentation says the bridge over the ditch on US 287 was built in 1938, but archives of The Enterprise support that it was built in the early 1920s, making it well over 100 years old.

Editor’s Note: The original version of this article incorrectly named Gilvin Terrill as the contractor. We apologize for that error and any confusion it may have caused.