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State Sen. Kel Seliger (R-Amarillo) gave an overview of the last legislative session and talked about upcoming issues during a town hall at the Bairfield Activity Center last Friday.

The senator opened his comments by talking about the loss of his committee assignments following a public disagreement with the Republican leadership.

“I voted against two of 30 things the lieutenant governor wanted and was removed from the committees,” Seliger said.

If that bothered the senator, he didn’t show it. Instead he touted his commitment to local control and local government Friday in the face of actions by his own party against those interests.

“It was a terrible session for local control and local governments,” Seliger said, “and it will get worse before it gets better.”

He mentioned specifically his opposition to property tax reforms that limited how much new revenue local governments could raise.

“What would we do if Washington told us we had to lower our severance tax or our sales tax,” he asked. “We would go nuts!”

Seliger was pleased with the improvements that were made to teacher salaries and retired teacher benefits, but he said neither of those went far enough to address those issues.

Looking ahead, Seliger said legalizing marijuana won’t happen any time soon, and he said Texas won’t turn Democratic soon either but said that depends on how Republicans relate to Latino voters.

Cold weather didn’t dampen the enthusiasm Donley County residents showed for America’s veterans during ceremonies held here over the last few days.

Clarendon High School’s Bronco Band and members of BSA Troop 433 saluted those who have served in the military with a special halftime music and flag show during the Broncos’ football game Friday night.

Outdoor ceremonies planned for Monday morning were moved inside in both Clarendon and Hedley. The American Legion and Hedley school services were widely praised and did an outstanding job of honoring veterans’ service. The school also continued it tradition of serving a thanksgiving meal to the veterans and their families.

In Clarendon, about 25 people assembled in the VFW Hall with Post Commander Nathan Floyd serving as master of ceremonies. The service included a patriotic singing and a wreath presentation by Civil Air Patrol Cadet Tyler Paul in memory of fallen veterans and those listed as prisoners of war or missing in action.

In a speech, Floyd said veterans were just ordinary people until they left their homes to defend the country and he urged Americans to do their part in protecting freedom.

“Vote. Speak out against injustice. Teach children,” he said. “Live in the freedom they protected.”

A service at Clarendon College Monday night was keynoted by Dick Bode of Alanreed, who spoke about his experience as a young boy while his father worked against the Nazis in the Dutch underground resistance. Bode, who later moved to the United States and served in the US Air Force, talked about the greatness of America and pronounced that he is “an American by choice.”

Clarendon Elementary closed out the services honoring veterans Tuesday afternoon with a program at the Bronco Gym. In addition to special music sung by kids in grades first through fifth, veterans received handmade gifts from the students and were treated to a meal following the service.

The VFW Auxiliary asks for volunteers to help pick up flags at Citizens Cemetery on Monday, November 18, at 4:30 p.m.

The Broncos played their last regular season home football game last Friday night, which allowed them to finish third in District. They now head to post-season play on Friday, November 15, at Tulia against Ralls.

The Broncos were fired up against Vega but let the game slip away losing 23-42. Their rushing yards were lower than normal as they finished with 189 yards on the ground and 72 in the air.

Freshman Sylvester Ballard, who has been gaining 100 yards plus, was held to only 43 yards on 11 carries and one touchdown. Jmaury Davis had a stellar night with six carries for 130 yards and one score. Lamarcus Penigar carried the ball four times for 12 yards, and Antwan Bassett went four yards on two carries. At the quarterback spot, Penigar had 72 yards on nine attempts and threw a touchdown strike to Nate Lee for 62 yards. Collin Butler also had a catch for 10 yards.

“We did not have a good showing,” head coach Clint Conkin said. “We gave up 431 yards rushing on defense and 17 passing yards.”

Ashlyn Tubbs Grotegut has made writing a career, but her latest endeavor – authoring and illustrating a children’s book – turned out to be a bigger challenge than she expected.

In 2018, the Clarendon native was attending DFWCon – a conference for writers – hoping to get information for a different project, but there was just one problem. Attendees are supposed to come with a story idea to pitch.

“So I thought, I’ll do a children’s story,” she said. “That will be easy.”

She soon found out there was nothing easy about it. For starters, her story was 1,000 words long, and children’s books are more typically 500 words long. And then there were all kinds of other things to learn that were different from her experience as a journalist.

“I had to learn the publishing business,” Grotegut said.

Her original idea for a series of school supply stories was shot down by those in the business.

“We don’t even know if your first book will do well,” they told her. “Why would we commit to a series?”

So she focused her effort on one book, cut the length in half, and ultimately decided to self-publish through Amazon. Then after months of work, Ernie the Eraser became a reality.

The book has a very personal touch. The lead character Ernie is named for her grandfather, her grandmother lends her name to Patsy the pencil, and her mother provides the name for Jen the school teacher.

But this was no ordinary children’s book. The story of a pink eraser who thinks he has no friends is illustrated entirely by construction paper that Grotegut cut out, positioned, and photographed to create every scene in the book. Dots that decorate the book inside and out were created with a hole punch. Patsy the Pencil was comprised of seven different pieces of paper, and then there was depth and shading and other issues… such as her pets getting into her work space.

“I had to learn about Photoshop and figure out how to use it to get dog hairs out of my pictures,” she said. “I’m not an artist, so I had to learn about shadows and how to get things to appear 3D.”

But mostly she learned how “not easy” it is to write a children’s book.

“It took me seven different proofs just to get the cover right,” she said.

Her efforts paid off, and Ernie the Eraser is getting great reviews and is available as a paperback or an e-book through Amazon.com. This week she’s been reading to Clarendon school students and holding book signings at the school. She told pre-Kindergarten students she wrote the book under the name Ashlyn Parker because “Parker is easier to say than Grotegut, don’t you think?” They agreed.

Grotegut, who now lives with her husband, Parker, in Gruver, started writing in grade school and won Reading Rainbow Writers & Illustrators contest twice in second and third grade. One of the Amarillo television stations came to Clarendon to interview her about that.

“I guess it was a pretty big deal,” she said.

She later worked for The Clarendon Enterprise, The Daily Toreador at Texas Tech University, and then spent three years as a reporter for KCBD in Lubbock. She then worked for a Lubbock marketing firm before turning to freelance journalism a year ago. She also works part time as teaching Chinese kids English online to Beijing.

“I start at 5:00 a.m., and I’m done by 8:00 to focus on writing,” she said. “I’ve taught English to 256 different students in the last year.”

With her first book now in publication, Grotegut intends to turn her attention to other books, including the project that was the original reason for attending DFWCon – ghost writing a memoir for a man surviving a traumatic brain injury, who now gives presentations about the dangers of drunk driving. She met the gentleman when she was reporting for KCBD, and has already been doing the research and interviews for the project.

“It takes a lot of time because you can’t just talk to him,” she said. “He communicates with his computer, so you have to send him questions and then let him respond.”

She also is interested in writing about Panhandle history.

“I love sharing people’s stories in an interesting way,” Grotegut said. “I like shedding light on people who do awesome things.”

That’s the journalist in her. But projects like Ernie are letting her explore her creative side more.

“I’m really having fun telling stories this way,” she said. “I never dreamt I’d do that, but I really like it.”