Category: Top News Stories

Anyone is welcome to come out and check out some great heifers and ranch yearling colts who have been raised by local 4-H students. More like a traditional auction, bidders will go home with the animals they win from these events and support a great cause at the same time. Here are the details on these two auctions:
Commercial Heiefer Sale:
The sale will be held January 23 at 5pm. Local kiddos will have about 116 head of cattle which will be split into pens of 2-3 animals. Bidders will bid per head, but they will be sold as a lot of 2 or 3 (depending on how many are in that pen).
There will be various breeds. You can register and bid online as well. Or you can just walk up and register the day of. You can view the cattle that will be for sale online.
Colt Sale:
This sale will also be January 23rd and will kick off at 2 pm. Local kiddos expect to bring about 19 yearling ranch colts to the sale. These colts will be around 2 years old, and students will have started on ground work and saddling, but not all will be ridden down. You can register and bid online as well. Or you can just walk up and register the day of.

Driscoll Public Library is beginning the New Year with exciting plans for 2026. Following recent interior renovations, the library at 202 E. Hondo Ave. is pleased to announce expanded hours, new programs, and returning favorites for all ages.
Starting January 10, 2026, the library will expand its operating hours to include Saturdays. The library will now be open on the 2nd, 3rd, and 4th Saturdays of each month from 10:00 a.m. to 2:00 p.m.
The 2026 program calendar also brings several exciting additions. Due to its continued popularity, Crafting After Hours is expanding to include a second monthly session. The original meeting will continue on the 2nd Thursday of each month, with an additional session added on the 4th Thursday. Both sessions will feature the same craft project, allowing more community members the opportunity to participate.
As previously announced, the library staff has grown with the addition of Stacy Pyron, who brings fresh ideas and engaging new programs launching in early 2026.
One of these new offerings is Sit & Stitch, a relaxed gathering for fiber arts enthusiasts. Participants are invited to…LOGIN TO CONTINUE READING at www.devinenewsmembers.com. You will get instant access to our full E-edition, and begin getting the newspaper delivered to your home next week for $36 a year in Medina County. Support important local city, county, and school news like this!

George Strait autographed guitar in auction

The Devine Livestock Booster Dinner & Dance will be held January 10 from 6pm-Midnight. The event will be held at The Devine Golf Course. You can get 2 tickets for the dinner and dance for $125 total. Jerry DeLeon and the Southbound Band will be providing the live music for the evening. For dinner, the club will be serving fajita plates with rice and beans.
There will be a silent auction and ticket auction going on as well as a Card Deck Drawing for guns. The highlight of the silent auction will a guitar signed by George Strait himself!
You can buy a pair of tickets from any 4-H kid or from Sam Barber at 830-741-0300.

Capital Highlights Week of Jan. 5 – 9– A spate of new laws took effect on Jan. 1, The Dallas Morning News reported. Here’s a brief summary of the most notable new laws now in force:

• County sheriff’s offices are now required to cooperate with U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement after the passage of Senate Bill 8. Local jail staff are now authorized to verify the immigration status of inmates and to honor certain federal immigration warrants. A grant program was created by the state to help sheriffs cover training and implementation costs related to the new law.
• Eviction proceedings involving unauthorized occupants must be held in court from 10 to 21 days of filing. Also, the new law limits legal delays occupants may take to avoid eviction.
• With the rapid expansion of artificial intelligence systems into many aspects of daily lives, House Bill 149 established a statewide framework for regulating AI and providing transparency. Companies using AI must notify people when they are interacting with an AI system. The law also created a state advisory group to oversee the implementation of oversight and compliance. Penalties can be assessed for violations of the new requirements.
• The business inventory tax exemption has been raised to $125,000, cutting property taxes for small businesses that maintain stock. The previous exemption was $2,500.

There are 14 candidates vying for 6 spots in local Medina County government. Among those are the following:

COUNTY COMMISSIONER PRECINCT 2 RACE:
GARZA, JOHN V. REPUBLICAN 1
SITTRE, LARRY (Incumbent) REPUBLICAN 2

COUNTY CLERK RACE:
WALDEN, JESSICA A. REPUBLICAN 1
BERMEA, KIMBERLY REPUBLICAN 2
EVERETT, CINDY MODGLING REPUBLICAN 3

JUSTICE OF THE PEACE PRECINCT 2 RACE:
BARR, MICHAEL REPUBLICAN 1
TSCHIRHART, BILL TERRY (Incumbent) REPUBLICAN 2

JUSTICE OF THE PEACE PRECINCT 3 RACE:
FRANKLIN, LAINEY REPUBLICAN 1
KOCH, TERESA REPUBLICAN 2
SANCHEZ, MICHAEL REPUBLICAN 3

PRECINCT CHAIR FOR PCHR_2B_REP RACE:
DOLLASE, ARNIE REPUBLICAN 1
ILTIS, JEROME A. (Incumbent) REPUBLICAN 2
PRECINCT CHAIR FOR PCHR_4B_REP RACE:
MANNING, BONNIE REPUBLICAN 1
HULSE, STAN O. (Incumbent) REPUBLICAN 2

Republican Candidates unopposed in the primaries are: COUNTY JUDGE KEITH LUTZ, COUNTY COURT AT LAW JUDGE MARK CASHION, DISTRICT CLERK CINDY FOWLER, COUNTY TREASURER DEBRA GRAFF, COUNTY COMMISSIONER PCT 4 DANNY LAWLER, JUSTICE OF THE PEACE PCT 1 PHILLIP LANGE, JUSTICE OF THE PEACE PCT 4 TOMAS RAMIREZ, REPUBLICAN COUNTY CHAIR CHRIS SCHUCHART.
A list of local democratic candidates will be published when submitted.

Local man Don Bottoms, of Devine, brought in this treasure of a photo taken during the “Salvage for Victory” campaign launched during World War II, shortly after the attack on Pearl Harbor. He was just a young man then (pictured on the far right), and in the photo above he and his buddies are collecting scrap metal to be melted down and used to build ships, airplanes, ammo, and other things associated with the war effort.
“We would go from home to home asking ladies if they had any pots and pans they didn’t use or any kind of scrap metal or steel,” Bottoms recalls. “In the picture you can see an old lantern, bicycle rim, hot water heater, and car parts. We would take it to the drop off site, and the Army would pick it up and melt it down to be used for guns, airplane parts, whatever they needed.”
Thanks to Mr. Bottoms for sharing this piece of local history!

I-35 Replacement estimated at $12.8 M

TX DOT provided the following details about a major project ongoing in Medina County. The Chacon Creek I-35 bridge replacement estimated at $12.8 million dollars includes both the northbound and southbound bridges, which were due for upgrades, as each had “non‑standard railings and other structural deficiencies” according to TxDot.
“Because this section of I‑35 has limited right‑of‑way and no frontage roads, traditional construction approaches, such as building a detour or constructing new bridges to the outside, weren’t feasible. To work within those constraints, engineers designed a single, wider bridge to replace the two existing ones.
The project which began in November is now 28% complete.

Construction is occurring in three phases:

• Phase 1: Build the center portion of the new bridge between the existing structures. This is the phase currently in progress.
• Phase 2: Shift traffic onto the newly built center section, then remove and rebuild the outer sections.
• Phase 3: Open the full bridge to traffic once all work is complete.

 “As a result, I‑35, which…LOGIN TO CONTINUE READING at www.devinenewsmembers.com. You will get instant access to our full E-edition, and begin getting the newspaper delivered to your home next week for $36 a year in Medina County. Support important local city, county, and school news like this!

Daylight shines through at MM 124 where TXDOT is working on the center part of the new bridge which eventually connect the north and southbound lanes at Chacon Creek.

The following Q&A was prepared by the Congressional Research Service, which serves as nonpartisan shared staff to congressional committees and Members of Congress on the topic of data centers. The report examines the energy requirement estimates and pilot studies, as well as the estimated water consumption rates, and more.
Summary
In its simplest form, a data center is a physical facility that houses and runs large computer systems. U.S. data center annual energy use in 2023 (not accounting for cryptocurrency) was approximately 176 terawatt-hours (TWh), approximately 4.4% of U.S. annual electricity consumption that year, according to a report by Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory. A data center typically contains multiple computer servers, data storage devices, and network equipment that can provide information technology (IT) infrastructure service for organizations to store, manage, process, and transmit large amounts of data. Some projections show that data center energy consumption could double or triple by 2028, accounting for up to 12% of U.S. electricity use.
Roughly one-half or greater of the electric power demand of data centers stems directly from the operation of electronic IT equipment. Much of the rest is for cooling. The operation of the IT equipment raises the temperature of the ambient room air, necessitating a cooling strategy. Centralized cooling resources are of two types: (1) those moving chilled air through large duct work; or (2) those moving chilled water in a piped cooling loop that exchanges heat with the environment. An alternative to these centralized systems is room-scale air conditioners. One type…LOGIN TO CONTINUE READING at www.devinenewsmembers.com. You will get instant access to our full E-edition, and begin getting the newspaper delivered to your home next week for $36 a year in Medina County. Support important local city, county, and school news like this!