Villarreal wins car donated by Chaparral Ford at successful St. Joseph’s Octoberfest

Martin Villarreal was the winner of the 2021 Ford Eco Sport donated by Chaparral Ford family Don and Irma Dunford, pictured with grandson and GM Zachary Morris and Father Antonio Xavier Hernandez-Peraza. The vehicle was donated as the grand prize of the St. Joseph’s Catholic Church Festival drawing, which was a huge success thanks to all of the generous donors.

Devine’s new fire station dubbed “The DuBose Firehouse”

Former volunteers Melvin Ehlinger and Tom Foster reminiscing with Devine VFD Chief Greg Atkinson and Asst. Chief Patrick DuBOse.

By Kayleen Holder
Editor
There was quite a crowd of DuBoses and community members at the Dubose Firehouse this Saturday, as the dedication and revealing of the plaque took place at 3 pm. The amount of hours and manpower that’s been put into our local volunteer fire department by so many families over the past 93 years, is insurmountable. I wish we could name every single one of those heroes, who sacrificed their time doing to such hard and important work for our community.
The event began with several community members looking at old photos and swapping stories with the new generation who keeps the Devine Volunteer Fire trucks rolling.
Chief Greg Atkinson gave a speech as they got ready to officially name the station and reveal the plaque out front. Atkinson said the name “DuBose” kept appearing and reappearing as he researched the history of the Devine Volunteer Fire Department, and he was honored when Patrick DuBose retired from SAFD and re-joined Devine VFD as the Assistant Chief.

Bobbie DuBose spoke about how she used to answer fire calls from her home phone nights and weekends and help respond with her husband Dub.


When it comes to Devine Volunteer Department, Atkinson said, “there are several families that left behind a legacy….there were Ehlingers; there were Rodriguez’; there were Bramhalls,” just to name a few.
For 83 of the 93 years that the department has existed, a DuBose has been on the roster alongside so many other volunteers, Atkinson said.
“A DuBose helped found this department. A DuBose helped incorporate this department. A DuBose helped form Emergency Service District #2. If it wasn’t for this family, the city of Devine would have lacked fire and medical services on many occasions. What a legacy,” Chief Atkinson said.
“I want to say thank you to this family,” Chief Atkinson said. “That’s 83 years of not just firefighter support but of the families who had mom or dad who were away from dinner or Christmas morning because they had to go help somebody…It’s 83 years where mom or dad or son had to run out the door to help someone when it was an important time in that person’s life too…what a sacrifice. On behalf of me and my staff, thank you.”
Mrs. Bobbie DuBose got up to speak for a few minutes after the dedication. She shared stories of when she took over dispatcher duties, answering fire calls from her home phone, all while raising three kiddos.

Tinker DuBose pictured with his wife Debbie, viewing the new plaque honoring the many volunteers like him who kept the fire trucks rolling over the years.


“I’ll never forget when Richard Schott asked Dub and I to answer the calls at home. ‘It’ll just be temporary,’ he said. Do you know how long it lasted?” she asked with a smile. “For 10 years I answered that phone at night and on the weekends!”
But that wasn’t all, she went with her husband to fire calls now and then too.
“But anyway it was exciting,” DuBose said. “I stuck with it and he stuck with me. The life of a wife of a fireman named Dub DuBose. I’ll tell ya, many nights he would take the tanker truck out to a fire. I would drive and he would run the fire hose.”
She later added,“One time our young daughter Jennifer had to answer the fire phone, she was scared and didn’t want to, but she did it because she knew it was important and had to be done. She did a great job, we were proud of her of course”.
Lewis Stroud fondly recalled a fire story and shared it with us at the news office recently.
“I remember back in 1955 when our house was on fire on Zig Zag, just outside the city. C.P.DuBose jumped on the fire engine as one of the other firemen stood in front of the truck and told him he couldn’t take it outside city limits. C.P. told him to get out of the way or he would run him over, as he wasn’t going to let the Stroud home burn down. He zipped on over and put out the fire all by himself. If it wasn’t for C. P. our home would have burned down!” said Stroud. “I was in the 5th grade at the time.”
The fire house was across the street from The Devine News where C.P. worked, so when the sirens went off he made many fires during his time as did his sons Dub, Wade, Pat and grandson Patrick DuBose who all worked at the news office over the years. This is what many businesses did that had volunteer firemen as employees. They knew the volunteers were limited during the working hours as many worked out of town. So they allowed their employees to go to fire calls during working hours while they were on the payroll, to protect the community and its families. Henry Schmidt was one of those business owners who allowed his employees to run out to the fires, and he was usually right beside them. Small town businesses sacrificed and took care of their fellow neighbors in need. Schmidt’s son Mike and his friends Mickey Davis, Gilbert Rodriguez and Patrick DuBose were allowed as juniors and seniors to leave the high school to fight fires, because they were needed during daylight hours to fill the need and put out the fires alongside the few volunteers who were available during working hours.
The DuBose family is humbled by this honor, and wants to recognize all of the many men and women who worked side by side to keep the fire trucks rolling all these years, and many more to come.

Family will miss Fred’s smile, horrible fire on Colonial claims life

While officials are awaiting positive identification, the family mourns the loss of a friend, father and brother.

Emergency responders rushed to the scene on Colonial Parkway this past Thursday morning, October 6 around 9:23 AM only to find an older trailer home totally engulfed. Sadly, authorities believe Fred Schilling of Devine perished in the fire. Within minutes the entire home was gone
“The home was engulfed when we arrive on scene, and no rescue attempt was possible,” stated Lieutenant Chris Andrews. “Multiple fire departments responded quickly, and were able to keep the fire from spreading to neighboring homes. Unfortunately, a man believed to be 73-year-old Fred Schilling perished in the fire.”
Shilling lived in the home for years on Colonial Parkway across from the cemetery.
According to family members Fred was always helping someone out. He enjoyed telling jokes to make people laugh and stopping to help people in need. Fred was a welder by trade, loved motorcycles and the outdoors, and enjoyed landscaping as well. His smile and kind heart will be missed by those who knew him.
“The Bexar County Fire Marshall was contacted and conducted an investigation, but their report is not available at this time. The remains were transferred to Lockhart, Texas for autopsy and identification,” Andrews said.

Natalia Homecoming Parade, Community Pep Rally and Tailgate

Natalia will host a homecoming parade, community pep rally and tailgate on Wednesday, October 12th. The Parade will start at 6:30 pm with the pep rally and tailgate to immediately follow.
The parade will start at the High School parking lot, travel down Kearney to Hwy. 132 and pass in front of the City Office before turning up Miller Street to finish at the Mustang Stadium parking lot.
If you are interested in entering a float in the Homecoming Parade, please go to https://forms.gle/LSVCFDgTUjNMphja7 and complete the form. Deadline to submit the form is October 7, 2022.

The Texas man who hunted down a Mososaur, one of the most exciting and newest fossil finds in Texas

Kruse found the 30 foot monster fossilized in the bank of this river, which he describes as one of the most “prolific fossil hunting sites in Texas.”

By Kayleen Holder
Editor
Texas man Steve Kruse was just walking around, looking for fossils like he’s done for years when he found something truly astounding, a fossilized pre-historic monster estimated to be 80 million years old and 30-40 feet in length (based on the massive head and vertebrae that have already been excavated). The Mosasaur, which ruled the seas during the Cretaceous period, will now be one of the highlights of a museum in Dallas.

This is a Mosasaur similar to the one found right here in Texas. Mosasaurs were the apex predators of their time, which was in the Late Cretaceous period as dinosaurs roamed.


“The jawbone alone was about 4 feet long and took two strong people to carry,” Kruse said. “Words can’t describe the excitement. Hunting, finding, and excavating this mosasaur was an awesome experience. I felt like Indiana Jones and Dr. Grant all in one summer!”
Kruse and his family live in Brenham, TX, but after a good rain, he often makes the five-hour trip up to the North Sulfur River, which is “the most prolific fossil hunting site in Texas”, he says.
“The first thing I do is look for footprints. If someone has beat me to that spot, I move to the next. The North Sulphur River Valley has lots of easy access to its riverbed and tributaries. In May this year, I chose a small tributary that I haven’t been to before and had the best day ever,” Kruse said. “The river has fantastic run off, so it is very dry most of the time. When it rains flood waters rise very quickly and drain quickly, exposing a whole new layer of fossils.”
Right away, that fateful day this past May 20, he found a few vertabrae and broken rib pieces of what looked like a mosasuar.
“It is a rare event to find an articulated specimen….If not collected, the next rain will move it, bury it or break it. Excited from a successful hunt, the day passed by quickly. I realized that if I went back the way I came, I would be navigating in the dark. I chose to hike up the next tributary in hopes that it would get me to the road faster.”
That was “the best decision ever!” Kruse recalled.
“About 100 yards in, I found a large vertebrae sitting on the creek bed. The size alone made me excited, but then I became doubly excited when I noticed it did not have the usual wear of being tumbled downstream. It was wonderfully pristine. (I knew it couldn’t have floated too far.) I continued up the winding stream and found another vertebra in similar, excellent condition,” Kruse said.
“On the very next bend, I saw it!” he exclaimed. “There was fossilized bone coming out about two feet up the creek wall. I knew immediately what I found. I started celebrating, climbed out of the channel and up the nearest hill for cell phone reception. My wife and I discussed what to do next. Our son Jack chiming in that he wanted me to dig it out and bring it home. I said, ‘This is about a 40 foot mosasaur! Where would we put it?’ A fossil this big needs a bigger home, so I called Mike Polcyn at Southern Methodist University, the “Michael Jordan” of Paleontology.”
He put Kruse in touch with Ron Tykowski, the Director of the Perot Museum in Dallas. They soon assembled a crew and started excavating. It was 100 degrees, he said, but it was well worth it.
“The museum crew came ready to dig. The creek wall overburden was removed, exposing the fossil bearing layer. Then, the desired bones were meticulously brushed, marked and plastered. The entire excavation process took several days. Currently, the bones are available to view behind the glass of the Fossil Prep Lab in the Perot Museum.
Kruse explains, in Texas, laws allow you to hike any navigable waterways, which makes fossil hunting at the NSR truly great.
“So you can park on a bridge and hike up and down the North Sulfur river bed as far as you like. It is one of the few places you can do surface collection. If you find a dinosaur fossil, you can keep it,” Kruse adds.
Kruse’s love for dinosaurs and fossil hunting began as a young boy at Granny’s house.
“When I was little, Granny wanted to keep me and my older brother busy,” Kruse said. “So, she told us that there were dinosaur bones in the alley and we could go dig them up. We never found anything in that alley, but we were excited at the idea. I continued looking in the ground, mostly finding minerals, fossilized wood and crinoid stems. It was years later when I found a place I could go to find fossilized bone, the North Sulfur River.”
October 15, 2022 is the next annual Fossil Day at the new Ladonia Fossil Park.
“There will be displays of local fossil finds, food and drinks. This is a wonderful event for fossil hunting amateurs to learn from enthusiasts that have been hunting the river for decades,” Kruse says.
Time is of the essence however.
“Officials recently decided to dam it the North Sulfur River and turn the western half into a lake, so we only have a year and a half left to find the fossils that are there,” Kruse stated.
It can be hard to tell what is what when hunting fossils, Kruse says, and attending the Fossil Day is a great way to learn how.
“The river can really tumble and wear down a bone. Some pieces barely look like what they were. Mosasaurs were abundant, each having more than 100 vertebrae. Vertebrae are rather easy to tell because it is mostly cylinder, one end is concave with the other end convex,” Kruse said.
Finding a complete skeleton is not very common, but that’s exactly what experts are hoping to find at the site of Kruse’s discovery as the dig continues.
“The skull was found in the cliff wall with enough pieces to indicate that the rest of the skeleton went back into the hill. The days of summer were hot to excavate, so the Trinity River Authority and Perot Museum made plans to come back with a crew and large machinery when the weather is cooler this fall,” Kruse said.




Devine Acres Farm celebrates
20-year “farmaversary”

The family farm has grown by leaps and bounds, with about 50 activities (and new ones every year) including several playgrounds, hayride’s behind the tractor, a giant jumping pad, a digging station, fishing, tons of farm animals, lots of shady picnic tables, ampitheatre, beer/wine truck, specialty coffee, ice cream galore, yummy food, and live music often.

Devine Acres Farm is celebrating its 20th season this year. They now have 50+ activities including live music Saturdays and Sundays, groovy goat races, a trick cowboy show, gigantic jump pad, fishing, hayrides great food/drinks and TONS & TONS of pumpkins this October. New this year are the hilarious “Groovy Goat Races” and a renovated Silo where you can visit Santa and Mrs. Claus this year.
The Ken and Debi Capps family shared a little about how it all began: “In 2002 we picked up our little family of six, purchased 45 acres and moved back to our hometown. Although we had no farming experience, it seemed the perfect place to raise our children.
We were looking for a good use for our land and a way to supplement our teaching salaries, so the research began… We discovered that you can grow Christmas trees in Texas! Who knew? We quickly joined a tree growers association, learned all we could and planted our first 200 seedlings. Three years later we had some small (but lovely) trees ready to sell!
The pumpkin patch was our next adventure. We brought in some pumpkins and created some activities that we thought families would enjoy!”

The Capps family, shortly after opening the family farm in Devine. Pictured above are Ken and Debi Capps and children Josh, Emily, Mason, and Abbie.


The family farm soon became the most magical place in Devine, celebrating Christmas, Halloween and Easter each year.
“The fall season really took off! People enjoy being on a REAL working farm and the Christmas trees sure make a beautiful backdrop for the fall season!” Mr. and Mrs. Capps added.
“Eventually we became full time farmers and added field trips and a spring Easter season. Over the past twenty years we have grown our family from six to fourteen, grown thousands of Christmas trees, hauled in tons of pumpkins and hidden a zillion Easter eggs! All while adding buildings, lots of activities, live entertainment and yummy food and drink options. As you can imagine, all of these “additions” meant we needed more help! We have added many staff members over the years that we refer to as our farm family.
Come see us this fall and find out what’s new this year! We have brought in and are renovating an old silo. Why? Santa needed a permanent place to call home while on the farm, and we needed something very unique to celebrate our 20th season. Silo + celebration = SILOBRATION! We cannot wait for your family to visit Santa’s Silo this Christmas and enjoy a magical and memorable experience! But for now, you just might find Mrs. Claus on the farm this fall getting the silo all set up! After all, it’s always Christmas at Devine Acres Farm.
We want to thank all of our farm friends for your loyalty and allowing us to be a part of your family’s precious memories and time. We are still here because of all of you! Our goal has, and will always be, to create a family friendly atmosphere where memories can be made while enjoying God’s beautiful creation!”
Farm admission is $14 online or $18 at the gate. Ages 2 and under are free!

The Devine Acres “farm family” has grown quite a bit over the years!

Fire Station to be named after the DuBose family this Saturday, October 8

Volunteer firemen and women who have served with the Devine Volunteer Fire Department are invited to come, bring their stories and memories to share with all as the new fire house is dedicated this Saturday at 3:00 p.m. And bring those photos to share like the one above.

On October 8th at 3:00 pm ESD 2 and Devine Volunteer Fire Department will dedicate the ESD 2 fire station to the DuBose family!
“Today I got the great opportunity to go through old pictures of former DVFD staff with my assistant chief and dear friend Charlie Patrick DuBose. Since Devine fire’s inception in 1929 the DuBose family has played an intrical part in fire and EMS protection here in Devine,” said DVFD Chief Greg Atkisson. “
“There has been a DuBose on the roster for 83 out of the 93 years of Devine Fire Department existence. A DuBose helped found the department, helped incorporate the department, and a DuBose even helped in establishing the Emergency Service District 2.
So join us October 8th at 3pm for the dedication and plaque unveiling for the newly named DuBose station!
Please join DVFD as we salute all the volunteer firemen and women who have protected our community with their lives, time, talents and dedication and would love for them to join us as we honor them, the founders, and generations of families who have help protect our home, businesses and lives as well as the DuBoses.
“Devine VFD is integral to our town’s history. In the earliest days fires changed the landscape of our young town. There were so many fires from the mid-late 1890s to the early 1900s-1910s that the city leaders created ordinances or laws for the historic downtown that said if a building burned it had to replaced by a brick or rock building,” said Nancy Saathoff.

PURSUIT. BAILOUT. REPEAT.
3 through Devine, 4 through Lytle, one ends in another crash

Devine PD stated that local authorities were blocking Devine’s major intersection at four corners to avoid a dangerous situation, when this smuggler took a detour to Bright St. Photo by Anton Riecher

The number of pursuits, bailouts, and crashes continue to mount in Medina County, and especially our small communities that are in close proximity to major thoroughfares.
According to authorities, eleven people bailed out on Bright St. right beside the Community Center in downtown Devine this past Friday, September 30th.
This bailout happened around 4:45 pm shortly before the council meeting nextdoor. DPS, county deputies, and Devine PD all assisted at the scene.
This photo was taken about an hour later as officers, deputies and troopers held several people in handcuffs, seen sitting and laying on the sidewalk.
It is believed that the DPS pursuit originated from Frio County, and a black Sedan was seen being towed away from the scene.
When they got notified of the pursuit, local officers were able to set up at four corners in Devine to block off the intersection for the safety of other drivers, so the suspects turned off on College instead before bailing out on Bright St.

This crash in Lytle that began with a smuggling pursuit, collided with two other vehicles in the busy intersection, sending one vehicle right up to the doorstep of a nearby home.


This was one of many pursuits that came through our area this week. Devine PD assisted with 3 this past week.
Lytle PD reported assisting with 4 pursuits (Thursday, Friday and two on Saturday), three of which were suspected human smuggling operations.
The fourth pursuit, on Saturday, October 1 resulted in a crash on Main Street at the intersection in front of Lytle City Hall. The DPS-initiated pursuit happened around 9 AM and thankfully there were no serious injuries reported when the suspect’s vehicle collided with two other vehicles at that intersection.
High speed pursuits through our cities are becoming all too common, and Lytle Police Chief Richie Priest warns drivers to beware of your surroundings.
“I have never seen so many pursuits and incidents involving human smuggling in my 30+ year career as a peace officer,” Chief Priest said.
“I would suggest being extra careful at intersections, even if you have a green light,” Priest adds. “If you have your radio blaring, not paying attention or you are jabber jawing on the phone you may not hear the sirens or see the lights. Remember – the emergency vehicles will be behind the suspect. So by the time you see them it may be too late. That’s why you need to be very observant when you are driving.”
Medina County Sheriff Randy Brown and his team are also dealing with smuggling operations day in and day out.
When asked for a comment, Sheriff Brown points to the current US Administration and stated that he is beyond frustrated at “the invasion of Illegal Aliens, (zero from Mexico), the deaths, the destruction of private property, and the open invitation to come.”
There have been several crashes in the past few months, including at least two human smuggling pursuits with fatalities and several hospitalizations that we know of (one in Hondo this September and 1 near Devine). And many more close calls as high speed pursuits come off the highways and detour through busy downtown streets.