Celebrating 126 Years of Serving the communities of Devine, Natalia, Lytle, Bigfoot, and Moore in Medina, Frio, and Atascosa Counties
The 2025 Lytle Pirate Cross Country team claimed the Regional Championship. They are: Jacob Cantu, Diego Reyna, Adrian Reyna, Bryan Montes-Rodriguez, Nathan Garza, Sebastian Garcia, and Jaden Castro. The Lady Pirates took 2nd place at Regionals: Frances Scotello, Annalise Quintanilla, Elyse Cortinas, Svetlana Lopez, Kaycee Galindo, Addison Wagner, and Klayre Cook.
Dispatchers received a 9-11 call from family members in distress around 7:30 pm this past Friday night, October 17. Upon arrival, the suspect, identified as William Barret Wylie, 41 years old was inside the family’s home located just outside Devine on CR 777, and he began firing at first responders.
“As shots rang out, deputies advanced on the residence and made entry,” said Sheriff Randy Brown. “He fired two shots, then took his own life.”
The suspect had…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!
A LaCoste native, Hitzfielder watches the project he’s been envisioning for months comes to life as this historic country home makes its way into the city.
By Kayleen Holder
Editor
Visitors and diners can enjoy an authentic cajun meal with a side of history at LaCoste City Hotel and Acadiana Cafe, located in the heart of LaCoste.
Co-owner Rodney Hitzfielder said he’s worked with several old houses, but he felt like this one was kind of special.
“I bought the house for $10. They were dividing the land up and had no use for this old house, so I said ‘I’ll take it’.”
Based on his experience, he said the home dates back between 1900 and 1915 and once belonged to descendants of the Kumz family. It was first located just outside twon on LaCoste-Macdonna Road.
“The hotel was built in 1912 so it should go together real well,” Hitzfielder said.
“I’ve never seen one with some of the features this one has. The interior walls are no like other bead board I’ve ever seen. Nobody I’ve…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!
Rodgers led the opposition passage of a new county fire code during the Medina County meeting Monday. The court took no action on the fire code. (Photo by Anton Riecher)
By Anton Riecher
Medina County business owners took the podium at the Medina County Commissioners Court Monday to oppose the proposed adoption of the 2021 International Fire Code as the official standard for Medina County as an alternative to enforcing the state fire code.
Leading the opposition was Wayne Rodgers, owner of Castroville-based Wayne Rodgers Construction.
“This to me and others is regulations that you are forcing on the conservatives of this county, a county that they and their families have built and businesses operated safely for all these years without regulation,” Rodgers said.
Mark Chadwick, county emergency management coordinator and fire marshal, held fast…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!
Our Lady of Grace in La Coste, Texas has been designated Jubilee Pilgrimage Site in the Archdiocese and will host activities on October 24 – 25, 2025. This year, the archbishop has proclaimed Assembly as an “Archdiocesan Day of Prayer, Fasting, and Reconciliation.”
This special day at our Jubilee Pilgrimage Site provides an intentional space for the faithful across the archdiocese to slow down from daily responsibilities, to give Jesus their burdens, and to recommit to their baptismal call.
By doing so, we pray everyone will leave Assembly renewed as pilgrims of hope for the world! See the advertisement which has more information and a schedule for our Day of Prayer, Fasting and Reconciliation.
During the Oct. 14 Lytle City Council meeting District 1 Alderwoman Anne Carrillo asked the public to recognize Oct. 14 as White Cane Safety Day, an annual observance on Oct. 15 that honors the independence of people who are blind or visually impaired. Carrillo said she still cherishes the cane used by her late brother.
By Anton Riecher
Plans by a new developer to build a secondary access for emergency response traffic into Saddle Ridge subdivision was announced during the Oct. 14th Lytle City council special session.
Kevin Pape, vice president with the Calara Group, said that the engineering done by Rausch Coleman, the original developer of the subdivision, “wasn’t a very good solution for secondary access.”
“We’re going to be building a road that is going to be the primary road for the city’s access to get into the waste treatment plant,” Pape said. “Through that, it will also have an emergency (route) to get to that road through our neighborhood in case something happens.”
The new road involved changes to plans for the third phase of the Saddle Ridge subdivision previously approved by the city council, he said. New engineering plans will be submitted for council approval.
City Administrator Zachary Meadows said the need for secondary access out of the Saddle Ridge subdivision has been a topic of much concern to the council, particularly after the recent sale to Calara Group.
“Ultimately, we’ve been asking to get some updates on where we’re at with that particular road construction,” Meadows said. “If you recall, it’s to come out of the back end of Saddle Ridge in, I think, phase three of that project.”
The city had asked…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!
Southton School, one of many rural school buildings that history has forgotten.
Until the early 50s, there were hundreds of rural community schools across Texas. One such elementary school was located in Southton, Texas, a few miles off Highway 87 and Hilltop toward Floresville. I have sweet memories of attending second grade there. The school consisted of three rooms with two grades and one teacher to each room. The first graders were on one end of our room and the second graders on the other. Our teacher sat at the back corner of the room. Her name was Mrs. Williams. I well recall so many happy times there including friends who still live in my memory, even though I have seen few of them since elementary school. One friend was Terry who sat next to me.
Terry was a talker, and so am I, but I’m also a rule follower. So one time when the teacher admonished us not to talk and anyone who did would get a spanking, Terry started talking to me and I told him to hush and I got caught. Sometimes we just get in trouble when it’s not our fault.
I also recall being awarded the distinction of best reader! Go figure. That brings to mind a wonderful memory of the mobile library. That was so exciting and, Oh, what a joy it was to walk down the aisle in that portable library in awe as I took in the smell of the books and made my choices. My favorite books were about ballet and horses.
I walked or rode my bike to school every day. It was about a mile from our home. On more than one occasion, my big, beautiful, white dog, Butterball, would follow me, and I would have to coax him back home. But generally, I did not ride or walk alone. Several neighborhood children also walked and rode their bikes to school. One of my classmates who rode her bike alongside me was named Margie, a neighbor and such a good friend.
Another fond memory of living at Southton was the post office. It was around the corner from the school and sometimes after school I would go there to pick up our mail. The post office consisted of a regular house, and when you walked up onto the porch and you faced the front door, to the left was another door which had been converted to a window where the clerk/homeowner would hand you your mail.
After second grade, that school was closed like so many others across the state, and the building, unfortunately from a historical viewpoint, was torn down. A new school house named Harmony, which was just off of Highway 87 east of Hilltop, became the new, up-to-date, modern elementary school. I attended Harmony third through sixth grades.
East Central ISD encompasses 296 square miles. When I attended Harmony in third through sixth grades, I rode the bus for 5 miles from home. Then in seventh grade, I attended Oak Crest, which was an hour from Harmony. So I rode the bus from my house to Harmony where I changed buses and rode from Harmony to Oakcrest. It was quite a trip.
Oakcrest was a new building situated across the street from East Central High School. As I recall, it had four rooms, two for 7th and two for 8th grades. The principal was one of my teachers. A fun fact is for lunchtime all students boarded a school bus and we rode across the road – Sulphur Springs Highway – to the East Central high school cafeteria. At the end of lunch, we all piled back in the bus and rode back across the road.
Today, Oak Crest is an elementary school with an enrollment of around 680 students. Because we moved to San Antonio near the end of my seventh-grade year, I left Oak Crest and my humble rural school to attend Burbank, which was a 4A high school, equivalent to today’s 5A. The junior high was on the same campus as the high school, which made for an even larger population. Talk about culture shock. Yet, I like to think that I experienced the best of two worlds, small country schools as a child and big city school as a teen.
In keeping with this rural school theme, stay tuned next week to learn about Medina County’s Shook school.
“The most dangerous food is wedding cake.”
-James Thurber
There is a funny episode from the great TV series Seinfeld where Elaine, needing an afternoon sugar rush, sneaks into her boss Mr. Peterman’s college boy mini fridge and nibbles on cake hidden within. This cake turns out to be a vintage slice from the 1937 wedding of King Edward VIII and Wallis Simpson worth $29,000. After ingesting the cake, and learning the value of her afternoon snack, Elaine tries to replace it with a grocery store substitute from Entenmann’s but is caught on camera enjoying “the most romantic thing she’s ever eaten.” We are left to imagine the pain Elaine will endure passing the antique cake that has been “stored for six decades in a poorly ventilated English basement.”
This sitcom story is funny, but it couldn’t be true, right? No one has ever heard of vintage wedding cake, bought and sold for profit, passed around after 70-80 years, have they? Much to my astonishment vintage cake trading and collecting is a real thing. This story is strange, but true!
Evidently there is a common practice of decades-old wedding cake being bought and sold by collectors, with pieces sometimes fetching thousands of dollars. Slices of wedding cake, especially royal wedding cake, are often given as souvenirs. These sometimes come up for auction. Buyers with a taste for history often snatch them up. And lest you think we are talking about moldy chunks of dry plaster-like cake topped with rancid vanilla frosting, apparently royal wedding cakes are traditionally made of fruitcake. Fruitcakes are extremely shelf stable. And a piece from 1937 might be almost petrified.
In 2014 a piece of cake from King Charles and Princess Diana’s 1981 wedding sold for $7,500. Another Charles and Di slice sold for $2,511 in 2021.
In 2015 a Beverly Hills auction house sold slices collected by a former chauffeur of Queen Elizabeth II. He had saved slices from the weddings of Princess Anne (1973), Prince Andrew (1986), Charles – both weddings (1981 & 2005), and Prince William (2011). In 2014 a separate auction house sold another slice from Prince William and Princess Kate’s wedding for $7,500.
Recently, a slice of Queen Elizabeth II and Prince Philip’s wedding cake from 1947 sold for $3,669. It was purchased by Gerry Layton and is one of the last pieces of cake from this wedding in existence. Despite its rarity, Layton plans to eat it. Queen Elizabeth and Prince Philip’s confection was a nine-foot-tall elegant baked monster of a cake weighing over 500 pounds. It was cut into 2000 pieces. In 2013 another Queen Elizabeth slice sold for $2,300, auctioned by Christie’s.
And just like in the Seinfeld episode, in 1998 a slice from Edward VIII and Wallis Simpson’s wedding sold for $29,900. Initially valued at $500-$1000, the buyer, entrepreneur Benjamin Yin, explained he bought the cake for sentimental reasons. “It represents the epitome of a great romance – truly romantic and elegant,” he said.
With my curiosity piqued, I went online in search of vintage cake for sale. For the heady price of $3,400 I found a royal wedding cake collection set. This consisted of three rare slices of official royal wedding cake, each from a “landmark royal marriage.” One slice was from the wedding of Charles and Diana. Another slice came from the wedding of Princess Anne and Captain Mark Phillips. The third was from Prince Andrew and Sarah Ferguson’s wedding. All are fruitcake, with special cream cheese frosting on the Charles and Di slice. The collection was offered for sale from the family of a former member of the Queen’s official bodyguard unit. Each piece comes wrapped in its original wax paper inside a monogramed silver presentation box with a signed letter of authenticity. If you are a royalist, or maybe just have an online shopping addiction, this antique cake can be yours with the click of a mouse.
The strange world of vintage wedding cake collecting seems like the stuff of fiction. Who knew it was real!
© 2025 Jody Dyer
typewriterweekly.com
Ed Lacy Haywood, 88, of Devine, Texas, passed away peacefully on October 11, 2025, surrounded by loved ones. Born on July 27, 1937, Lacy lived a life filled with kindness, laughter, and an unwavering love for family and friends. Known for his steady nature, quick wit, and generosity, Lacy touched the lives of everyone he met.
A cowboy through and through, Lacy spent much of his life as a rancher, where he enjoyed riding and caring for his horses. He found peace in open pastures and quiet mornings in the saddle, where hard work and simple pleasures shaped his days. His love for animals and the outdoors reflected the same patience and loyalty he gave to his family.
Lacy attended school in Natalia, Texas, and devoted nearly 60 years of his life to Cox Cattle Company and Cox Feedlots, Inc. Throughout his career, he worked as a tractor driver, mechanic, truck driver, and all-around jack of all trades. Known for his strong work ethic and dependability, Lacy could fix just about anything and never hesitated to lend a hand to others. He took pride in a job well done and earned the respect of everyone who worked alongside him.
He is survived by his beloved wife, Sharon Haywood; his sister, Juanita Jones; his children, Vincent and Elexa Allen, Randy William, Robert and Melanie Haywood, Stacy and Amy Haywood, Sheila and Denis Haynes, and Whitney Haywood and Rodrigo Gomez; his stepdaughter, Nicole Haywood; 20 grandchildren; and 19 great-grandchildren.
He was preceded in death by his parents, David and Melicia Haywood, and his siblings, Lucille Brooks, Annette Todd, Gene Haywood, Liz Haywood, and Vivian Fields.
Though deeply missed, Lacy’s spirit will live on in all who knew him – riding with every sunrise over the Texas fields he loved.
A Celebration of Life will be held on Saturday, November 1, from 11:00 a.m. to 2:00 p.m. at First Baptist Church of Natalia, 301 Pearson Street, Natalia, Texas. Family and friends are invited to attend and honor his remarkable life.
Kelly Smith, 59, of Hudson, Florida, passed away on October 10, 2025.
She was born on August 12, 1966, and spent her life working hard, loving deeply, and helping others in quiet but powerful ways.
Kelly had an immense love for the ocean. In recent years, she took up scuba diving and found great joy in catching and cooking fresh seafood. The water was her place of peace and freedom.
A determined and self-made woman, Kelly built her own insurance company from the ground up and faithfully provided for her family. She dedicated her life to ensuring her son had more opportunities than she did—and she succeeded. Her work ethic, resilience, and sacrificial generosity were the defining marks of her life.
Kelly had a heart that could not ignore someone in need. Whether it was helping an elderly woman named Fay recover money and find safe housing—and visiting her until she passed so she wouldn’t die alone—or caring for her father through his battle with Alzheimer’s when others would not, Kelly consistently stepped in when most people stepped away. These are only two examples of the countless acts of compassion she quietly carried out throughout her life.
She was strong, protective, and deeply loyal. Though she carried heavy wounds from her past, she never stopped showing love through action. Those who knew her best saw a woman whose toughness masked a deeply tender heart.
Kelly was preceded in death by her husband, Frank Smith.
She is survived by her son Joshua Ritchey and his wife Jazmin, her grandchildren Liberty (13), Tesla (11), and Emerson (3); her brothers Bryce, Brian, and Tracy; and her mother.
Kelly’s legacy is one of sacrificial love, fierce protection, and unwavering strength. She gave all she had so others wouldn’t suffer. She will be deeply missed, profoundly honored, and forever remembered by those whose lives she touched.
