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| - Store sites - |
The photos in order, from top to bottom, are Rotan DG site, Roby DG site, and Ace Hardware Rotan site.
According to the Texas Department of Licensing and Registration, the Rotan DG store is planned for 12,480 square feet and Roby DG for 9,100 square feet. The Double Mountain Chronicle reported that Ace is planned for 12,500 square feet.
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| - Night flight bugs - |
You can follow the progress of the new hardware store on facebook. Fisher Ace Hardware & Farm Supply in Rotan has a page with a lot of interesting photos and videos. They documented pouring the store foundation, reporting that it took 27 trucks to get the job done.
The land deal has gone through for the Dollar General store in Rotan. Expect to see groundwork being laid on the southern edge of town. Dollar General in Roby is in construction now.
Stoney LaRue will be playing at the Taylor County Coliseum Friday, September 5, during the West Texas Fair and Rodeo in Abilene. Table, floor and balcony seats are available. Performance begins at 9 p.m.
Taylor Sheridan's Yellowstone is coming back November 10, and Tulsa King will return September 15. I swore I would never watch another Sheridan production until he showed us the last episodes of season five of Yellowstone, but Tulsa King is coming on first, so I will be breaking my vow. The shows will air on Paramount Network and Paramount+.
In light of current newspaper and internet articles touting the scouring of Texas voter rolls, it's a good idea to check that your name is still on there. I have more faith in the abilities of the professionals who run the elections in our county than I do in the word of the governor, who likes to spin an ongoing maintenance program as his new, good idea, but it can't hurt to have a look.
On the official website of Texas, tex.gov, you can check your voter registration status in a variety of ways, using your voter identification, driver's license, or name, along with your birthday, to see if you are eligible to vote in the next election.
Anson Martin died today. He and his wife recently sold their home at Camp Springs and moved to east Texas.
Visitation will be Tuesday 6-7:30 p.m. at Weathersbee-Ray in Rotan.
Funeral services will be at 1:00 p.m. Wednesday at the Cross Roads Baptist Church.
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| - Obituary for Day - |
Luella Lucile Hudson Day (Ella Hudson Day), a prominent Rotan citizen in the early 1900's, composed music and wrote songs. Two of her ragtime tunes, Quality Rag (1909) and Fried Chicken Rag (1912), were nationally known. Day's Quality Rag was composed a few years before Scott Joplin's or James Scott's pieces of similar name.
As time goes on, I wonder if people get weary of their hometown heroes. Without a street named after them, they fade into the background.
In a 1966 Abilene Reporter article, Day and Josie Baird were listed alongside Sammy Baugh as noted citizens of Fisher County.
Josie Baird was a well-known teacher at Rotan. She wrote Tom Bond, Bronc-buster,Cow-poke and Traildriver. A scholarship has been given in her name by Gamma Tau Chapter of the Delta Kappa Gamma Society International.
Sources:
September 3 sheriff sales:
Nolan County has a big bundle of tax foreclosures, with over 50 properties listed on Perdue Brandon. The most notable is the large commercial building at 100 East Broadway, on the corner of Oak. This was the location of the Azteca Bar & Grill in its last incarnation. It was originally built in 1928 and is part of the Sweetwater Commercial Historic District.
To see if taxes have been paid prior to sale, check with the Nolan County Appraisal District. To check for liens, use TexasFile and Nolan County LGS.
Texas Public Notices lists two sheriff sales: leasehold estates and lands in connection with the Saratoga oil and gas well; a parcel of 10 acres out by the cotton coop facility, across from the cemetery.
Hobbs homecoming will be Saturday, October 19. The reunion is to take place in the annex by the gym. Registration commences at 10 a.m., with lunch to follow at noon. A formal program is not planned, but a microphone will be available for those wishing to address the gathering. Josh Helms' Rough Creek Catering will provide the meal. Price is $18 per plate.
Today, at the Fisher County Commissioners meeting, representatives from IREN came before the court to introduce themselves and to discuss a possible tax abatement for a project they want to set up in the county. Jason Date, Michael Leamons and Nicole Dill gave their spiel and promised jobs, retail sales and donations to local groups to make the project more lucrative. It sounds like what they want from the county is large, open land and an easy hook-up into electric transmission lines.
Jason described the company as a sustainable data center. I got excited
because I thought it meant all the county records would be in a huge,
searchable database. I was wrong.
IREN is a bitcoin mining company. An article from the New Scientist website, written by Matthew Sparkes, gives a pretty good description of bitcoin.
More important is the definition of a data center. It's a large, temperature-controlled warehouse filled with computers, according to a Science for Georgia document.
IREN has a project going in Childress. There is a video detailing the path to making that deal.
The company has already obtained several hundred acres in Fisher County, around the Wetsel Substation on FM 611, under the name IE US Development Holdings 5.
Looking over the internet, I couldn't figure out whether to be pro or con. Some say the data centers use too much energy and have a lot of emissions. Others say the data centers stabilize the electric grid by keeping energy expectations at a steady level. That is evidently done by using more electricity, that would otherwise be wasted, during slack periods, while using less electricity when energy is needed by other consumers, like during a heatwave or cold snap.
Soon we might be adding another line to our county industry banner: cattle, cotton, oil, wind energy, solar energy and bitcoin mining.
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| - East Roby - |
The site address is 411 East South First Street, east of the Fisher County Courthouse.
Square footage for the building is listed as 9,100 with an estimated cost of $750,000.
Construction is currently going on at the site.
The doors open for the new school year on the following dates:
Rotan Independent School District - August 14.
Roby Consolidated School District - August 15.
Sweetwater Independent School District - August 14.
Big Country Homepage has an exhaustive list of all school begin dates.
Two agendas have been posted for the date. The notices, one for a public hearing at 7:00 a.m., and one for a public meeting at 7:05 a.m, can be found on the Fisher County Posted Notices page.
A public hearing notice and a proposed budget notice for the CAD were in the August 4 issue of the Double Mountain Chronicle.
The City of Rotan has posted a meeting notice for August 8, 7:00 a.m.
Fisher County Commissioners Court will meet August 12. The usual time is 9:00 a.m.
No agendas were posted for the city and county meetings.
A notice and a separate article in the DMC indicate there will be discussion regarding a reinvestment zone and the yearly budget at the commissioners meeting.
