Hobbs reunion

The Hobbs School Reunion will be held October 18 at the school annex.

Registration is at 10 p.m. with lunch following at noon.

Rough Creek Catering will provide the meal. There will be a dessert.

County auction set

The sale of the Fisher County owned community center at the corner of FM 611 and FM 419 will be held October 14, 10 a.m. at the courthouse.

The minimum bid is $25,000.

The property consists of 1.676 acres with a building on it.

More information can be found in the public notices section of the Double Mountain Chronicle.

County property to be sold at auction

In the monthly meeting held yesterday, Fisher County Commissioners approved the sale of the community center that sits at the corner of FM 611 and FM 419. The corner is known as Capitola, or Claytonville, by locals.

Micah Evans is commissioner of precinct 4, where the building and land is located. 

Judge Ken Holt stated in court that the property consists of 1.67 acres.

The county barn sits to the west of the community center. Both were located in parcel 33182, that held 4.906 acres, but Evans said that the portion to be sold has been separated out.

He suggested $25,000 as the minimum bid on the property, and that amount was approved.

A public auction for the property is anticipated to take place after the October commissioner's court meeting. It will be sold at a sheriff's sale at the court house.

Riding around

- Looking east -

I went to Rotan this morning, then decided to take a little ride out to the river bridge. It was about 8 a.m. and there was some fog around the bottom of the Double Mountains and in low ravines. The sun was lighting up the red canyon walls. It was spectacular, so I thought I would go on down the road a bit, looking for more beauty. 

I kept on towards Jayton, being amazed by the flat vistas and craggy breaks. I thought about what it must have been like to be on horseback or in a wagon and come across those ravines, or to be pursued and know the tricky trail down into the creek bottoms, leaving a foe confounded.

I came across a sign for Riverdale Cemetery. I had seen the name several times on maps and had wondered where it was. This was my lucky day, with time to explore.

The cemetery is almost directly due north of my house, as the crow flies, but it takes quite a bit more time to drive there. It took me about two hours and fifteen minutes to make the round trip, minus whatever time it took me to go in the store, drive through the Belvieu Cemetery east of Rotan, and walk around Riverdale Cemetery. 

There were quail, dove, deer, roadrunners, mocking birds, scissortails, a rabbit, a snake, a ground squirrel and other various birds on the eight miles of dirt road leading to the cemetery. It's been a few years since I've seen such large coveys. Maybe this is where they go to hide. I stopped four or five times to let wildlife safely pass.

When I got to the graveyard, it was very quiet, except for the crack of a gun. That was to be expected, since it is opening day of dove season. I walked around a little, noting headstones and unmarked graves. There are a lot of Shipps and Ratliffs buried there.

I had noticed smoke to the south, about where my house is, while I was driving to the cemetery. I was a little worried, because I had left the washer going, but when I got home, all was well.

It was a nice little day trip. It's not an easy road and I was grateful that I was in a four-wheel drive truck.

Nolan County Sheriff's sale September 2025

 The sale is scheduled for 2:00 p.m. September 2. One property is east of Sweetwater, the rest are in town.

• Parcel 19974: 45.90 acres east of Sweetwater, south of county road 109
• Parcel 26452: 401 Fisher
• Parcel 26921: 1010 Bowie
• Parcel 26617: 1009 East 13th
• Parcel 30973: 1002 Fisher
• Parcel 31224: 2106 Hubbard
• Parcel 31225: 1900 Hubbard
• Parcel 24766: 202 East Alabama
• Parcel 29931: 910 Locust
• Parcel 19795: 319 Canfil

More information is posted on the Perdue Brandon website.

Carrying on

I'm reading a book where, after his mother's death, the author relates dreams about carrying her through unfamiliar streets, not being able find guiding signs or landmarks that might lend a clue to where they're going, and it reminded me of the dreams I used to have after my mother died. It's coming up on fifteen years since she's been gone.

I would dream that I would be caring for her and she would slip down in a split between two mattresses and disappear, or that I would forget about her for weeks, or even years, and go into a panic, fearing she had starved in my absence. 

Thankfully, those dreams don't come to me now. I guess time and life have knocked the edges off my feelings of guilt, and slowed down my mental rearranging of events in the the last year of her life, trying to think of things I could have done to make her more comfortable, to help her rest easy.

There was one powerful dream I had about her that was fitting and satisfying. In it, I had driven up to the house that I live in now, which belonged to my parents back in the 1960's. There was a crowd in the yard, a party going on. People were  holding drinks, talking to each other and laughing. There were a couple of shade tents set up, with coolers and food sitting on tables beneath them. 

I saw my mom come edging through the people, holding a glass high above her head, and laughing as she tried to part the crowd to hand someone a drink. I called out "Mom! Mom!" to get her attention, but she couldn't hear me over the sounds of merriment. I could see she was having a good time, and it made me feel happy for her.

She still shows up in my dreams, but now it's just to say some everyday thing like "We need more corn" or "I'm going to town". She's not lost or forgotten, and I'm not riven with guilt. Of course, she's always with me. I stood in Goodwill just the other day with tears rolling down my face because a song was playing that reminded me of her. "Now that she's back in the atmosphere, with drops of Jupiter in her hair, oh-oh-oh, oh-oh-oh..." 

When she first died I could only think how ridiculous it was, how stupid, how unbelievable. The strongest person I know, the one who knew me so well, had just vanished.

Now memories of her are woven into the context of my everyday life, as constant and un-intrusive as a clock on the wall or a hand towel next to the sink. Well, I'm kind of lying, because she could never be that ordinary. To tell the truth, I'm still learning to live without her.

Get a job August 2025

 Here's a list of some local casual (no college degree needed!) employment opportunities:

Texas Department of Transportation

• Highway Maintenance Crew Chief - Anson
• Highway Maintenance Tech - Aspermont

United States Postal Service

• Rural Carrier Associate - Aspermont
• Rural Carrier Associate - Roscoe 
• City Carrier Assistant - Haskell

Dollar General

• Sales Associates and Assistant Managers - Rotan, Roby, Hamlin, Aspermont, Sweetwater, Snyder, Roscoe

Premier Warehousing

• Tarper - Rotan, Sweetwater 

Outreach Health

• Caregivers - Rotan, Hamlin, Haskell

Western Texas College - Snyder

• Part-time bus driver for the athletics department (CDL needed)
• Part-time library technician 

A couple of other sites to browse for jobs:

• Region 14 Educational Job Search
• Texas Workforce Commission (under filter, uncheck remote work; also, sort by date)

Some of them expire soon, so get a move on if you're interested!

Fisher County Public Sales August 2025

 Two public sales have been set for Fisher County. 

 

• A sheriff's sale is to be  held at 10:00 a.m. August 5 at the courthouse.

The notice was published in the Double Mountain Chronicle July 11 issue.

Property - Half interest in 224.8 acres in parcels 3035 and 3352, address listed as 1025 East US 180, McCaulley, TX.

 

• A trustee sale is to be held noon to 3 p.m. August 5 at the courthouse.

The notice is on the Fisher County website.

 

Property - .2410 acre homesite, parcel 6630, address listed as 1009 N McKinley, Rotan, TX.

Scurry County Sheriff's Sale August 2025

Sale 10 a.m. August 5 at the north door of the court house. 

These lists were published in the July 16 issue of The Snyder News.

Hermleigh has 8 tracts of real estate:

• Tract 1, property 14364: 1017 Harlan Ave, 1.03 acre homesite
• Tract 2, property 14384: 1186 Harlan Ave, .16 acre homesite
• Tract 3, property 14270:  .10 acre lot on James St, between Herm Ave and Business 84 
• Tract 4, property 14155:  .17 acre lot on Reed St, off Willis Ave
• Tract 5, property 211966:  33% interest in a lot on the corner of James St and Herm Ave 
• Tract 6, property 14272:  33% interest in a lot on the corner of James St and Herm Ave 
• Tract 7, property 14271:  .17 acre lot on James St, between Herm Ave and Business 84
• Tract 8, property 14157:  .26 acre lot on Reed St, west of Willis Ave 

Snyder has 4 tracts of real estate and 8 tracts of minerals:

• Property 12042: a small unknown amount of acreage south of the railroad tracks between 15th St and Ave M
• Property 15315:  2113 Ave I, .5 acre lot
• Property 17991:  2207 32nd St, .24 acre lot
• Property 68589:  0.00129300 royalty interest in H&TC Block 97, sections 295 and 296, out by the intersection of county roads 264 and 265
• Property 153071:  0.00026000 royalty interest in H&TC Block 97, section 246, out on US 180 west, on the north side, east of county road 246 south
• Property 94680:  0.00176900 royalty interest in H&TC Block 25, section 125, north of Lake J B Thomas
• Property 95469:  0.00176900 royalty interest in H&TC Block 25, section 125, north of Lake J B Thomas
• Property 94499:  0.00026340 royalty interest in H&TC Block 25, section 125, north of Lake J B Thomas
• Property 95155:  0.00260400 royalty interest in H&TC Block 25, section 125, north of Lake J B Thomas
• Property 180223:  0.00026340 royalty interest in H&TC Block 25, sections 119 and 126, to the west and north of Lake J B Thomas, on the Borden County Line
• Property 180475:  0.00026340 royalty interest in H&TC Block 25, section125, north of Lake J B Thomas
• Property 17291:  1312 28th St, .23 acre lot 

Tracts may be sold in groups or individually. 

Sites used for researching properties: Scurry County Appraisal District, Railroad Commission Map, Texas General Land Office Map, Scurry Self Service and Google Earth

July 2025 commissioners court

- July 2025 agenda -

Fisher County Commissioners will meet tomorrow morning at 9 a.m.

Items on the agenda include approval of payment for vehicle radios and a new tractor with shredder, and an agreement with Regional Public Defender for Capital Cases. 

There will also be a budget workshop.

The agenda can be found on the Fisher County website.