Archer City still perfect, even after losing key player to injury. Page 10
The Archer County News Archer City, Texas
Thursday, January 30, 2020
One dollar
City on hook for water facility redesign By Blake Gumprecht Archer City may have to pay nearly $100,000 to redo a new water facility destroyed in a storm last year, even though the design of the facility may have been faulty, and Wichita Falls has acknowledged that the dam on which it was built needs repairs. Archer City is building a new water-intake system at Lake Kickapoo as part of an $8.1 million water treatment plant project. The plant is largely complete, though still not operating. The intake system will pump water from the lake via two metal pipes that were supposed to be anchored by large concrete piers built into the slope of the dam that forms Lake Kickapoo. But high winds and heavy rain during a storm in April 2019 eroded the earthen dam and uprooted the two piers. As a result, project engineers have designed a new system for anchoring the intake See ARCHER CITY, page 6
Vicki Davis speaks to a customer at her Cobwebs store in Archer City as her friend and coworker Jody McDaniel looks on. Above are a few items, billiard balls and an old Archer City High School baseball hat, from the store. Photo by Blake Gumprecht
Lover of ‘anything old’ retiring By Blake Gumprecht Vicki Davis has always liked old stuff. She doesn’t know why. Perhaps it’s because she grew up in a house full of old stuff. But after her mom died when Davis was in high school, she and her brother chose to sell all the antiques in their home. Perhaps it was because after her turbulent high school years — due to her mom’s death, she attended three high schools in two states — antiques provided a sense of continuity and comfort that her own life lacked at the time. Perhaps it’s because when she was in college she had little money, like many college students, so she frequented thrift shops, garage sales, auctions, and the like. Whatever the reason, Davis has been col-
lecting old stuff ever since. “It was in my blood when I was born,” she said. Davis has operated the Cobwebs antique store in Archer City since 2006, after retiring as a schoolteacher. But she will close the store this spring. Now 72, Davis is ready to slow down and desires the freedom that she doesn’t have operating a store three days a week. She wants to be able to visit her grandkids in Midland and Waco more often. She will continue to volunteer at her church and in the community. But she also plans to relax. “I’m going to sit in the recliner and read,” said the former English teacher. Davis is not from Archer City, but she’s “lived here forever,” she said. She’s married to Jimmy Davis, owner of Davis Supply, who was born and raised here.
She grew up in Comfort, Texas, a small town slightly larger than Archer City that is about an hour northwest of San Antonio. After her mother died, she moved in with her aunt’s family in Miami, Oklahoma. The next year, they moved to Wichita Falls and she graduated from Rider High School in 1986. Davis then enrolled at Midwestern University, where she met Jimmy, and majored in elementary education. “I thought it was practical to be a teacher,” she explained. “You could always get a job.” She and Jimmy were married in 1969 and she earned her degree in 1970. He never finished college and wanted to return home to help his family. See DAVIS, page 4
Texasville Opry season to be last By Blake Gumprecht After 20 years, the Texasville Opry in Archer City is closing for good. Probably. The Opry will begin what will likely be its last season on Saturday night at the Royal Theater. Doors open at 6. The show starts at 7. Tickets are $15. The season will include additional shows in May, August, and November. The Opry’s final scheduled show on Nov. 14 will be its annual country Christmas and gospel music show. Gary Beesinger, who has produced the musical variety show See MUSIC, page 4
Scotland’s 40th sausage meal is Sunday By Blake Gumprecht Today about noon, 20 men who live in and around Scotland will come together at the Knights of Columbus Hall on U.S. Highway 281, like they do every year at this time, to make sausage. They are making the sausages in preparation for Scotland’s annual German sausage meal, which will be held at the hall in Scotland from 11 a.m. until 2 p.m. on Sunday, or until the sausage runs out. They will begin by cutting up 3,600 pounds of pork roast purchased at a meat processor in Seymour. They will season it and put
it through a meat grinder. They’ll transfer the ground pork to big vats, and season it some more. Two men, John Schenk and Robert Krahl, each with his own jar containing a special mix of spices, will then be entrusted to apply a secret blend of seasoning that gives the sausage its distinctive flavor. They don’t measure it and only they know what the bottles contain. “It’s a pinch of this and a pinch of that — like your grandmother did it,” said Terry Berend, a local dairy farmer and grand knight of the Scotland Knights of Columbus chapter, who has been making
Sausages hang at Knights of Columbus Hall in Scotland. sausage for the event for 35 years. Other men will mix the ground pork and seasoning in the vats using their hands. Mixing the sausage and seasonings by hand, Ber-
end said, is another practice that distinguishes Scotland’s sausage from that made at similar events nearby. The pork mixture will then be fed into three, hand-crank sausage stuffers, which push the ground pork into sausage casings. The sausage stuffing machines, fittingly, were made in Germany. The most proficient of the sausage makers can make sausages that are as long as 10 feet. The finished sausages will then be hung in a 10-by-10-foot walk-in freezer. If all goes well, they will finish making sausages by dinnertime. Knights of Columbus Council
1715 in Scotland has been sponsoring the sausage meal on the first Sunday in February every year since 1980. This is the 40th year for their event, which honors the heritage of German Catholics who settled the community. In addition to sausage, the meal features sauerkraut with spare rib meat, mashed potatoes, coleslaw, vegetables, bread, drinks, and a variety of homemade desserts. Area dairy producers will provide cheese to accompany the meal. There’s no beer, as you might imbibe at such an event in GerSee SAUSAGE, page 6
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