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2021
Volume 34, Issue 17
www.LHIndependent.com
School planners work around increasing construction costs
By MIKE EDDLEMAN Managing Editor Nostalgia is a powerful thing, and when a school district makes regular calls for more taxpayer dollars to fund new construction, it is easy for voters to recall less costly times in school construction. Of Liberty Hill ISD’s proposed $491 million bond package on the May 1 ballot, $301 million of that is for new campus construction that would build two new elementary schools, another middle school and a second high school. Only 10 years ago voters approved a bond for a new high school with a construction cost of $62.2 million, and six years later Rancho Sienna El-
ementary School at a cost of $24.8 million. Fast forward four years and the guaranteed maximum construction cost for Santa Rita Elementary – opened in August – came in at $27.2 million, but is likely to wrap up slightly lower than budgeted. While these numbers don’t include many of the soft costs of the projects such as land acquisition and design, they were all less expensive than the new campuses on the table. The simplest explanation for this is inflation, but having numbers to work with – even if they are high – gives the
See COSTS, Page 8
News@LHIndependent.com
March 18, 2021 | 50 Cents
Family, community grieving after loss
Bye suffered from severe head injury following October crash
By SHELLY WILKISON Publisher What was best for his family was at the heart of every decision made by Mario Bye. Even in his final moments Sunday, it seemed as though he was trying to make the ending of his five-month struggle for life easier on his wife. Although unable to communicate with her, Deanna Bye says she believes her husband heard her conversations with medical professionals about what it would take to move him from the Houston hospital to the Austin area for hospice care. “Even then, he wanted to take care of us,” she said, adding that the move would have been
risky, complicated and costly. From her phone, she played their wedding song, and then his favorite Rolling Stones tune, and noticed that the one eye that could open got a little wider. “His breathing slowed, I hugged him and held him. I know he heard I wanted to move him closer to home. He waited until the doctors were there,” she said through her tears. “It was the last thing he could do to take care of us, and it was the most perfect way for him to go.” Mario was 52. On Tuesday, Oct. 20, 2020, Mario left Jane Long The funeral mass for Mario Bye will be at 11 a.m. March 19 at Sts. Peter & Paul Catholic Church in Bellville. See BYE, Page 9 (Courtesy Photo)
fore the district called the May election, her place was added to the ballot.
The Place 6 term has one year remaining, meaning the winning candidate will be up for
Six seeking one-year unexpired LHISD term
By MIKE EDDLEMAN Managing Editor When former Liberty Hill
ROBERT BAUGHN
ISD Board member Vickie Peterson announced her resignation from the board just be-
LOCKIE EALY
KRISTI HARGROVE
CORY MILAM
re-election in May 2022. In spite of that shortened term, six candidates filed to fill
AURORA TRAHAN
the vacancy.
JENNIFER WILLIAMS
A resident in Liberty Hill ISD for four and a half years, Robert Baughn chose this area after 25 years of military service in the U.S. Army because of the schools. “I’ve been involved in the school district for a couple of years now,” he said. “Like many other people, we moved here when I got out of the army from Killeen, specifically for the school district. My kids were just entering kindergarten.” He has two elementary-age children, and the West Point graduate now works in construction management. “I work through development, design all the way through construction management, and
The mother of a sixth grader and a fifth grader and a real estate professional, Lockie Ealy knew when she came to Liberty Hill just under two years ago she wanted to get more involved. “This is exciting for Liberty Hill,” Ealy said of the changes facing the school district. “I am running for the betterment of the school system and for the children. I see the need because there is going to be so much growth coming into Liberty Hill. I just want to be a part of it. My kids are going to be in the schools and I just want to be a part of it.” Working in real estate in
Grandkids brought retired educator Kristi Hargrove to Liberty Hill, and with a 25-year career working as a teacher, coach and administrator at districts large and small, continuing to serve -this time on the school board -- made sense to her. She taught for nine years in the Austin area before moving into administration. “I felt like I could positively affect more kids as an administrator than I could as a teacher and a coach,” Hargrove said. “I was briefly in the Dallas area and working with a school experiencing the same kind of growth as
Cory Milam has a fourth, fifth and seventh grader in LHISD, and sees his family in the center of many of the changes going on right now in the district. He is a longtime volunteer who now serves on the board of the Liberty Hill Youth League. He has decided that if he wants to help make sure the school district stays true to what residents value that he has to get more involved. “What really drove me on it, now more than ever with the growth we have in Liberty Hill and what’s coming, my biggest deal is I want to make sure we do our best to
Aurora Trahan and her family moved into Liberty Hill ISD in time for her now first-grader to begin kindergarten in the district last year. At the same time that schooling began, she dove into being involved in the district as a parent and volunteer. “We’re getting started on our academic journey and we’re here for the long haul,” she said. “From go I really got involved locally. I am currently the president of our PTO at Santa Rita Elementary and last year when we were at Rancho Sienna I led the education connection literacy program. I participat-
After a recent move to Liberty Hill – having lived in the district for just over six months – Jennifer Williams decided to make a run for the LHISD Board of Trustees. She began her career as a classroom teacher, and has spent time since doing education consulting work. “I left the classroom a few years back now, and after leaving the classroom, within a year or so, I knew I wanted to pursue school board or just find a way to be more involved in local school policy,” Williams said. In her two years in the classroom she taught high school
See BAUGHN, Page 8
See EALY, Page 8
See HARGROVE, Page 10
See MILAM, Page 10
See TRAHAN, Page 10
See WILLIAMS, Page 10
BUSINESS
O’Reilly Auto Parts to open this summer
By RACHEL MADISON Staff Writer A new auto parts store is making its way to Liberty Hill this summer. O’Reilly Auto Parts, which is headquartered in Springfield, Mo., and was founded in 1957, is a dominant supplier of auto ©2021 The Liberty Hill Independent
parts across the United States and Mexico. Michael Jurgensmeyer, the project administrator for the Liberty Hill store, said construction began this week, and as long as all goes well with the construction timeline, the store should have its grand opening in August. Site prep is currently underway. “This store will be number 6,120—we have a presence in all 50 states,” he added. “This store will have everything O’Reilly’s typically offers,
like battery testing, car parts and accessories, and things like that.” The new store will be considered part of the Highway 29 Business Plaza, and will specifically be located at 80 Independence Drive, at the northeast corner of Independence Drive and West SH 29. The size of the store will be approximately 7,400 square feet and it will have 35 parking spaces. The site is approximately two acres in size. According to the City of Liberty
Hill, the property was platted in 2006 and is currently zoned general commercial/retail. The development application for O’Reilly Auto Parts was formally submitted in November 2018. Jurgensmeyer said O’Reilly Auto Parts decided to open a store in Liberty Hill because corporate saw an opportunity to serve a great market. “We wanted to bring out our brand of professional parts and people to Liberty Hill,” he said. “I don’t pick the sites—I come
in after the sites are picked and get them going—but definitely being in a growing area is taken into account when looking at new store sites.” Jurgensmeyer added that O’Reilly Auto Parts is excited to come to Liberty Hill so that it can offer its customers professional installations, high quality service and good prices on auto parts. “Our brand is all about being helpful, friendly and doing whatever we can to get people back on the road,” he said. “We
have knowledgeable employees who get trained beforehand to understand problems customers are facing and then take that back to figure out what could be wrong. Whether it’s the radiator leaking fluid or your starter going bad, we can help you figure that out and get you back on the road.” For more information on O’Reilly Auto Parts, visit www.oreillyauto.com.