2020
Volume 33, Issue 9
www.LHIndependent.com
News@LHIndependent.com
January 23, 2020 | 50 Cents
LHISD Trustees name Kline principal at Santa Rita Elementary
By MIKE EDDLEMAN Managing Editor Liberty Hill ISD named its newest principal Tuesday to lead its newest campus. Kristine Kline will be the first principal at Santa Rita Elementary, set to open next Fall, after approval of the LHISD Board of Trustees. Superintendent Steve Snell said Kline met all of the qualifications he was seeking in a new principal. “(Kristy Kline) rose to the top just based on all of her quality skills and experience, her success as a principal in many districts and we felt she had the ability of accomplishing the task of opening up a new campus, which is a heavy lift,” he said. “But also the task of learning our culture, bringing teachers into a high-performance elementary culture, relating to the parents, and we just thought it was an overall home run hire.” Snell was pleased with the overwhelming interest in the position as the district went through the hiring process. “There was a lot of interest in this job,” he said. “We had current sitting principals apply from the Dallas area, the San Antonio area, all over Central Texas, then we had lots of assistant principals applying as well.” The district chose 10 to vet for the position, and the committee interviewed five before selecting Kline. Kline has been an elementary
KRISTINE KLINE Santa Rita Elementary Principal principal for 14 years, spending the last four as Principal at Leander ISD’s Laura Welch Bush Elementary. She received a Bachelor of Business Administration Degree in Accounting from Tarleton State University and a Master’s Degree in Education from Texas State University. Prior to becoming a principal, she taught preschool, second and fourth grades. Kline and her husband have five children and three grandchildren. The task of opening a new campus comes with some different duties than most principals face, but Snell believes Kline is up to the challenge. “There’s a little bit of heavy lifting there because obviously the new principal will be involved in the construction process from now on
See LHISD, Page A4
Going up?
WCESD#4 begins discussion on need for new equipment
By MIKE EDDLEMAN Managing Editor For Williamson County Emergency Services District #4 (ESD), growth and expansion have been the primary focus for a number of years. Station #2 is open, land has been purchased for a third station, a new engine is now in service, and the ESD has consistently been adding firefighters. The discussion Monday turned to the growing need of a ladder truck to meet changing service demands. “We are already hearing talk about apartments and we already know we are getting some big box stuff coming to our area,” said ESD Chief Anthony Lincoln. “We have a 24foot extension ladder. That’s the tallest ladder we’ve got.” A ladder truck will likely cost the ESD between $1 million and $1.5 million, compared to the engine brought into service last year at $680,000. “We’re at a point in time where we need to run as an engine ladder combination,” Lincoln said. “The truck would have 500 gallons of water on it so it can be an engine or a ladder. It has a 35-foot ground ladder on it plus the ladder on top is 107 feet.” There is also a year lead-time to order the truck and take delivery, which means planning as far in advance as possible is ©2020 The Liberty Hill Independent
critical. “That’s why we’re looking now, because it’s a year to build it,” Lincoln said. The ladder truck being considered is shorter than the traditional truck, which means it will fit in the two current stations with 50foot bays and 12-foot doors. There was no specific timetable discussed at Monday’s Board of Commissioners meeting for planning and the purchase of a ladder truck. “We’re moving forward getting prices and putting spec sheets together,” Lincoln said. “It’s quite a job to get all that stuff together before you can come up with a price. It will be an ongoing discussion for us and somewhere down the road we will have to decide what we want to do.” New appointment The ESD welcomed a new face to the Board Monday, as Commissioner Chuck Walker replaced outgoing Commissioner Jeffrey Roemer. Commissioner Keith Bright was reappointed to the Board. Walker is a Registered Professional Surveyor who has lived in Pct. 2 of Williamson County since 1983 and currently resides in Liberty Hill. In 2003, he served on the Cedar Park Mayor’s Task Force on Development. Walker is a graduate of both Leadership Cedar Park and Leadership Leander and
See ESD#4, Page A4
ANTHONY FLORES PHOTO
Captain Daniel Bursch (center) poses for a photo with the students of Liberty Hill Junior High following his visit to the campus.
Astronaut sends LHJH imaginations into orbit
By ANTHONY FLORES Staff Writer Excitement and chatter floated through the air as the students at Liberty Hill Junior High filled gym bleachers, preparing to welcome a visitor from space. No, not a little green man, but NASA astronaut Captain Daniel Bursch. Bursch spoke with the students about his experiences during his more than 200 days spent in orbit just outside of Earth’s atmosphere, about 200 miles above the planet.
“We go 17,500 miles per hour to exit the atmosphere,” Bursch explained to students. “If you’re trying to go that fast in the atmosphere, basically the spacecraft will burn up, so we get out of the atmosphere, and it turns out you don’t have to make it that far out.” Students listened intently – with interest clear in their eyes – as Bursch explained what the launch experience was like and the weightlessness of space. “You go through this violent
launch, a lot of shaking, and in eight and half minutes the engines go off and instantly everything floats,” he said. “It’s a weird experience. We don’t have a simulator that can simulate the entire launch just bits and pieces of it.” Before becoming an astronaut, Bursch served in the Navy as a navigator, reaching the rank of captain. “When it came time to select what part of the Navy I wanted to go in, a lot of people forget the Navy flies, and
so I went into Naval aviation,” said Bursch. “My eyes weren’t good enough to be a pilot, so I became a navigator instead.” Although he didn’t begin to seriously consider being an astronaut until much later, the interest in space was with the captain from the moment he witnessed the first moon landing. “My first memory as far as being interested was when we first landed on the moon in
See BURSCH, Page A4
Liberty Hill Intermediate named one to watch
By MIKE EDDLEMAN Managing Editor A new distinction will make sure Liberty Hill Intermediate School is known throughout Texas and even across the country as the campus has been named a “Texas School to Watch”. The honor comes from the National Forum to Accelerate Middle-Grades Reform and the Texas Association of Secondary School Principals (TASSP) and followed a rigorous application process that included an application, many interviews and a campus visit. “It required an extensive, 27-page application that my leadership team filled out all by themselves,” said Principal Josh Curtis. “One of the stipulations was that it had to be
filled out by teachers and other leaders minus the principal. I sat down with the leadership team and asked them if they were interested in doing it because it was going to require a lot of work outside of school time to do it.” The answer was a resounding “yes”, according to Curtis, and the long journey to the honor had begun. Fast forward to January and the district and campus are elated by the distinction. “This is a community award,” Curtis said. “This isn’t just about Liberty Hill Intermediate. This is the community, this is the students, this is the PTO, the parents and the school board. This is what happens when people come together and education is prom-
The Independent honored by peers
The Independent received the Texas Press Association’s (TPA) highest honor Saturday, when the newspaper was announced as a Sweepstakes winner in the 2019 Texas Better Newspaper Contest. The newspaper association representing more than 400 paid circulation publications in Texas, TPA annually honors newspapers across nine divisions for their work in 14 categories. The Independent placed among the top three in nine of those categories, including first place in four – Sports Coverage, Editorial, Feature Writing, and Feature Photo. “The team we have at The Independent is dedicated to publishing a newspaper we can be
proud of each week, believing that in turn it will be one our readers can be proud of,” said Owner and Publisher Shelly Wilkison. “Each member of our staff brings something special to our business, which allows us to reach milestones like these.” To win the Sweepstakes award, a newspaper must score the highest point total in its division, with points awarded for top three finishes in each category. The Independent earned 675 total points to win in its division, and scored the fourth highest total among all newspapers competing behind only the Galveston County Daily News, Victoria Advocate and
See AWARDS, Page A5
inent and we’re pushing how we want it to be talking about collaboration and engaging lessons. This means Liberty Hill Intermediate and Liberty Hill are viewed by the state as a public school that is doing what’s right for kids and for learning.” The continued recognition and validation of the school’s direction and efforts is something Curtis puts squarely on his staff. “Everything we have accomplished as an intermediate school, from a globally-recognized PLC campus to now this is 100 percent because of the staff,” he said. “I couldn’t be more proud to work alongside them because they make – and the students make – my job more enjoyable every day.”
SPORTS
The application, which included a survey filled out by all staff on campus, was due Oct. 15. The survey was intended to gauge understanding and agreement across the campus about the goals and objectives of the school. “You had to score 85 percent or higher on every category it was asking about, meaning basically that most of our staff had to agree about what we’re doing on campus,” Curtis said. “They all took it separately and they had to match. We got the surveys back and we were at 88 percent, which is great.” The next step was a campus visit the Thursday and Friday before Thanksgiving, which included TASSP officials and
See INTERMEDIATE, Page A4
THE LIBERTY HILL INDEPENDENT Thursday, November 15, 2018 Section B Page 1
PANTHERS IN THE PLAYOFFS LHHS eyes best football title opportunity since mid-2000s
By KEITH SPARKS Sports Editor Every year, teams that are supposed to go deep in the playoffs make surprising exits much earlier than expected, and every year, there are teams that surprise people on the other end of the spectrum, creating Cinderella stories by beating teams nobody thought they could beat. What’s the difference between those teams? “Kids that aren’t tired of playing,” Liberty Hill Head Coach Jeff Walker said. “That’s num-
ber one. Sometimes, this time of year, like today wasn’t much fun outside. It was something like 30 degrees and the wind is blowing 100 miles an hour. It’s real easy to be satisfied. ‘We made it to the playoffs. If we go out, at least we made the playoffs. We got our playoff shirt.’ Some want to go play basketball. They’d rather be in the gym, especially when the weather’s like it is right now. You have some kids whose first sport is basketball and they’re out there not having fun, because it’s cold and
nasty. Then you have some where it’s just been a long season. It’s been since Aug. 6 and they’re just ready to go do something else, so they don’t bring the energy or the effort to the game, and if you do that with people like Bay City, you turn your stuff in. You’ll regret it down the road, but at the time, it’s the easiest way.” As the community has witnessed firsthand, however, that’s not the Panther way. Starting senior running back
See TITLE, Page B3
ALEX RUBIO PHOTO
RACHEL VIATOR GRAPHIC
The road to the playoffs
Panthers enjoy season of highlights, challenges
By KEITH SPARKS Sports Editor The Panthers dealt with a variety of challenges through the regular season, including bigger schools, high-powered passing attacks, a two-week stretch between games, rivalries and tense district opponents. But each week Liberty Hill found a way, outscoring opponents by nearly 200 points, and losing only once – by a point in overtime – without changing what the Panthers are all about, averaging a 39-point margin of victory over eight wins.
vs. Leander Glenn (W) 49-21 The Panthers’ first football game of the season was a bit of a question mark, considering it was Leander Glenn’s first “official” varsity football team as part of a district. Although they’re a 5A school, the class of 2019 is Glenn’s first senior class, giving Liberty Hill a huge advantage when it comes to experience. Since then, Glenn has proven to be a legitimate opponent, winning their district at the 5A level and going 6-2 since the loss to the Panthers. Per usual, the Panthers wore the Grizzlies down with their Slot-T offense, and the Grizzlies’ lack
of experience put them at a huge disadvantage. Unfortunately for the Panthers, they lost starting fullback, Jakob Schofield, for the entire season after he tore his ACL during the matchup with the Grizzlies. @ Hutto (L) 52-51 (OT) Just two games into the season, Liberty Hill faced arguably their most daunting opponent in years. The high-octane Hutto Hippos, led by UCLA-commit Chase Griffin, were a heavy favorite in the game, and for good reason.
See HIGHLIGHTS, Page B4
Running back Trey Seward (#20) gets airborne while finding a crease in the Canyon Lake defense. The Panthers’ win over Canyon Lake sealed their undefeated district championship, giving them a 5-0 record in district and 8-1 record, overall.
Liberty Hill faces ‘dangerous’ Bay City in first round
By KEITH SPARKS Sports Editor The entire objective of the playoff seeding system is to give those teams with the oneseed an earned advantage, allowing them the opportunity to play the fourth-place team in another district. According to Head Coach Jeff Walker, however, the Panthers got the short end of the stick for their first-round matchup with Bay City. “Very, very, very dangerous offensively,” Walker said of Bay City. “Probably as dangerous as we’ve seen all year. Quarterback scrambles really well and can eat up yards fast. He’s the real deal. He doesn’t probably throw it as well as the Hutto kid, but he runs way
better.” Bay City’s senior quarterback, Dylan Davidson (#2), is a dangerous dual-threat quarterback whose athleticism could give the Panthers nightmares. According to Walker, he’s capable of scrambling for 20-plus yards at any given moment. “The scariest thing about them, by far, is their quarterback on the scramble,” Walker said. “He ran for 161 yards against El Campo, and I bet 120 of them were him scrambling. Any time you get him where he has to scramble, he goes. It’s scary. It can be third and 17 and he can go for 25 in a hurry. He’s done it all year. Every team we’ve seen them play, he’s done that multiple
times. You think, ‘How are they letting him out of the pocket?’ He just finds a crease and goes.” While Davidson will be priority number one for the Panther defense, he isn’t the only weapon on the Blackcats’ offense. Walker said junior running back RJ Mitchell (#22) is one of the best the Panthers have seen all season, and senior wide receiver James Carter (#9) is capable of catching a 50-plus-yard bomb and taking it to the house. “Great running back that could be the best one we’ve seen, too,” Walker said. “He’s a big kid, and they have a good receiver, so they like to
See BAY CITY, Page B3
Ability to adjust helps Panthers succeed
Hart recognized for service to Liberty Hill athletics
ALEX RUBIO FILE PHOTO
Liberty Hill ISD Superintendent Dr. Rob Hart (center), whose retirement becomes official on Dec. 31, was presented with a signed football in recognition of his efforts to improve not only the Panther football facilities, but athletics as a whole at Liberty Hill. From left, Hart was joined by former head football coach and athletic director Jerry Vance, LHISD Board President Clay Cole, former trustee Anthony Stephens, Hart’s wife, Penny, and daughter, Shelby Hart Dudgeon.
By LANCE CATCHINGS Sports Writer After surprising many teams around the state last season by advancing to the state quarterfinals, Liberty Hill Head Coach Jeff Walker, his staff and players knew teams would mark them on the calendar this season. What the Panthers did not know was that the starting 22 they marched on the field on Aug. 31 against Leander Glenn would hardly be the same team that will take on Bay City Friday night in the bi-district playoff round. Injuries have plagued the Panthers all season, forcing them to use eight different combinations in the backfield through nine games. “I did not really think this is the exact team we would have headed into the playoffs, because of our injury issue,” Walker said. “Every time we
turn around, someone is hurt and can’t play. At one time, we had seven different backfields play in seven different games. We moved a center to fullback and then a guard to fullback. We have a center that is hurt now and will have to move our fullback back to center. It has been one of those years that has been crazy for us. I was not expecting all the injuries that we have had this season.” At the 4A level, a few injuries to vital players can quickly turn a team’s season upside down, but not at Liberty Hill. Walker and his staff maintain the same high expectations, no matter who is in the game or out of it. “Other than the injuries, we are where we thought we would be,” Walker said. “Our expectations are always to be undefeated and win a State
See ADJUSTMENTS, Page B3
The Independent’s sports coverage won First Place in Division 8 in the Texas Press Association’s Texas Better Newspaper Contest. Awards were announced last weekend at the professional association’s annual convention in Galveston. One of the newspaper’s awarded entries in this category included the Sports section at left from November 2018.