The Free Press

12/11/2022

WATER OUTAGE: Earlier today a pipe burst in the 1300 block of Live Oak Lane.

City crews are on the scene making repairs but it will likely be several more hours before service is restored to the Brookhollow area.

12/11/2022

12/11/2022

Make plans to attend this important event about youth violence and Fentanyl prevention. Childcare available and door prizes will be given.

12/11/2022

(WILD) ANIMAL COMPLAINT: Officer Forrest and Officer Ibarra took care of an animal complaint this morning at a business on Sellers Street off Kurth Drive.

They arrived to find that a 6-foot alligator had made its way into the business’ fence.

The officers caught the gator 😱 and turned him over to Animal Control. He was then safely relocated.

12/11/2022

12/01/2022

Bring the family to our hometown Christmas in the park this Saturday December 3, 2022.
This event will begin at 5pm. M&J’s Cafe will have coffee, hot chocolate, and pastries available!! You don’t want to miss!!
P.S. Santa Claus will be there!!!

11/28/2022

Fuzzy creatures warn of frigid temperatures

Tammie C. Chisholm
[email protected]
Do you wonder what the winter has in store? Just take a gander outside. Big fat wooly bear caterpillars are abundant in East Texas right now and according to tales handed down by our parents and grandparents, the caterpillars are telling us it’s going to be a harsh winter.According to legend, the width of the middle brown band foretells the severity of the upcoming winter (many would argue it’s already here). If the band is narrow, the winter will be cold and long. But if the band is wide, the winter will be mild and short. Cary Sims, the county extension agent for agriculture and natural resources for Angelina County, said the wooly is the larvae of Isabella Tiger moths.“And there’s the conundrum,” he said. “Nobody likes a caterpillar eating their vegetables or flowers. But they like the butterflies and pretty moths.”He said East Texas residents call him and ask what to plant to attract the pretty winged insects.“Then they will call you right back and say how do I get rid of these caterpillars.”It’s not the first bit of folklore he’s heard about predicting the weather.“There’s the Old 12 Days, the persimmon, Punxsutawney Phil and the Almanac,” he said.Old 12 Days is when people take the last six days of December and the first six days of January to figure out the next 12 months of the year.“If it’s cold and windy on Dec. 26, then January will be cold and windy,” Sims said. “If it rains on Dec. 27, February will be a wet month and so on.”As for persimmons, their seeds are thought to foretell the type of winter that can be expected.You can predict the coming winter weather by slicing a persimmon seed in half. If you see a spoon shape, there will be a lot of heavy, wet snow to scoop. A fork shape means light, powdery snow and a milder winter. If you see a knife, you can expect to be cut by cold, icy, windy weather.A tough winter is also said to be coming if onions or cornhusks have thicker than normal skins.Also keep an eye on the falling acorns and squirrels. If you have an area that is overrun with acorns, legend has it that these same surfaces may be blanketed by snow.As for the squirrels, “Squirrels gathering nuts in a flurry will cause snow to gather in a hurry”.Other winter weather folklore includes:When flowers that usually bloom in the spring bloom again in the fall, winter will be cold.A big berry crop means the following winter will be cold.For every fog in August, it is believed there will be a snowfall in the winter.

11/28/2022

Trafficked girls' home won’t rely on public schools

Tammie C. Chisholm
[email protected]
Neither Diboll nor Hudson schools will be forced to take students from an Angelina County home for trafficked girls.That assurance came from Chase Nielsen during a public meeting last Thursday.“We have no plan to use public education at all,” he told the gathering. “We will never enroll our students in Diboll Independent School District."While Nielsen and his wife Jenny are not the ultimate decision makers at Tharseo Place, he said the board of directors would not allow Chief Operations Officer Sonya Brookins to lose her license if the girls attend public school. If the license is lost, Tharseo Place would have to shut down.“This is our testament to the public school district and the 400 people holding us accountable,” he said. “We lose 400 very dear supporters if we go back on our word.”In a letter of support addressed to Talin Pape, Region V – Inspector III of the Health and human Services Commission, and signed by hundreds of community supporters, a paragraph confirms his words. “Every decision maker at Tharseo Place is committed to handling every aspect of education for all residents in the care of Tharseo Place without relying on our utilizing the staff, resources, or enrollment of Diboll or Hudson ISD.”Education will be done online through iSchool Virtual Academy, which allows students six weeks to complete a course, allowing them to work at their own pace.“Just like when we went through COVID and everything was online; that is how the school is set up,” said Jenny Nielsen. “They have an individual teacher for each course that they take, and they have a success coach that makes sure their assignments are done on time.”Tharseo Place is at the same location on FM 2497 near Peavy Switch that housed Light of the Pines.That facility closed when owners Chase and Jenny withdrew its license following an oversight by the state, opposition from the Diboll school district, and a letter from Rep. Trent Ashby.At the time, Light of the Pines was a for-profit institution. Thursday’s public hearing was part of the process for the Nielsen’s to get a not-for profit status, which involves more bureaucracy than a for-profit status.Chase Nielsen, chief financial officer, said Tharseo Place will be licensed for 25 girls between the ages of 10-17. He expects all state requirements for opening to be completed in time for the girls to arrive in about four months.Jenny Nielsen, chief executive officer and teacher, said the facility has passed its standard-by-standard and facility inspection done by the state of Texas and its application to operate has been accepted.There is a Texas Human Trafficking Resource Center that offers the following advice:
• Call 9-1-1 for the local police department• Contact the National Human Trafficking Hotline:Call: 1-888-373-7888 (TTY: 711)Text: 233733Chat Online: Human Trafficking Hotline Web ChatThe Texas Human Trafficking Resource Center connects Health and Human Services staff, health care providers, stakeholders and those who have experienced human trafficking to resources needed to locate services, help prevent trafficking, and recognize and respond to potential trafficking situations. Human trafficking is a crime that involves exploiting a person for labor, services or commercial s*x. The United States Department of Justice classifies human trafficking into two major categories:
• S*x trafficking is the recruitment, harboring, transportation, provision, obtaining, patronizing or soliciting of a person for the purposes of a commercial s*x act, in which the commercial s*x act is induced by force, fraud, or coercion, or in which the person induced to perform such an act is 17 or younger.
• Labor trafficking involves the recruitment, harboring, transportation, provision or obtainment of a person through the use of force, fraud or coercion for the purpose of involuntary servitude, peonage, debt bo***ge or slavery.Those trafficked are of all ages, races, ethnicities, nationalities, religions, genders, s*xual orientations, socioeconomic backgrounds and citizenship statuses. Traffickers can be anyone, including family members, intimate partners, business owners and community leaders. Trafficking occurs in various industries, such as restaurants, massage parlors, hotels, factories, domestic services, childcare, health care and s*xually oriented businesses.
According to the Office of the Governor, victims of child s*x trafficking are often hiding in plain sight — held prisoner by fear, shame and the trauma bonds that their traffickers create to manipulate and control them. Many victims do not even realize that they are victims; they believe what their exploiters tell them — that they are willing participants in the abuse. CSTT strives to educate the public about the indicators of trafficking so that victims are identified earlier and more often by:
• Raising awareness of child s*x trafficking in all of its forms — exploitation by pimps, gangs, families and buyers;
• Working with the Texas Juvenile Justice Department, the Texas Department of Family and Protective Services and other child-serving agencies to implement the Commercial S*xual Exploitation - Identification Tool (CSE-IT) statewide to identify victims and inform intervention and prevention strategies;
• Ensuring that victims are recognized as victims and not perpetrators. There is no such thing as a child pr******te and all exploited children must be recognized and treated with trauma-informed responses that are protective and empowering, not punitive.

11/28/2022

Diboll seeks Hometown Heroes

Tammie C. Chisholm
[email protected]

Diboll wants to grow its own – police officers that is.City council members agreed unanimously last Tuesday to approve the Hometown Heroes Program, a scholarship program designed to recruit, sponsor, train and employ Diboll’s best and brightest to serve as officers in the Diboll Police Department.“This is something we’re very proud of. We feel this is going to make the department, the City of Diboll and the community just a little bit better,” City Manager Jason Arnold told the council. “We’re going to recruit with an application process to bring someone in. We will scholarship them and sponsor them through the police academy. Not only will we pay the tuition, but we will also pay them a salary. That’s obviously a big hurdle for a lot of people who are wanting to be officers, being able to put their lives on hold to go to that academy. We’re going to pay them while they do it with the promise that if they graduate that academy and they’re in good standing, they’re going to have a full-time police officer position with us. It’s going to do big things for us in our department. We’ll grow our own.”Successful applicants will sign an agreement to serve Diboll’s police service for at least two years.“Two years is reasonable,” said Police Chief Michael Skillern. “Hopefully leaving early will not be something they will want to do.”The program begins in February. Those who want to apply can go to the website cityofdiboll.com and click on the jobs icon or call the police department at 936-829-5586. The application should include up to a one-page paper detailing why he or she wishes to serve Diboll and how they would be the perfect Hometown Hero.Council members also agreed to amend the animals and fowl ordinance by getting rid of yearly license requirements and giving the animal officer discretion when it comes to impounding animals.Arnold told members that the license order has not been followed and the city has not been enforcing the regulation.“We’re not sure how long that’s been out of practice, but it’s been a while,” Arnold said. “It’s not something that staff would recommend that we do, so we have this ordinance that would repeal that particular part of the ordinance, and anything related to it in terms of penalties and fines.”He also said that the animal control officer needs to have more discretion when taken animals to a shelter.“The way the ordinance is written, any livestock or animals that we impound or stray we pick up, we are to take them to Winnie Berry Human Society,” he said. “That’s just simply not an option. It may have been when the ordinance was written. We’re just asking that language be changed so our animal control officer can use his discretion and take it to an animal intake facility.”Council members are to come to the next meeting with the names of people they propose to serve on the Home Rule Charter Commission.Arnold said the commission was created just before the COVID-19 pandemic hit and met only once. Terms of service are for six months.Council members from precincts 1-4 will appoint someone within their district while the mayor and members from precincts 5-6 will appoint someone at large to make a seven-member committee.The commission looks for inefficiencies in the charter as well as ensure city staff is following the charter and has the resources it needs to function. The commission is to meet once a month and report to the council.

11/28/2022

toy drive a success

Thank you Diboll for yet another successful toy drive! This is the third year in a row we have been blessed and honored to do this. It all started out in November 2018, shortly after our son's passing on October 1st.Bryce would have been celebrating his 13th birthday November 18th. Losing someone you love especially your child is a whole different world of hurt and an extremely sad journey, but you try to keep things as normal as possible. Although Bryce wasn’t here to celebrate his birthday we did just what we would always do and ask families to bring a toy to give to a child in need. The first year we donated to Toys for Tots. As the next year’s birthday would be approaching we had an idea of involving the community, which so graciously stepped up in our time of need when Bryce passed away. My family and I have never been so grateful and thankful for a community that gave in all kinds of ways for an unexpected tragedy. When Bryce passed away, he was celebrated in many ways and his class came up with the slogan , and that’s the name we choose to use for the toy drive. Bryce loved Christmas as all children do and we thought let’s keep the giving for the kids, in honor of Bryce to celebrate his birthday and in return we give them back to the kids here in our community through the Christmas Blessings Program. As the last few years have gone by, we are so happy to be a part of a special experience and you are a part of that. Seeing how hard this program works to give back to the kids here in Diboll is truly special and we are so happy to be a part of that. We always set aside one day in November for a few hours for you to come out and donate and it’s so good to see people and to talk to them about Bryce and how the donations help out and where they go. It’s good to see the regulars, the new faces and I love seeing the parents teaching the little ones about giving back and letting them put the toys into the basket. There are so many places that you can donate to these days as there are so many people in need but we are extremely thankful that you decided to give to toy drive. My family and I cannot thank you enough. A huge thank you for all who have given and donated.Merry Christmas to All, Mireles Family

11/21/2022

News from Hudson Water Supply Corporation: Notice of Violation: Total Trihalomethane (TTHM) MCL, LRAA

The Texas Commission on Environmental Quality (TCEQ) has notified the HUDSON WSC TX 0030023 that the drinking water being supplied to customers had exceeded the Maximum Contaminant Level (MCL) for total trihalomethanes. The U.S. Environment Protection Agency (U.S. EPA) has established the MCL for total trihalomethanes to be 0.080 milligrams per liter (mg/L) based on locational running annual average (LRAA), and has determined that it is a health concern at levels above the MCL. Analysis of drinking water in your community for total trihalomethanes indicates a compliance value in quarter four 2022 of 0.083 mg/L for DBP2-02.
Trihalomethanes are a group of volatile organic compounds that are formed when chlorine, added to the water during the treatment process for disinfection, reacts with naturally-occurring organic matter in the water.
Some people who drink water containing trihalomethanes in excess of the MCL over many years may experience problems with their liver, kidney, or central nervous systems, and may have an increased risk of getting cancer.
You do not need to use an alternative water supply. However, if you have health concerns, you may want to talk to your doctor to get more information about how this may affect you.
We are taking the following actions to address this issue: We are looking into a filtration system for both plants. We are also flushing longer periods of time in affected locations.
If you have questions regarding this matter, you may contact Brad Naron at 936-676-9457.