Students receiving the Kiwanis Bring Up Grades (BUG) awards at Port O’Connor Elementary School for the 6th six weeks are:

1st Grade
Jordan Blevins, Joseph Diaz, Jessie Lashley, and Ethan Redding

2nd Grade
Collin Branch, Ronnie Carriles, McKaelyn Carriles, Esmerelda Garcia, Logan Hobbs, and Chloe Ragusin

3rd Grade
Javier Ayala, Kaleigh Diaz, Noah Guzman, Trey Hagler, Dillon Hobbs, Riley Hughs, Briana Lashley, Sierra Posey, Oscar Resendiz, Carlos Sanchez, and Paige Satterfield

4th Grade
Marshall Arlitt, Mitchell Arlitt, Adriana Carriles, Jacob Diaz, Zoila Garcia, Gavin Gosnell, Cierra Harper, Craig Lopez, Madison Posey

5th Grade
Javier Guzman, Justin Munsch, Kevin Resendiz, Shelby Rodgers, Jerry Satterfield, Wendy Solis

6th Grade
Will Ragusin, Juan Resendiz, Luis Resendiz, and Whitney Ronshausen

Winners of the bicycle drawings are Jerry Satterfield and Shayleigh Sprague.

Congratulations to all these students for their efforts to improve their grades.

-Donna Boyd

Fifty friends and associates were present at the June 14 meeting of the Conservative Club to honor Otto Thyssen as he was presented his World War II medals. The medals included Good Conduct Medal; European-African-Middle Eastern Campaign Medal with 1 Silver Service Star; World War II Victory Medal; Honorable Service Lapel Button WWII; Expert Badge with Rifle Bar. They were presented by Dallas Chambless, Staff Assistant to Congressman Ron Paul.

Harry and Carolyn Pond, surrounded by their four children, their children’s spouses, five grandchildren, and three great-grandchildren, celebrated 62 years of marriage at their Port O’Connor home on June 11th.

Harry, who is originally from Iowa, and Carolyn, from Illinois, met at the University of Houston. They were married in Houston on June 12, 1949.

The couple’s children are Harry Jr. of Richmond, Texas; Ritch, from Rosenberg; Randy, who lives in Columbia Lakes, Texas, and Roxanne, of Victoria.

“Radio Hams” from Port Lavaca join in national deployment

Port Lavaca “hams” will join with thousands of Amateur Radio operators who will be showing off their emergency capabilities this weekend. Over the past year, the news has been full of reports of ham radio operators providing critical communications during unexpected emergencies in towns across America including the California wildfires, winter storms, tornadoes and other events worldwide.

During Hurricane Katrina, Amateur Radio – often called “Ham Radio” – was often the ONLY way people could communicate, and hundreds of volunteer “hams” traveled south to save lives and property. When trouble is brewing, Amateur Radio’s people are often the first to provide rescuers with critical information and communications. On the weekend of June 25-26, the public will have a chance to meet and talk with local ham radio operators and see for themselves what the Amateur Radio Service is about. Showing the newest digital and satellite capabilities, voice communications and even historical Morse code, hams from across the USA will be holding public demonstrations of emergency communications abilities.

This annual event, called “Field Day” is the climax of the week long “Amateur Radio Week” sponsored by the ARRL, the national association for Amateur Radio. Using only emergency power supplies, ham operators will construct emergency stations in parks, shopping malls, schools and backyards around the country. Their slogan, “When All Else Fails, Ham Radio Works” is more than just words to the hams as they prove they can send messages in many forms without the use of phone systems, internet or any other infrastructure that can be compromised in a crisis. More than 35,000 amateur radio operators across the country participated in last year’s event. “We hope that people will come and see for themselves, this is not your grandfather’s radio anymore,” said Allen Pitts, W1AGP, of the ARRL. “The communications that ham radio people can quickly create have saved many lives when other systems failed or were overloaded. And besides that – it’s fun!”

In the Port Lavaca area, the Port Lavaca Amateur Radio Club will be demonstrating Amateur Radio at the historic Half Moon Reef Lighthouse at the Bauer Center on June 25, 1 p.m. – 7 p.m. and the 26th, 8 a.m. -1 p.m. They invite the public to come and see ham radio’s new capabilities and learn how to get their own FCC radio license before the next disaster strikes.

There are over 685,000 Amateur Radio licensees in the US, and more than 2.5 million around the world. Through the ARRL’s Amateur Radio Emergency Services program, ham volunteers provide both emergency communications for thousands of state and local emergency response agencies and nonemergency community services too, all for free. To learn more about Amateur Radio, go to www.emergency-radio.org. The public is most cordially invited to come, meet and talk with the hams. See what modern Amateur Radio can do. They can even help you get on the air!

The POC Chamber of Commerce was proud to award three Scholarships this year. Recipients were Melissa Albrecht, daughter of Debbie and George Albrecht; Jessi Hernandez, daughter of Sabrina Bell; and Natalie Harper, daughter of Marie and George Harper.

Melissa wants a career in helping animals. She has grown up with many different kinds of pets and animals and has an understanding of them that she believes would help her greatly excel in that type of career. She will be attending Texas A&M in Corpus Christi.

Jessi chose Cosmetology as her field of study. She has always had a fascination for Hair and Styles. She is an exceptional hard working student and very dedicated.

Natalie will be attending San Houston State in Huntsville majoring in Criminal Justice.

Congratulations!