A Honor Roll
First Grade:  Brock Blevins, Lysette Estrada, Maritza Jaramillo, Terrick Martinez, Ryder Morales, Jayda Nguyen, Kyler Sanders,
Ivin Vazquez
Second Grade:  Spencer Allen, Kinley Lowery, Matthan Morgan, Christopher Salinas, Joseph White
Third Grade:  Christian Bedwell, Ethan Mikolas, Hunter Mitchell, Michael Sachtleben, Eve Timms, Casey Wooldridge
Fourth Grade:  Heather Glover, Karley Gregory, Krislyn Key,
Anna Sachtleben
Fifth Grade:  Torri Mikolas, Kelsey Vannoy
Sixth Grade:  Seth Bubenik, Walker Canales, Joseph Nguyen
Seventh Grade:  Wyatt Bowman, Madison Carter, Angel Martinez, Jacob Morgan, Christina Nguyen, Shelby Pritchard, Victoria Reyes
Eighth Grade:  Katherine Glover, Kaylie Gomez, Sara Guice,
Becky Johnson, Micaela Litsey, Tessa Mikolas, Mya Nguyen,
Falyn Thomas

A-B Honor Roll
First Grade:  Julissa Banda, Carlos Cardena, Azriel Carrera,
Noah Estrada, Destiny Garza, Emily James, Taysia Navarro,
Landen Rasmussen, Nataly Rodriguez, Barbara Sanders, Joel Zarate
Second Grade:  Shelby Cady, Colin Carabajal, Karime Castillo-Martinez, Shaley Edwards, Caleb Gregory, Fernie Mendez,
Dustin Miller, Stormy Mills, Jason Nguyen, Andrew Ragusin,
Travis Shannon, Alexis Wiliams, Logan Whitaker
Third Grade:  Jakob Bierschwale, Emily Cain, Dakota James, Troy Madere, Rebecca Mendez, Danny Munoz, Amber Rodriguez,
Liliana Torres
Fourth Grade:  Ahniwake James, Danielle Morales
Fifth Grade:  Leo Bedwell, Layne Blevins, Raquel Clinton,
Shelby DeForest, Sean Estes, Victoria Gilliland, Abbi Luna,
Alex Morales, Abigail Morgan, Dusitn Nguyen, Erika Ruiz,
Hannah Spencer, Caleb Timms, Ethan Wooldridge
Sixth Grade:  Ty Boedeker, Luke Cain, Gage Daniel, Patrick Kubena, Jacob Medina, McCade Stafford, Matthew Stringham, Jose Vallejo
Seventh Grade:  Morgan Blakeman, Jeremy Cady, Marcus Carabajal, Peter Deforest, Zoey Dierlam, Tiffany Galloway, Grant Gray,
Alexis Jaramillo, Monica Mendez, Mario Rodriguez
Eighth Grade:  Itzallana Avalos, Andrea Beaver, Kassidy Colianni, Ashley Cunningham, James Green, Tristan Henderson,
Rosalinda Klamm, Kolby Martin, Marissa Martinez, Jacob Montano, Richard Nguyen, Laura Quezada-Lima, Trey Rodriguez,
Samantha Shaw, McCall Stafford, Mario Vallejo, MarisolVallejo, Franny Youngblood

Congratulations, Students!

Seifried & Brew LLC, a community bank risk management firm, has named First National Bank in Port Lavaca to its honor roll of U.S. safest Banks. “After the banking crisis,” Dr. Ed Seifried commented, “there has been too much focus on failed and sick banks. We need to recognize and honor those community banks whose policies and practices reflect the highest levels of safety and soundness.”

In their new book, How the Seifried & Brew Total Risk Index Predicted 99% of Failed Banks, Dr. Ed Seifried and Jay Brew make the case that failed banks were operating with heightened levels of unmanaged risk. But more importantly, the authors point to the fact that the vast majority of community banks practice traditional, conservative, safe banking, providing continued strength to our financial system.

March 26-27
Come out to the Builders Assn. of Victoria Annual Home Product Show at the Victoria Community Center, 2905 E. North St., on March 26 & 27. You will be able to visit with over 100 exhibits who will display an array of new products including the latest in paint, doors, appliances and decorating trends.

Times are: Saturday, 10:00 a.m. until 5:00 p.m. and Sunday, noon until 5:00 p.m. Cost is $5.00 for adults and $3.00 for students through high school.  Adult & student presale tickets may be purchased until Friday, March 25 at Sherwin Williams, Kitchen & Bath Showplace, and The Builders Association for $4.00 and $2.00 respectively.

There will be many new exhibits, exciting programs and lots of great giveaways, including a $1,000 shopping spree.

Looking for a new faucet, sink, door or window?  NEW this year will be a “Scratch & Dent” sale in the arena featuring lots of building supplies at discounted prices!

And once again, there will be complimentary small antique appraisals both days. Jack Whitlow from Indianola Trading Company will be appraising your antiques on Saturday from 11:00 a.m. to noon and from 2:00 p.m. until 3:00 p.m. and on Sunday from 1:00 p.m. until 2:00 p.m.

Bring the whole family.  Sunday entry will be discounted for seniors 65 and older.

Sponsors of the Show are: Presenting Sponsor the Victoria Advocate and co-sponsor Townsquaremedia.

Most everyone is familiar with the story of the ocean liner Titanic, or maybe has seen the 1997 epic film “Titanic”. The RMS (Royal Mail Steamer) Titanic tragically sank on her maiden voyage Sunday April 14, 1912 after hitting an iceberg. 1,589 passengers and crew perished due to a shortage of lifeboats. Most people do not know that the Titanic had an identical sister ship named the Britannic that sank in a somewhat similar way in 1916. Here is her story:

Britannic was the third and largest Olympic-class ocean liner of the England based White Star Line. She was the sister-ship of RMS Olympic and RMS Titanic and was intended to enter service as a transatlantic ocean liner. At 882 feet 9 inches long Britannic was the largest ocean liner of the time. Records have been found showing that Britannic was originally named Gigantic, but for reasons unknown the name was changed. Some historians claim the name was changed after the Titanic tragedy to avoid a similar name as her ill-fated sister-ship. The Britannic was still being built when the Titanic sank. After the public outcry that followed the loss of the Titanic, the Britannic was redesigned with better watertight protection. Six sets of massive crane-like lifeboat hoists were added that could carry six lifeboats each. Britannic was finally launched at the Harland and Wolff shipyard in Belfast, Ireland on February 26, 1914.

HMHS Britannic at sea Portrait by Ken Marschall

Before Britannic could enter service as a passenger carrying ocean liner, World War I broke out in Europe and the ship was placed in storage. On November 13, 1915, Britannic was requisitioned as a hospital ship by the Royal Navy and was removed from her storage location at Belfast. Renamed HMHS (His Majesty’s Hospital Ship) Britannic was turned into a hospital ship and was repainted white with large red crosses and a horizontal green stripe. Britannic completed five round trip voyages to the Mediterranean Sea and back to Southampton England carrying sick and wounded soldiers from the Gallipoli Campaign, also known as the Dardanelles Campaign or the Battle of Gallipoli.

Rare photograph of the Britannic in service as a Hospital Ship Photo courtesy of 20thcenturyliners.co

November 12, 1916 found the Britannic departing Southampton on her sixth voyage to the Mediterranean under the command of Captain Charles Bartlett. The morning of November 21, 1916 found the Britannic peacefully sailing off of the Greek island of Kea. The humid weather had prompted many of the nurses to open portholes in the sides of the ship to help ventilate the hospital rooms which had been converted from passenger cabins. At 8:12 AM a massive explosion shook the ship and the Britannic began taking in water at the bow, or front of the ship, much like her sister ship Titanic four years before.

Captain Bartlett ordered the automatic watertight doors closed that separated the ships main compartments, sent a distress signal, and ordered the crew to prepare the lifeboats. Unfortunately some of the watertight doors failed to close properly. As the Britannic settled deeper into the water, water started to flow into other compartments of the ship through the portholes left open by the nurses. On the bridge, Captain Bartlett was trying to save the ship. In about ten minutes the Britannic was roughly in the same condition the Titanic was one hour after her collision with the iceberg. Captain Bartlett saw the shores of Kea about three miles away and decided to make an effort to sail the ship into shallow water before it sank.

Portrait of the wreck of the Britannic by Ken Marschall

Some of the crew started to panic and launched some lifeboats before being ordered to do so. As the Britannic’s engines were still running, and the stern, or rear of the ship was starting to rise out of the water, two of these lifeboats floated into the turning propellers. Both lifeboats, together with their occupants, were ripped to pieces. After Captain Bartlett heard about this he gave the order to stop the engines. The propellers stopped turning right before a third lifeboat was about to be destroyed. The occupants of this lifeboat pushed against one of the propellers and got away safely. Captain Bartlett then gave the order to lower the lifeboats and at 8:35 AM, he gave the order to abandon ship.

At 9:00 AM, Captain Bartlett sounded one long blast on the Britannic’s main steam whistle and then swam to a lifeboat and began to coordinate the rescue operations. The final whistle blow was the evacuation signal for the ship’s engineers who, like their heroic colleagues on the Titanic, had remained at their posts until the last possible moment. The Britannic rolled over onto her side and sank at 9:07 AM, only fifty-five minutes after the explosion, unlike her sister ship Titanic which stayed afloat for two hours and forty minutes after her collision with the iceberg.

Nurse Violet Jessop (who was a stewardess on the Titanic and survived its sinking), described the last moments of the Britannic: “She dipped her head a little, then a little lower and still lower. All the deck machinery fell into the sea like a child’s toys. Then she took a fearful plunge, her stern rearing hundreds of feet into the air until with a final roar, she disappeared into the depths, the noise of her going resounding through the water with undreamt-of violence….”

Violet Jessop (1887 - 1971) who achieved fame by surviving the disastrous sinkings of both the RMS Titanic and HMHS Britannic.

First to arrive on the scene were Greek fishermen from Kea who picked up many survivors from the water. Afterwards HMS Scourge and HMS Heroic arrived and started rescuing occupants of the lifeboats. Out of 1,036 crew, nurses, doctors, and patients only thirty lost their lives in the sinking. The mystery of the explosion that sank the Britannic was not immediately known. Was it a torpedo from a submarine? Or a naval mine? (A naval mine is a self-contained floating explosive device anchored by a cable to an anchor in water to destroy ships) No one knew for sure. After World War I, German records revealed that the German Submarine U-73 had laid several naval mines in the area where Britannic sank, but this was never proven as the cause of her sinking. The Britannic was the largest ship sunk in World War I.

The wreck of the Britannic was discovered in 1975 by famous undersea explorer Jacques Cousteau. The wreck of the Britannic is in 400 feet of water lying on its side; the bow of the ship is deformed and almost ripped off from the rest of the wreck. The next visitor to the wreck site was in 1995 when Dr. Robert Ballard explored the wreck. Ballard was also part of the team that first discovered the Titanic in 1985.

More expeditions to Britannic have followed with some major discoveries being made. In 2003, an expedition led by Carl Spencer sent scuba divers into the wreck; Spencer’s expedition found that several watertight doors were open that should have automatically closed after the explosion. Also in 2003 several naval mine anchors were located near the Britannic’s final resting place by Sonar expert Bill Smith, confirming the German records of U-73 and proving that Britannic was probably sunk by a naval mine and that the damage was compounded by open portholes and watertight doors not closing.

The Britannic’s original plans included a Welte Philharmonic Organ. Due to World War I, the organ was never delivered. In 2007 during the restoration of the Welte Organ in the Swiss National Museum, the restorers detected that the main parts of the instrument were marked by the German organ builders with “Britanik”. Records in Germany have since proved that this organ was indeed built for the Britannic, Titanic’s forgotten sister.

March 8, 2011 marked the 100th anniversary of International Women’s Day. In celebration, the aviation community proclaimed the entire week to be Women of Aviation Worldwide Week (WOAW). Calhoun Air Center embraced the main goal of the event which was to show females worldwide that they are capable of achieving their dreams; specifically that a career in aviation is an advantageous outlet for them.

This weekend, airport manager, Dianna Stanger offered free helicopter rides to 104 passengers from our community; of those 98 were females! “It was two fantastic days of girls and women in every age group!” commented Stanger. “Mrs. Annette Pfeil, 79 years old, was by far one of the most unique women to take flight. She had this on her bucket list to fly in a helicopter; she loved it so much she flew both days!”

Dianna Stranger and Annette Pfeil

Indeed, Annette returned on Sunday with her great grandson, Mason Taylor, and his cousin, Ellea Boyd. Mrs. Pfeil said, “I thought, ‘This is too good to pass up!’ It was a great family experience and they’ll have a lot to say when they go back to school next week. It was a wonderful experience, I really enjoyed the ride. It’s neat to see Port Lavaca from the air, a whole different view. I loved being able to look down and see the buildings, their shapes and in the bay you could see all of the shallow areas.”

The air center emphasized the multiple options available to kids and girls. “The main goal of the event was to give back to those young women who are volunteering their time to better themselves and their communities and to introduce them to a portion of society that is severely under populated by female participants,” said flight school manager, Steve Plunkett. In fact, female aviators only make up six percent of the total pilot demographic, which can be vastly improved!

Brianna Bordovsky, Hannah Huddleston, and Jessica Calzado.

They concentrated on two organizations, the Experimental Aircraft Association (EAA) and Girls with Wings (GWW). The EAA has a summer camp, an array of awards and scholarships for kids interested in aviation. The girls were given the opportunity to use this flight as their Young Eagles First Flight, which is a part of the EAA, and have their names entered into the world’s largest logbook, plus gain access to a wealth of aeronautical knowledge tailored to youth aspiring towards a life involving aviation, including scholarship funding that can be applied directly towards flight training costs.

One passenger, 15-year-old Grace Carr said, “I haven’t researched if it was possible to find scholarships, but yesterday I filled out a form for EAA Young Eagles, and the air center sent me home with a packet about learning to fly and Girls With Wings, so it’s awesome.”

GWW opens the world of aviation up to young women and is a fantastic way for girls to find a mentor pilot in their area, follow the online education process to get active in aviation and has a scholarship program available. Both groups have fantastic websites that are gold mines of information to keep young people interested in aviation.

Dianna proudly stated, “It was an eye opener to many of the girls to ride in a helicopter. They had the opportunity to fall in love with flying; that was heartwarming to share my love of aviation with so many others who could do it too.”

Many of the girls and women had never been on a helicopter; for some their excitement was uncontrollable. Michele Kuester saw the advertisements and decided to treat her daughter to an unforgettable experience.

Michele said, “My daughter, McKinsey was in complete AWE of the whole experience. Dianna was so inspiring, so encouraging and the love she has for flying just radiated from her. When we drove away from the airport McKinsey said ‘Mom, that was soooooooo cool…when I grow up I want to be just like Miss Dianna and fly helicopters too!’ Not only did it open my daughter’s eyes to a whole new career option, it was literally a once in a lifetime experience.”

McKinsey Kuester and Dianna Stanger

Everyone at Calhoun Air Center is glad that the mission they set out to accomplish was achieved far beyond their expectations. As the girls left the airport, their beaming faces were overwhelming.
If you’d like to schedule an interview or need more information about this event please contact, Jasmine Gordon at 361-218-5459 or via email at jasmine@calhounaircenter.com.