Karnes Co. TX - NEWS - August 2003 This file was contributed for use in the USGenWeb Archives by: Kimm Antell Copyright. All rights reserved. http://files.usgwarchives.net/copyright.htm -------------------------------------------------------------- All content is copyright 2003 Victoria Advocate Online (http://victoriaadvocate.com) Nixon man is killed in one-car wreck August 4, 2003 RUNGE - A 19-year-old Nixon man was killed north of Runge in a one-car wreck early Sunday morning. According to a Department of Public Safety report, Rhian Logan Hernandez of Nixon was northbound in a 1990 Pontiac Bonneville at 3:45 a.m. on Farm-to-Market Road 81. He drove off the right side of the road, struck four reflector posts and the concrete bridge just before Farm-to-Market Road 626, spun around and came to rest upright in the creek bottom facing west. The vehicle then burst into flames. It is unknown if Hernandez was wearing a seat belt. Hernandez was declared dead at the scene by Gilbert Garza, Karnes County Precinct 4 Justice of the Peace. Trooper Jaime Rios of Karnes City DPS investigated the wreck. Youngsters and horned toads mix during Kenedy fun event ANN RUNDLE Victoria Advocate Sunday, August 31st, 2003 KENEDY - Ormajean Yearby was born in Kenedy but lives now in Wetumpka, Ala. She and her grandson Drew Davis, a lively 4-year-old, had caught a glimpse of a horned toad while visiting great-great-aunt Clara Audilet, who's in a nursing home in Karnes City. It was the first time Drew had seen a live horned toad, but he knew about them from the movie "Old Yeller." "We walked and looked, looked, looked all day yesterday," Yearby said. Unable to find one on their own, Yearby brought her grandson to the Texas Horned Toad Fun event Saturday at the City Hall in Kenedy, the Horned Toad Capital of the World. The event included games, arts and crafts, talks about wildlife, a horned toad quiz bowl, a stick horse parade and a survey, which gave folks a chance to go looking for horned toads. Wade Phelps, president of the Kenedy Horned Toad Club, said, "The locals don't have an appreciation for what they already have, and we are trying to maybe upgrade that. Visitors from out of town already have an appreciation for it, and we want to share that." Drew got to touch a horned toad on display by Saundra Schultz, a member of Horned Toad Club and owner of Finpetals pet shop. Schultz was educating folks about reptiles and amphibians "and the difference between the two." Earlier in the day, she walked kids ages 4 to 10 through a life-sized version of a game about a horned toad's life that was created last year by Mary Phelps. A portion of the game's board, outlined with blue tape in the hallway leading to the auditorium inside city hall, resembles a winding road. The children themselves were the game pieces, and they rolled a large red die made out of foam to determine how many spaces they should move. If they landed on a space that said "almost caught by cat," they had to go backwards a few spaces, and, if they landed on a space that said "saved baby brother from fire ants," they got to go forward a few spaces. The winner was the child who landed on the space marked "finish" with an exact roll of the die. Sarah Barkley, 9, of Kenedy, was one of the children playing the game. Her mother, Tina Sczepanik, said her daughter likes horned toads. "We have horned toads in our yard. We catch them, and we take pictures, and we let them go," Sczepanik said. "The kids always want to keep them as pets." Kai de Sequera, 7, of Karnes City, meanwhile, was taking the small stuffed animals that resembled horned toads from his mother Karin and comparing them to the models on display courtesy of the Horned Lizard Conservation Society. The display included a large stuffed horned toad. "I want to have this one," Kai joked as he slowly picked up the display. Kai shook his head no when asked if he'd ever caught a horned toad. "I try to. Whenever I see any I try to catch them," he said with a smile. Ann Rundle is a reporter for the Victoria Advocate. Contact her at 361-277-6319 or by e-mail at cueroadv@txcr.net. Hungry for victory DUSTIN WENZEL Advocate Sports Writer Thursday, August 28th, 2003 KENEDY - When Oscar Muniz la-mented on his first full season as Ken-edy's head football coach, he could think of many answers on why the Lions could not manufacture a win. For the new coach, Kenedy endured injuries, a new system, a drop in enrollment, youth, a difficult schedule and a lack of depth. But he isn't focused on what went wrong last season. He realizes that a new year means a year of experience, for both the coaching staff and the players, and Muniz is focusing on his team's improvement. Team chemistry and attitude has improved with the leadership of senior running back Mikey Espinoza, one of seven seniors on the team. A first-team All-District 31-2A selection, Espinoza played every snap on both sides of the ball as a fullback and linebacker in 2002. "Mikey is going to lead on both sides of the ball and he'll be the one kids will look to when things are going good and going bad," Muniz said. "If he handles it like he did last year, we'll do good. He played 100 percent every down. He's a quiet guy but leads by example." But Espinoza is uncertain who will be handing him the ball once the Lions step on their home field for their opener against Navarro. Senior Jason Tam and junior Jason Baldera are competing for the quarterback position. For Muniz, though, it's a win-win situation regardless of who will prevail. "Tam had the bulk of the reps since he was a junior and he worked hard and deserved it," Muniz said. "But it's up in the air this season. Both will have an opportunity and share the reps, but the other one will step in somewhere." One of the quarterbacks will run an offense that Muniz says "will become a little more multiple. Both throw it fairly well." Kenedy only found the end zone four times all year last season and was outscored by a margin of 30 points a game. The problem, according to Muniz, wasn't maintaining a sustained drive - it was finishing. "Something would happen every time (in the red zone). And part of it, was Mikey didn't touch the ball enough. We needed him to touch it 25 times and that's something we need to improve on," Muniz said. Defensively, the Lions gave up 20 points or more in every game last season but will strongly benefit from the return of most of their defensive personnel and all of their all-district defensive selections with Tam and Baldera in the secondary and Espinoza anchoring the linebackers. The Lions hope to turn the 2002 season into one in which his young players will learn. "As the losses added up, they had more pressure. They felt a lot of pressure they didn't need to feel," Muniz said. "We just struggled in all phases (last season). I just think we had to get stronger and be in better shape. We got there in the latter part of the year. We're out to prove that last year was a fluke and was just a bad year." Dustin Wenzel is a sports writer for the Victoria Advocate. Contact him at 580-6538 or email him at dwenzel@vicad.com. ------------------------------------------------------------------- Copyright 2003 Victoria Advocate Online (http://victoriaadvocate.com) The Victoria Advocate - http://TheVictoriaAdvocate.com More of the same DUSTIN WENZEL Advocate Sports Writer Thursday, August 28th, 2003 KARNES CITY - For Karnes City head coach Tom Warlick and his Badgers, not much has changed, and he is hoping that more things will stay the same during the season as well. Karnes City is coming off a 7-4 season and an undefeated district record, yet a quick bi-district loss in the Class 2A playoffs left the Badgers looking to improve. "We're far more experienced than last season," Warlick said. "The strength is a great group of kids that are focused on a goal of getting back in the playoffs again for the fifth consecutive year." Lucky for Warlick, most of his 2002 Badgers return for a chance to make that playoff run. Offensively, quarterback Cody Hale is back. Halfback Clay Weston will follow his new fullback, David Wosniak, this season, and Ryan Zamora is also expected to contribute on offense. "We have basically the same backfield," Warlick said. "We're looking for a great season from Cody Hale, and I look for Clay (Weston) to have a big year. With the skill kids, it's not a question of knowing where to go, but how fast can I get there and get it done." Those three players will have an experienced offensive line mixed with new faces (there are three seniors and two juniors among the five). Ryan Mika moves from guard to tight end. Jacob Patton and Brandon Niato will be the only two linemen in the same spots while Matthew Molik will move to guard and Doug McNeese will handle center. Similar to last season, Warlick plans to run most of his offense around a Wing-T set. Warlick wants to "build on the positives that we had last year, and we were very young last season and one weekend into it, its seems like we're three or four weeks into last year." Youth and inexperience will not be a problem, though, in most of the defense - especially the secondary. The Badgers welcome back a defensive nucleus that includes Michael Rosales, a senior defensive back with an Advocate area-leading eight interceptions last season. "He's a very disciplined kid," Warlick said. "As far as coverage, he's always in position to make big plays. Anytime you see that stat (interceptions), teams say we don't want to throw at this guy. All of them were key interceptions." Hale will join Rosales in the defensive backfield, and will fill in at cornerback, a position vacated by soph-omore Jeff Butler, who moves to free safety after starting nine games as a freshman. Anthony Brysch, who started all 11 games as a sophomore, gets the nod at linebacker as Molik returns at defensive tackle. "This is my sixth year as a head coach or assistant and right now, this is the best secondary we've had," Warlick declared. Time will tell if the secondary can help keep the team within the crucial 20-point threshold. In the last two years, Karnes City is 2-7 when allowing more than 20 points defensively, but in the same span, is undefeated at 9-0 when scoring over 20. "I think defensively you create your turnovers by good pursuit," Warlick said. "More people you can get around the football, the better. We're going to stop the run first and play the pass second." ------------------------------------------------------------------- Copyright 2003 Victoria Advocate Online (http://victoriaadvocate.com) The Victoria Advocate - http://TheVictoriaAdvocate.com Spreading it out MIKE FORMAN Advocate Sports Writer Thursday, August 28th, 2003 RUNGE - Runge had practiced for less than a week before quarterback Jaime Garza developed a sore arm. First-year coach Jesse House didn't consider Garza's condition as a cause for concern, but saw it as a sign of progress. "We're going to chunk the rock," House said. "That was the system I came out of at Channelview (where House was the offensive coordinator) and we're going to throw the ball." House has been busy teaching the spread offense since he took over as head coach last spring. "We're going from the mid-line to the spread," House said, "and that's about as drastic a change as you can make." House recognized Runge was in need of a drastic change. The Yellowjackets scored only 53 points and went 0-10 last season to extend their losing streak to 20 games. "We're building from the bottom up," House said. "We've talked about becoming a family, trusting each other and working hard and going from there. These are good kids. They've lost for so long that it doesn't taste well." Runge got a taste of what is to come during two-a-days. Garza threw more passes during practice than the 81 he threw last season. "Jaime's got a gun and he's going to help us," House said of Garza, the Newcomer of the Year in District 30-1A last season. "But the biggest thing in any passing offense is throwing and catching. These kids are catching about 150 balls a day. We're doing a lot of throwing and catching." While House has been impressed with Garza's arm strength, the coach had other reasons for going to a spread offense. "We're not going to go out and run you over," House said. "We don't have the kids to do that. We're going to try and finesse you." Runge will primarily line up in a one-back set, meaning either Johnathan Bra-sher, Bobby Charles or both will be split out or will go in motion. House spent a good portion of two-a-days looking for wide receiver prospects to join Gabriel Gutierrez and Robert Jones and tight ends Zed Zapata and Daniel Salazar. All-district center Fabian Gutierrez returns to lead an offensive line that includes returnee Bri-an Arigullin. House didn't limit the changes to offense, switching the defense into a 4-2-5 alignment. "Defensively we're going to be smaller than everybody we play," House said. "What we want to do is play good technique and make you drive the field on us." Fabian Gutierrez, Mario Perez and Brasher return at linebacker, while Gabriel Gutierrez is back at a corner and Garza will move from linebacker to free safety. House will attempt to bolster the defense by keeping linemen Henry Reyna and Kevin Shattuck from playing much on the offensive line. "My philosophy is if you can keep your offensive and defensive line going one way, you're in better shape," House said. "Can we do it? I don't know." House has no doubt Runge can do better than its done over the past two seasons. "The tradition is here from the past," House said. "The biggest thing is believing. You've got to believe you can win before you can win." Mike Forman is a sports writer for the Victoria Advocate. Contact him at 361-580-6588, or by e-mail at mforman@vicad.com.