A little bit about Rob.

“I truly believe God has been preparing me for this position all my life,” Kelly said. “I didn’t go looking for this job, it came looking for me. When asked to run, I told them ‘no thanks, my gate is closed.’ They persisted and persuaded me to open it. My family and I earnestly prayed about every aspect of this decision and believe this is the time. I’m ready to serve the citizens of Kerr County as their next county judge.”

Kelly has been a commercial litigation attorney, mediator and arbitrator for more than 40 years. He practiced in San Antonio where he served on the management committee of one of the largest law firms in South Texas prior to running as the Republican candidate for Chief Justice of the San Antonio Court of Appeals. After the election he moved his practice to Kerrville to be near the family ranch in the Camp Verde area.

Kelly has a strong record of leadership in his profession and the community. He has been a frequent author and lecturer for the State Bar of Texas, the American Banking Association, Texas Association of Defense Counsel, The University of Texas, University of Houston Law School and Texas Tech University Law School.

He chaired the San Antonio Bar Association Ethics Committee, was president of the Christian Legal Society, served on the board of the Bexar County Dispute Resolution Center and was the volunteer coordinator of Habitat for Humanity.

He also was active with the United Methodist Church as a lay stewardship speaker and lay director on the Walk to Emmaus. He was involved in the Kairos Prison Ministry and has served on many Emmaus and Kairos teams.

Since moving to Kerr County, Kelly continued his community service on the Kerrville Independent School District board and was president during the successful bond issue to build the new Tivy High School and Fred H. Tally Elementary School.

He continued with Habitat for Humanity and was president as the organization grew from building one house each year to four homes per year.

He was president of the Community Foundation of the Texas Hill Country and served on the Peterson Regional Medical Center Development Committee raising the funds to build the new hospital.

He led the Hill Country Emmaus Community and has worked on dozens of teams. Kelly has taught biblical principles of dispute resolution to numerous Sunday School classes, the Texas Coalition of Home Schools, Laity Lodge and the Fellowship of Christian Athletes among others. He served on the Alternative Dispute Resolution Council of the State Bar of Texas.

Recently, Kelly was certified as a member of the Kerr County Community Emergency Response Team. He also is a graduate of the Kerr County Sheriff’s Office Citizen’s Academy and the Kerrville Police Department Citizen’s Academy, as well as has worked with Kerr County Crime Stoppers.

Kelly is a member of First United Methodist Church. He and his wife, Vicki, also a widow, live in West Kerr County, where she is an artist.

Together they have four children and five grandchildren, Meg Russell in Austin, Dan and son, Connor, in Bandera, Jennifer married to Scott Delaney with children, Bradley and Brynne, in Philadelphia, and Alan Van Reet married to Bobbi Richardson with daughters, Jayme and Ashlee, in Keller.

Rob started laying out what he was going to inform us about.

He said he would like to present 3 issues

1. Info on Co-vid 19

2. Property being purchased to make sure we have room for growth.

3. Public Defenders Office.

The first thing he advised was the hot line that will be set up

830-315-5900 1,2,3,4 for a total of five lines. And we will have online portal.

He made it clear about the closing of bars, and dealing with restaurants and the fact that it out of control of any local official. It has to pertain to executive order GA32

Executive Order GA-32 (texas.gov)

This is tied to folks in hospital. When the amount of people in hospital gets over 15% then restaurants must go back to 50%. Then he told us they have 125 beds in the hospital. But the Texas hospital bed capacity determines how many are used in formula.

You can google this for more info. Anyway they say we only have 88. %15 of 88 equals 13.2 and we now have like 23 in the hospital.

Next was the 1A, 1B then the rest of the people.

As new, active COVID-19 cases climbed sharply this week, Kerr County public health authorities have been working fastidiously behind the scenes to organize a communitywide phone bank to assist in the organized distribution of vaccinations to the public when enough doses become available. At the same time, they continued to plead with citizens to be extra vigilant by using safety precautions.

Mass Vaccination Plan

“There has been a lot of confusion and misinformation by word of mouth or social media regarding the vaccinations and when certain individuals can expect to be inoculated locally,” said William B. “Dub” Thomas, coordinator of Kerr County Emergency Management.

“What we hope everyone can understand is that we are still trying to make sure our first tier of vaccine recipients – health care workers, first responders, etc. – are covered if they choose to be,” Thomas said. “Then, and only then, will we move on to Tier 1B, which is the level that includes those individuals 65 years of age and older who have an underlying medical condition.”

“We understand that many residents want to get their vaccination and the protection it will provide as quickly as they possibly can,” Thomas said. “This sense of urgency has resulted in local pharmacies and the hospital being inundated with phone calls.”

“We live in a community where many individuals will fall into the 1B category, and they know their turn will be next,” Thomas said. “Once we receive large doses of the vaccines, we will implement our communitywide vaccination plan to take care of a maximum number of recipients as quickly as possible.”

Meeting on Wednesday afternoon to work on the roll out of the protective doses of Moderna to the local population was the Kerr County Vaccine Task Force, comprised of city and county emergency management leaders, as well as representatives from Peterson Health, Family Practice Associates and HEB.

Working hard on behalf of the welfare of all Kerr County citizens who want to receive the vaccination, they nailed down details of the communitywide vaccination plan, which will include a phone bank for securing appointments, forms to fill out in advance and more.

Many healthcare workers in that first tier still need to get their shot before incoming vials of the vaccine can be given to the next tier of the public, said meeting host Fredericksburg Fire Department and EMS Fire Chief Eric Maloney.

Kerr County has a large number of people working in healthcare – some 3,400 people who work in various medical capacities, whether they are private physicians, home health care nurses, paramedics and the like. The large number of healthcare personnel here, coupled with the small allotment of doses provided in the first round, means that many here in that first tier still need to be vaccinated.

When it is time to vaccinate the Tier 1B category of individuals – those who are 65 years or older and who have an underlying medical condition – Kerr County has a “mass vaccination footprint” model in the form of its communitywide flu clinic developed some 10 years ago.

The fact that recipients of the COVID-19 vaccine will need to be observed for 15 minutes after they receive their shots “would be a problem for a drive-through clinic, so the model will need to be adapted slightly,” Thomas said.

The task force is coordinating with a few select sites around Kerrville, so that everything is set up and ready to go quickly when Kerr County receives a large enough cache of doses.

Thomas is working on acquiring and lining up volunteers from the Kerr County CERT (Community Emergency Response Team) and others to man the COVID-19 phone bank, from 8 a.m. to 5 p.m. Mondays through Fridays. That way, Kerr County individuals can call and reserve their time to receive their first dose.

Organizers will limit how many people will be in the clinic area at a time by asking vaccination recipients to come alone. The appointments will also allow organizers to space out visits so that attendees will be able to avoid the risk of catching the novel coronavirus from a crowd of people congregated in waiting lines.

“We will release the phone numbers to the COVID-19 Phone Bank as soon as they are established and online for taking calls,” Thomas said. “We will make public announcements asking people to call the phone bank and set up their appointments, but again, that will not happen until we receive enough doses in our area to host a mass clinic.”

In a show of community solidarity through this pandemic, the various sites around town that receive doses of the vaccine are keeping the lines of communication open between them and are coordinating their efforts. That way, if one place finds itself with an excess of doses and another site has a need, they can be sure that the doses are distributed in a timely way to those who want them.

“We do not want to sit on something,” but instead work together to roll out the vaccines as quickly and orderly as we can, Maloney said. The idea is to make sure as many individuals receive their first doses as soon as possible.

Task force members agreed that they could make the shot clinic(s) run faster and more smoothly, by making a pre-registration packet that contains the necessary paperwork. The packet could be read, filled out at the recipient’s convenience and then just handed over at the time of their appointment. Expected to be included with the packet are information sheets, educating vaccine recipients of the requirements they must meet to receive the shot – such as not having had another vaccine within a certain time frame, etc.

Amber Burress, pharmacy manager at H-E-B, also suggested that when a citizen makes his/her appointment, that they will automatically be scheduled for their second dose of the vaccine to come at the same time of their appointment on a date exactly 4 weeks after their first dose. (The Moderna vaccine, which is the one that will be distributed in Kerr County because its storage requirements are more easily met without special refrigeration devices, consists of two doses, given through injection exactly 28 days apart.)

Then we found out that there will only be 6 providers in Kerrville. So when we get the vaccine in bulk. A command center will be set up and open 8 to 5 M thru F. It was noted that if your not on code red for Kerr County you should get on it. Here is link CodeRed Emergency Notifications | Kerrville TX - Official Website

3. The cost of providing attorneys to people that can't afford on was $750,000 last year. A plan to combine 5 counties was developed. The public defender’s office would serve the counties of Kerr, Bandera, Gillespie, Kendall and Medina County, with Kerrville being the home base. A small number of staff — apart from the approximately 20 in Kerrville with another office in Hondo, officials have said. This will save Kerr county $300,000 a year. 

Various officials have hailed the PDO as an economic boon for the area, due to the new jobs that largely will be paid for with out-of-county money. Salaries and benefits for the office would total about $3,009,996, according to a proposal presented by the TIDC in March.

The amount of the grant awarded to PDO is $2,503,264 for its first year, according to the county's press release. The TIDC, using monies allocated by the Texas Legislature, would fund 80% of the cost of the office the first year and two-thirds of the cost in subsequent years. Participating counties would pay the remainder, shared at a prorated amount based on case counts. They have a goal of meeting with a client within 48 hours of being locked up.

More on TIDC

The Texas Indigent Defense Commission provides financial and technical support to counties to develop and maintain quality, cost-effective indigent defense systems that meet the needs of local communities and the requirements of the Constitution and state law. More information is available at www.tidc.texas.gov.

This was a very informative meeting. We learned a lot. 

Contact and Phone Numbers

700 Main, Ste. 101
Kerrville, TX 78028
 (830) 792-2211
 (830) 792-2218

 David Barker has over 40 years of cumulative experience in a broad range of businesses including engineering, construction, manufacturing, project management, procurement, finance and accounting, emergency planning, business restoration, start-up, testing, quality assurance and control. He also taught project management at two universities. He has exceptional skills in several engineering disciplines in addition to physics, chemistry and metallurgy. Most recently Mr. Barker started The Barker Consulting Group which provided a broad range of professional business services to many industries primarily focusiing on management challenges and business improvement processes. He is considered an expert in project management, organization, execution and in turnaround assignments across many disciplines for projects that are identified as global in scale.

David was previously employed for 10 years at Dril-Quip, Inc. where he held several key positions as head of manufacturing, project management and the Aftermarket Business Unit where he supervised over 500 highly skilled engineers and technicians. As Director of the Aftermarket Business Unit he was responsible for the overall aftermarket support and services which included customer refurbishment projects, capital drilling equipment repair and recertification and field life management services. Additional responsibilities included global service for rental tools, writing of technical service manuals, personnel training and certification of field service technicians.

Prior to joining Dril-Quip, Inc., Barker had a progressive career in the nuclear power field working on the NS Savannah Program, the world's first nuclear powered commercial vessel. He served as Project Manager on the South Texas Nuclear Project for Houston Lighting and Power Company and was a key manager in bringing the plant to its current operable status where he was directly responsible for 600 employees and as many a 10,000 sub-contractor employees. In addition, he managed major architectural and construction programs on large commercial real estate projects throughout the state as well as several coal fired electric generating stations for the Reliant Energy family of companies (HL&P and CenterPoint Energy). In these assignments his career was progressive rising to the level of COO of CenterPoint Energy Management Services. The Chairman of Reliant Energy at that time identified his career as being distinguished and exemplary. Mr. Barker also worked for the H.B. Zachry Company in San Antonio, Texas prior to joining HL&P.

Mr. Barker has a BS in mechanical engineering and MS in nuclear engineering from Texas A&M University and an Executive MBA from Penn State University. Prior to enrolling at Texas A&M University in 1964 Mr. Barker received his AA degree in engineering from Schreiner Institute in Kerrville, Texas. He is also a registered professional engineer. David also completed the Executive Development program at The University of Idaho.

AUSTIN— Today, the Texas House passed HB 297 which would eliminate the school districts’ maintenance and operations property tax and replace it with a more efficient sales tax.

“Texas’ economy is the strongest in the country — owing in large part to the commitment of policymakers to the Texas Model and strong conservative fiscal leadership,” said Kevin Roberts, Ph.D., executive director of the Texas Public Policy Foundation. “HB 297, if paired with fiscal restraint in budgeting, would sustain our prosperity.”

HB 297 would establish an interim committee to study the most effective way to move from a maintenance and operations property tax to a sales tax system by January 1, 2022.

“The Foundation has long supported the elimination of property taxes in favor of a less burdensome sales tax system,” said Vance Ginn, Ph.D., senior economist and director of the Center for Economic Prosperity at the Texas Public Policy Foundation. “The Texas House’s passage of HB 297 provides an excellent opportunity to eliminate nearly half of the costly property tax burden along with almost all of the disliked Robin Hood system. This legislation should make its way through the process and to the Governor’s desk so there can be a robust discussion during the interim of how to make Texas an even greater economic juggernaut for prosperity.”

Interested in Ways and Means committee, Jurist and Criminal prudence.

Questions ask Will Texas ever get gambling? He said not at this time

Early voting starts Oct 13th thru 30th.

Hello All,

I am emailing this to everyone who worked on last year's Walk-A-Fun event.  If you know of anyone who might be interested in helping to coordinate this event, please forward them this email.  I am going to make an announcement at lunch too!

We are hoping to add a few more "incentive" activities to boost attendance.  

To make this a success, we need the help of all Rotarians - but we start with a strong committee!  So, let's brainstorm, assign tasks, delegate, and get it started!

Kristy Vandenberg
Rotary Club of Kerrville

Eli Garcia is a 22-year veteran of law enforcement, with 18 of those years having served the Kerr County Sheriff’s Office and currently holds the rank of sergeant.

Garcia is a 1980 graduate of Tivy High School, completed the San Antonio Police Academy in 1989, is a graduate of the Alamo Area Council of Governments and has completed more than 3,300 hours of training with the Texas Commission on Law Enforcement.

Carol Twiss, a 26-year veteran of the KCSO, began her career as a jail corrections officer, obtained her peace officer certification and went on to work patrol and ultimately head of the department’s criminal investigation unit.

She is a certified master peace officer, certified fire and arson investigator and certified child forensic interviewer.   is a court-recognized expert in the field of child forensic interview, sexual assault and child abuse investigations.

Warren Funk “America is an idea based on the concepts of property rights, personal ownership and the sovereignty of the citizen.

“These concepts underlie the stirring ideals enunciated by the Founders in the immortal words of the Declaration of Independence: ‘We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness. That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed.’

Allen Fore

Vice President, Public Affairs
Kinder Morgan, Inc.

Allen Fore, Vice President, Public Affairs for Kinder Morgan, Inc., has more than 25 years of experience in law, government and public affairs at the local, state, and national levels. At Kinder Morgan, Mr. Fore manages corporate public affairs, government relations, and community relations activities for existing company assets and major expansion projects throughout the United States.

Prior to joining Kinder Morgan, Mr. Fore was a Senior Vice President at Fleishman-Hillard, an international communications company. Mr. Fore has served as an Assistant Attorney General of Illinois, as general counsel to the Lieutenant Governor of Illinois and as the Executive Director of the Illinois Republican Party.

Mr. Fore served as a Judge Advocate General in the Illinois Army National Guard and US Army Reserve, honorably discharged with the rank of Captain. Mr. Fore was also elected and served as an alderman on the Belvidere, IL City Council. Mr. Fore received his B.A. from Eureka College and a Juris Doctor degree from Valparaiso University.

 Allen talked about the pipeline running through the Texas Hill Country. It will be a 42" OD line that will be 432 miles long. The reason this line is needed it the fact that in west Texas they are currently flaring gas to the rate of 750 Mcf. This will be gathered and sent to the gulf coast for the growing market LNG facilities.

 One fact I thought interesting was that all the land owners were paid and contracts sighned. Another question was ask about can they put oil in the pipeline. The answer was no. Oil and Gas pipelines are totally different. Also if there was a leak the gas would go into the air since it is lighter.

 It seems that Kinder Morgan has done the due diligence on this entire project.

 The right of way (ROW) will be 50 ft. in some areas it will take an extra 100 ft to move equipment in & out. Kinder Morgan will put the land back in good shape after there done.

www.PHPproject.com is a website with more info 

• Flight troubles: Brooke missed her initial flight from Austin to Atlanta when she ran into confusion regarding the location of her departure gate.  When she figured out she was on the wrong side of the airport, she broke into a full-out sprint to try to catch her flight - only to be stopped cold at the door.  Brooke was balling and completely out of breath, but she tried to negotiate her way on to the plane, regardless.  She mentioned that she was a "minor traveling alone," but the gate attendant was unsympathetic.  However, there was a happy ending to the story as Delta provided Brooke with a free ticket to Paris as a result of her troubles (and because it was a Delta attendant who sent her in the wrong direction in the first place)!  Though Brooke ultimately made it to France, she mentioned that she was exhausted after her "25 hour travel day and 4-5 plane rides!" On top of everything else, she lost her luggage in the process as well!  Regardless of the challenges in actually getting to France, she was greeted by her host family with wine and cheese, the perfect French welcome!

•  Veggies anyone?: Brooke's host family was a vegetarian family, so veggies took the place of some of Brooke's favorite foods for a month.  According to Brooke, "it was hard being a vegetarian, especially coming from Texas!"

•  Rotary Abroad: Brooke attended a Rotary meeting while abroad, and she described the meeting as long, with a "food bar like" warmup to the meeting, where it didn't feel like anyone was in a hurry.  She also described a long picture taking process after the meeting was done.  See the picture below of Brooke and her flag (along with other flags garnered by Rotarians on recent visits to California & Wales).

•  A Tourist's Dream: Brooke had the opportunity to travel to multiple locations throughout France, including Paris (which she referred to as "every girl's dream," though she was wholly unimpressed with the size of the Mona Lisa - too funny), Bordeaux (which included cathedrals galore and another transportation challenge as all trains in the city were shut down for 3 hours), and the Basque region of France (where Brooke enjoyed the food fair but was unimpressed with the region's excitement concerning their Independence Day - "they didn't seem very excited about it," proclaimed Brooke!).  Visiting the Eiffel Tower, the Louvre, and the Arc de Triumph were highlights of the trip.  

•  Reunion Time: Brooke had the opportunity to visit Javier ("Javi"), our former Rotary exchange student from Spain, in Zaragoza, Spain (Javi's home town) during her trip.  She said that the four day side trip was a nice way to reconnect with Javi and his family.

•  Back at Home: Brooke had the experience of a lifetime, and in her words, she "learned a lot about culture, the world, and myself."  She already references the trip all of the time, and already misses the cooler weather.  However, Brooke said that she was happy to come home as well, actually "shedding a tear" when she saw Chick-fil-A in the Atlanta airport upon her arrival back in the States.

The Tivy Athletic Booster Club has announced the Tivy Athletic Hall of Fame Class of 2019 inductees slated to be honored at a formal ceremony on Sept. 20 at Antler Stadium prior to the the Antlers vs. Boerne Champion Friday night football game.

This year’s inductees include Layton Goleman, Tivy Class of 1951 and Thirman Dimery, Tivy Class of 1988. As the “Tivy Moment,” Jon Chambers, Class of 1979, will be honored. And, the “Avid Supporters” this year are Leonard “Lightning” Hard

The process

Inductees into the Hall of fame will be individuals who have rendered outstanding service to the Kerrville I.S.D. in the field of athletics either as an athlete, a coach, or an avid supporter.

An athlete must have earned two letters or their equivalents in one sport or one letter or its equivalent in two or more sports. The athletic record of the individual must be so outstanding that there is no question of his/her qualifications for the Hall of Fame. An athlete will not be considered until at least 10 years after his/her class has graduated.

The committee

The selection committee shall consist of seven members and have graduated from Kerrville Tivy High School. All members must be a member of the Kerrville Tivy Athletic Booster Club. Selections shall be made in early August each year so that recipients have adequate time to plan for attending inductee ceremony.

The induction ceremony will be held at the second home football game of the season or a date selected by athletic department officials.

Congrats to Cody Miller son of Stephanie Miller. He made chief(#220) at Camp Stewart this summer and was awarded LT of the term.

Congrats to Gina Carter on her marriage she is now Gina Daniels, husband Jim Daniels

Prayers for our school athletes as they have started practices and games. Football, Volleyball, and Cross Country.

Loyd Painter was a naval officer on the SS Liberty in 1967, during the Six Day War north of the Sinai Peninsula. The Liberty was attacked by Israeli Air Force planes and  torpedo boats in International Waters. The attack was reported to be an accident by the Israelis, where they mistakenly took the Liberty for an Egyptian ship. Others dispute this claim.

Thirty four Americans were killed on the ship and many wounded, including Lloyd. Two of Lloyd's good friends died during the attack, and he later had the difficult task of accompanying their widows to the ship yard back home to retrieve their belongings. The survivors of the attack were reassigned and separated, apparently to keep them from telling their stories.

CASA (Court Appointed Special Advocates) is a national volunteer movement founded in 1977. Hill Country CASA is a member of the National and Texas CASA Associations. There are more than 1,000 CASA programs nationwide and 72 CASA programs in the state of Texas.

Hill Country CASA provides volunteers who passionately advocate for abused and neglected children.

When a child enters the foster care system because his or her home is no longer safe, a judge may appoint a committed volunteer to help them. That volunteer is called a Court Appointed Special Advocate, or CASA.

CASA volunteers are screened and highly trained and then appointed by judges to represent and advocate for a child’s best interests in the child protection system. CASA volunteers are each assigned to help one child or set of siblings at a time, so they can focus on giving that child or sibling group the individualized advocacy and attention they need. CASA volunteers save taxpayers money and children’s futures by helping children find a safe, permanent homes as soon as possible.

CASA continues to provide valuable volunteer advocacy for every abused child in the Hill Country. CASA volunteers serve as the “eyes and ears” for the judge in child welfare cases. This includes researching each child’s situation and making objective recommendations to help them reclaim their childhoods from abuse and neglect. CASA volunteers are frequently the only stable presence in these children’s lives as they navigate the foster care system. These volunteers bring three critical qualities to their work: they focus on one case at a time; they bring a unique perspective to the court case; and their sole objective is representing the best interests of the child.

Hill Country CASA volunteers have enabled the organization to provide representation for 100% of all children in their service area – 100%!!  There are currently over 80 volunteers working 83 cases – serving over 140 children in our community.  Volunteers spend countless hours and travel thousands of miles to help children in need.  The gig is not an easy one, but INCREDIBLY meaningful.  If this is for you, volunteer today!