Stephens County

The Ag Barn in Breckenridge hosted the 61st Stephens County Junior Livestock Show and Sale Awards Banquet Thursday, Jan. 24. The event featured food for attendees, and announced the winners from the livestock show, which was held about two weeks ago.

The event doubled as a celebration of the process of working with livestock. Participants, many of who are children, were honored with their showmanship of the animals they worked with, while some received checks for selling their livestock at auction.

The Breckenridge Medical Center hosted a celebration for Dr. Susan Badidi, who is stepping away for an unspecified amount of time to spend time with her family. The celebration featured a cake, as well as numerous co-workers and friends to help send Badidi off.

Badidi has worked for the Breckenridge Medical Center for three years, and said she will miss her patients and coworkers the most. While she said she doesn’t know how long she will be gone, she said this doesn’t necessarily mean the end of her time at the BMC.

Burn ban put back on

The three newly elected members of the county, which included two county commissioners and the county judge, attended a three-day seminar in Austin this week, where they learned about the general overview of how a county government functions.

County Judge Michael Roach said the seminar covered the basics of county government, such as their constitutional duties and where those derived from, open meetings, open information laws and emergency resources to name a few.

At the Breckenridge City Commissioners meeting on Jan. 2, the commissioners passed an item that would allow up to $50,000 to be spent on remedying the potholes around Breckenridge.

The city is getting the $50,000 from their budget for street maintenance, which comes from a quarter-cent sales tax.

The Stephens County Commissioners’ Court met for the first time this year in a lengthy meeting that aimed to take care of business and procedures that will impact the year. Some of this business included a presentation from a healthcare company that helps the county with inmate healthcare, a discussion of burn bans, as well as budgeting discussions.

County Judge Michael Roach led the meeting, in his first one as the new county judge. Commissioner Mark McCullough for precinct two and Eric O’Dell for precinct four also were part of the meeting for the first time.

The Stephens County Commissioners Court met Wednesday for the last time in 2018, and took action on a variety of items to prepare for the next year. This included setting the holiday schedule and approving several surety bonds for a few of the commissioners.

The city of Breckenridge and Stephens County will be under a winter weather watch from Thursday afternoon until Friday morning. The report calls for a high chance of precipitation and dropping temperatures, according to a national service warning.