Here is a recap of what was featured in the Wednesday, May 8th, e-edition of the Taylor Press. Read the e-edition for the full stories and more. The e-edition is emailed to subscribers and available at www. taylorpress.net. .
Cobb, Cmerek headline election winners In the May 4 election, Shelli Cobb won the Taylor City Council District 2 seat election with 64.98% of the vote. Cobb defeated incumbent Mitch Drummond, 28.52%, Terry Burris, 5.96%, and Sandra Wolff, 0.54%.
Another newcomer will join Cobb on the council, as Kelly Cmerek won the District 3 seat with a 90.76% landslide. Cmerek’s opponent, Nathan Walker, previously announced he no longer wanted to be considered for the seat.
In addition, all six propositions passed in the Taylor election.
Proposition A, which sets compensation for City Council at $125 a meeting in the city charter, passed with a 79.03% decision.
Other propositions adding charter amendments involved setting a minimum amount of time between council meetings, having residents elect the at-large position to serve as mayor and requiring meetings to be held in Taylor.
Taylor Independent School District’s board of trustees remains unchanged in the aftermath of the election. Incumbents Marilyn Tennill and Anita Volek remain on the school board for three-year terms.
Tennill gained 80.17% of the vote for the Taylor ISD at-large seat, besting Todd Gratehouse.
Meanwhile, Volek ran unopposed for her Place 2 seat. She said she originally wasn’t going to run for reelection because she serves as the executive director for the Taylor Education Enrichment Foundation, but received foundation approval to run again after nobody filed.
In the Hutto City Council Place 2 election, incumbent Dan Thornton won his race with a slight 51.69% victory over Cory Denena.
The Place 5 election likely will be a runoff between Dana Wilcott, 32.86%, and Evan Porterfield, 18.81%.
All but one of Hutto’s proposed propositions passed, with Proposition D only receiving 33.41% “for” votes.
At Hutto Independent School District, incumbents Amy English and James Matlocks earned reelection bids. Matlock tallied 34.50% of the vote and English earned 31.93% of the vote.
Thrall Independent School District’s three open seats will be filled by Stephanie Ochoa, Rodrigo Reyes and Domingo Valdez.
Only 24,042 of the 431,845 registered voters in Williamson County voted, according to election information.
Camp Swift: 82 years of service BASTROP – In the center of Bastrop County lies Camp Swift, a rich-in-history and pivotal military training and reserve site that celebrated its significant 82nd anniversary this past weekend.
Site leader Lt. Col. Joseph Meller, who also serves as a trustee on the Taylor Independent School District board, brought together facility members, military personnel and descendants of the 82nd Airborne Infantry Division Cmdr. Eben Swift to honor the grounds and its namesake.
The site first opened in 1942 with 2,750 buildings and accommodations for 44,000 troops, quickly becoming a major combat infantry training camp for World War II soldiers. Training activities included tank maneuvers, weapons firing, personnel and cargo air drops, combat engineering skills, infantry skills, helicopter operations and much more.
At its peak during the war, Camp Swift held 90,000 troops and 3,500 German prisoners of war, making it the largest transshipment and U.S. Army training camp in Texas, forever changing the landscape of the region.
Like other military sites, after the war, the land was returned to its original owners. Soldiers were shipped back home in 1945, and the grounds were declared a military excess site, with the government still owning 11,700 acres to use as a military reserve.
Since then, Camp Swift has served as the main conduit for soldiers conducting premobilization training and as the center point for staging operations to support civil authorities at the state and federal level.
During the presentation, descendants of Swift shared stories of their prestigious family member and presented Meller with dated artifacts for the camp’s new History and Lineage Room, including a 1942 news clipping about the naming of the facility and an original portrait of the major general, a native Texan.
Swift’s first activeduty assignment was on the frontiers of Wyoming, Montana, Nebraska, Idaho and Colorado. Following the Spanish-American War, he was responsible for preparing a district of 300,000 inhabitants at Humacao, Puerto Rico, for civil government, provided valuable relief work, commanded the Second Cavalry in the punitive expedition in Mexico in 1916, organized the 82nd Division in WWI and was chief of the American Military Mission and commander of U.S forces in Italy.
Retiring with the rank of major general in 1918, Swift went on to publish several history books before his death in 1938.
