HARLINGEN — Under a magical setting, long ramps help children in wheelchairs move from one play station to the next.

There might be slides leading to swingsets carrying children in wheelchairs.

All-inclusive playgrounds are coming to Harlingen.

As part of an agreement, the city will work with the school district to build two playgrounds focused on special needs children.

“It’s almost like having a playground that is a classroom,” Harlingen schools Superintendent Arturo Cavazos said yesterday. “It allows them to explore other senses.”

This week, city officials unveiled plans to build all-inclusive playgrounds at Lon C. Hill Park and Pendleton Park.

As part of the project, the city and school district will split the $400,000 cost of each playground.

Last year, voters approved a 10-cent tax increase allowing the school district to earmark $400,000 for the project.

For the school district, the playgrounds will help students with special needs learn outside the classroom.

“It gives kids the opportunity to enhance social skills to physically build motor skills, to build sensory skills,” Cavazos said.

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HARLINGEN — Justine Garcia taxied to the runway controlling the 415 Ercoupe double tail plane.

When she was approved for take off, she sped up and began to pull back slowly on the yoke.

That was all it took. The nose of the plane rose upward into the blue sky under the guidance of a professional pilot, Bob Farris, who was sitting right next to her.

“When I took control it was pretty scary,” Garcia, a high school student, said. “There was so much more than just getting into the plane and flying it.”

It was her second hop yesterday as she climbed to 2,000 feet and traveled at 100 knots steering the plane and circling around the sky from a birds-eye view over the Valley.

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HARLINGEN – School’s out for summer. Or is it?

Teachers are enjoying some time off this summer as are their students. However, in the midst of all this rest and relaxation, some teachers are already preparing for next year.

Ashley Perez and Bianca Rodriguez, instructors at the Harlingen School for Health Professions, will take some time off from their vacation to create “Lead University.”

Perez and Rodriguez have been developing the program as an innovative way to teach leadership skills to eighth graders.

They received some validation for their idea recently when they were awarded an Innovative Teaching Grant by the Harlingen Area Educational Foundation.

“I am very excited about the award, and I am ready to get started on the project,” said Perez, who teaches eighth grade algebra. The award is for $1,500.

She and Rodriguez, who teaches eighth grade language arts, came up with the idea so students could develop their leadership skills. Perez said they wanted to expose students to members of the community who could talk to them about what it means to be a leader.

The students will meet one Saturday each month from 9 a.m. to 4 p.m. Professionals from the community will talk to them about leadership. They’ll learn organizational and speaking skills. Upon determining their community service project, they’ll select officers and begin planning the endeavor. In this way, they’ll put to use the leaderships skills they’ve learned.

“We feel that is a huge skill that they need to be successful as they move forward,” Perez said.

They hope to create mentorship opportunities with those community members.

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HARLINGEN – Valley Baptist Health System is leading a community effort to provide area children and adults struggling with hunger with a healthy breakfast during the summer through its Healthy Over Hungry Cereal Drive benefitting the Food Bank of the Rio Grande Valley, a member of the Feeding America network.

The drive began last Friday, and runs through today, Friday, June 10.

“At Valley Baptist Medical Center-Harlingen, we recognize the impact hunger has on health and nutrition, and our staff is eager to make a difference,” said Stephen Hill, Chief Nursing Officer at the hospital.

“We recognize the importance of beginning each day with a nutritious breakfast and, through this drive, we hope to help the many in our community struggling with hunger.”

The students at the Valley Baptist Medical Center School of Vocational Nursing have risen to the challenge, and as a group have already collected more than 160 boxes, with plans for more by Friday.

These enthusiastic nurses-in-training are always on board when the hospital holds a drive, from the “School Supply Drive,” to toy drives, and more. (For more information about the LVN school, go to http://www.valleybaptist.net/connect-with-us/school-of-vocational-nursing) The entire Valley Baptist staff has been working hard as departments and individuals to beat the total of donations from last year’s drive.

“Last year at the Healthy Over Hungry Cereal Drive, Valley Baptist collected almost 30,000 servings of cereal, and we are looking to surpass that this year,” stated Teri McCabe Retana, Market Director of Marketing for the Health System.

Nearly one in two children in the RGV live at or below the federal poverty level, and the Food Bank of the RGV serves as a resource for them in Hidalgo, Cameron and Willacy counties.

Food insecurity has fluctuated between one in five and one in seven households in the past 3 years.

It is a fluid situation, where at some time during the calendar year, a family has had to juggle between paying housing, medical or other bills and buying nutritious foods for their family, according to the Food Bank of the RGV website.

On average, they help feed up to 42,000 on a weekly basis via 250 Partner Agencies.

“We appreciate Valley Baptist for hosting the Healthy Over Hungry Cereal Drive for the second year, and are grateful for its commitment to building a healthy community,” said Terri Drefke, CEO of the Food Bank of the Rio Grande Valley. “Summer is a particularly difficult time for our food bank because many children in need can no longer rely on their school meals for a nutritious breakfast, so their families often turn to us for help. Thanks to Valley Baptist and the Healthy Over Hungry Cereal Drive, many families will have a healthy, whole-grain cereal breakfast every summer morning.”

HARLINGEN – School’s out for summer.

Or is it?

Teachers are enjoying some time off this summer as are their students. However, in the midst of all this rest and relaxation, some teachers are already preparing for next year.

Ashley Perez and Bianca Rodriguez, instructors at the Harlingen School for Health Professions, will take some time off from their vacation to create “Lead University.”

Perez and Rodriguez have been developing the program as an innovative way to teach leadership skills to eighth graders.

They received some validation for their idea recently when they were awarded an Innovative Teaching Grant by the Harlingen Area Educational Foundation.

“I am very excited about the award, and I am ready to get started on the project,” said Perez, who teaches eighth grade algebra. The award is for $1,500.

She and Rodriguez, who teaches eighth grade language arts, came up with the idea so students could develop their leadership skills. Perez said they wanted to expose students to members of the community who could talk to them about what it means to be a leader.

The students will meet one Saturday each month from 9 a.m. to 4 p.m. Professionals from the community will talk to them about leadership. They’ll learn organizational and speaking skills. Upon determining their community service project, they’ll select officers and begin planning the endeavor. In this way, they’ll put to use the leaderships skills they’ve learned.

“We feel that is a huge skill that they need to be successful as they move forward,” Perez said.

They hope to create mentorship opportunities with those community members.

For the rest of this story and many other EXTRAS, go to our premium site, www.MyValleyStar.com.

Subscribe to it for only $6.99 per month or purchase a print subscription and receive the online version free, which includes an electronic version of the full newspaper and extra photo galleries, links and other information you can’t find anywhere else.

Wake up Americans, there are things of much more importance than sex or, if there isn’t, we deserve to be called SOB’s.

Is the TV, electronically possessed world making us intellectual zombies?

Is our foreign policy to be hinged to sexual orientation?

Are these to be the most prominent national issues around?

I can’t believe that many of our college students seem to believe that if something makes them feel good, do it, while understanding how our government works stirs little interest.

Knowledge and the seeking of it seems to be secondary to mostly mundane, superficial things.

At this rate, there will be more than one of us “fiddling while Rome burns,” Imagine the tremendous problems that face the world while Obama finds issuing a memo ordering American diplomats abroad to advance the rights of same sex marriage, and the rights of bisexual, and transgender persons.

The U.S government also announced that the fight against these rights and sexual discrimination would be a central point of its foreign policy, and transgressing nations like Nigeria could be denied aid.

Since when should we dictate sexual preferences to other countries or even to our own countrymen.

There are still countries that preserve that right for themselves.

Zakari Mohammed, a Nigerian lawmaker said, “We have a culture. We have religious beliefs and we have a tradition. We are black people.

“We are not white, and so the U.S cannot impose its culture on us. Same sex marriage is alien to our culture and we can never give it a chance.

“So if (Western nations) withhold their aid to us, to hell with them.”

Perhaps we Americans, black or white should express the same sentiments.

We are not in national social services, and our constitution does not delegate the U.S. as the example of sexual morals (heaven forbid) anywhere for that matter.

I say, “Get out of the bedroom and tend to our ‘real’ national and international problems.”

Sincerely, Norma Christian Raymondville

This morning I read Mr. Rodriguez’s letter “Propaganda Continues.”

I agree that the citizens could use a bit more in the line of unbiased facts, and truth, whatever that is.

President Obama is not a devil, nor is Donald Trump an angel.

Angels are not voted into office. I think our President is somewhat left of center on the political continuum. I think Mr. Trump is slightly right of Atilla the Hun.

I believe Mr. Rodriguez has formed his opinions the same way as the people he pillories. In his article he made references that are no more original than the ones daily stated in a newspaper.

His comment on Judge Curiel was not telling. The judge was honored by a professional association.

What has that to do with the price of cotton?

As for the judge being appointed by President Obama, eureka, all federal judges are appointed by a President.

My guess is the judge presiding over Mr. Trump’s case is more a matter of geography than selection.

I am, politically a centrist, leaning to the left a bit. In this election I find both major candidates lacking.

I am not certain to whom I might give my vote. However, I would not vote for the Donald with a gun at my head.

As a final observation, Mr. Rodriguez writes he is to “try and counter the daily dose of liberal propaganda.”

That my friend is called “glittering generality” and is a standard in propaganda.

Ken Cantine Laguna Vista

Several law enforcement authorities are helping in the search for a missing swimmer on South Padre Island.

U.S. Coast Guard officials received a call at 12:29 p.m. today for assistance in looking for the swimmer who went missing near Beach Access No. 5 on the island, said Lt. Karl Alujandre, spokesman for the U.S. Coast Guard.

“The Coast Guard is actively searching along with local agencies for the missing swimmer,” Alujandre said.

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The Coast Guard sent out a plane, helicopter and rescue boat to the area.

They are assisting the Cameron County Parks Rangers, South Padre Island police and fire departments, county lifeguards, and beach patrol with the search, Alujandre said.

For the latest on the story read Friday’s Brownsville Herald.

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HARLINGN — Police urge everyone to wear their seat belts at all times.

Just last week, the state stepped up enforcement efforts and actively ticketed both drivers and passengers who were not buckled up.

The Texas Department of Transportation’s “Click It or Ticket” campaign ran from May 23 through June 5 across the state.

During the enforcement campaign, the Harlingen Police Department issued 80 seat belt violation citations and 45 other related violation citations.

The San Benito Police Department issued more than 100.

Everyone inside a vehicle, both the front and back seats, needs to buckle up, police said.

TxDOT reported that wearing a seat belt increases the chances of surviving a crash by 45%.

HARLINGEN — Twin military cargo planes airlifted injured and ill patients.

At the same time, three commercial airliners carried residents out of the area.

It was all part of the largest mock evacuation drill ever in Texas and maybe the nation.

Hundreds of officers from more than 40 agencies took part in the Texas Department of Public Safety’s Emergency Management Division operation.

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The drill, dubbed Hurricane Tejas, surrounded a scenario in which a Category 4 hurricane with a strong storm surge targets the Rio Grande Valley.

The two C-130 transport planes carried volunteers acting as patients from Valley International Airport to San Antonio, where they would be sheltered.

Three commercial airliners evacuated hundreds in the roles of residents fleeing to Texas cities.

“Things went pretty good,” Charles Hoskins, deputy chief of Cameron County’s emergency management department, said at about 2:30 p.m. The drill continues today before officials gather to talk about the process, both good and bad.

Friday, officials will review the operation’s after-action report to identify areas in which they need to improve.

“There are things we probably could learn or improve on,” Hoskins said.

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