HARLINGEN — The old pool has a new look.

Lon C. Hill pool was rededicated yesterday following four months of rehabilitation, and approximately 50 second-graders from Crockett Elementary gave it a shakedown swim.

The work on the pool, $245,000 worth, mostly was funded by a Community Development Block Grant.

It was re-tiled, and the deck refurbished. And the pool at Lon C. Hill Park also received new pumps, filters and skimmers which had the clear water glistening a lovely blue-green color.

The pool will open to the general public on May 28.

“I think I wore the wrong suit,” said Harlingen Mayor Chris Boswell. “I should have worn my swimsuit. That may have scared some of the children, though.”

Boswell received his laughs from the crowd, and quickly went on to praise the city’s Parks and Recreation Department and its citizen advisory board, the Community Development Block Grant advisory board for finding the money, and the city’s engineering and maintenance departments for their roles in the pool renovation.

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McALLEN — This year, South Texas Comic Con is not just about cosplay.

Ramsey Ramirez, event coordinator, said though it began as a way to bring together a few of the things he loves, like comics, movies and TV, it’s now also focused on increasing children’s literacy in the Valley.

“It’s really important for kids to read,” he said. “I grew up reading comics, and I think it’s a great gateway to getting kids interested in reading.”

Ramirez said he aimed to get a comic book in the hands of every child who attends the event, though they would have to participate in an activity in order to get it. With an event that’s expected to bring in 13,000 to 15,000 attendees over the course of the weekend, Ramirez fears not every child will be catered to.

“That’s obviously a big problem down here,” he said. “We try to get a free comic into every kid’s hands as much as we can, but we don’t always succeed.”

Apart from featuring a section dedicated to comics and a kid’s zone, the convention hosted hundreds of vendors, 5,000 square feet of video games, two stages, workshops, celebrity panels and meet-and-greets.

Victoria Gomez walked around South Texas Comic Con on Friday with a staff that completed her costume as Rey, the female protagonist from “Star Wars: The Force Awakens.”

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HARLINGEN — The Harlingen Police Department is seeking the public’s help in searching for a suspect who they say hit a man with his vehicle, robbed him and then left the scene.

Yesterday at 4:32 a.m., officers responded to the 1100 block of Morgan Boulevard in the H-E-B parking lot in reference to a robbery.

When officers arrived on scene, an injured man was found in the parking lot.

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HARLINGEN — Things could not have gone any better in Elias Martinez’s playoff coaching debut with the Harlingen South Lady Hawks.

South scored all its runs in the first three innings, but it turned out to be plenty as the Lady Hawks cruised to a 10-6 win over the Edinburg Bobcats Friday night in Game 1 of their best-of-three Class 6A bi-district series.

The Lady Hawks compiled 11 hits in the first three innings off of Bobcats pitcher Desiree Marmolejo, which included a three-run homer by South’s Ashley Reyna to complete a six-run third inning.

Martinez said he felt that Friday’s performance was a sign of his team’s maturing mindset.

“We are playing better and we’re getting used to handling pressure in big-time situations,” Martinez said. “It’s all going to come down to who can make the routine plays under pressure.”

See full story at RGVSports.com

SAN BENITO — The Lady Greyhounds might have started the scoring, but it was the PSJA Memorial Lady Wolverines who finished it.

After losing Game 1 of the their best-of-three Class 6A bi-district series on Thursday 11-2, the Lady Wolverines came into Friday night’s contest with a chip on their shoulder and then turned it into a 8-6 victory over the Lady Greyhounds.

Game 3 will be played at PSJA Memorial at 2 p.m. today.

“We had a lot of confidence coming in,” said head coach Gilberto Rodriguez. “I told my team that if we eliminate yesterday’s mistakes then we can win this game and we can be successful. In the bus I told the girls that it’s one pitch at a time and one hit at a time and we can make it happen.

“These girls believed in themselves and I’m proud of these girls. They made it happen.”

Full story at RGVSports.com

HARLINGEN — Probably Russia.

No, maybe Taiwan.

But then again, there’s always Italy, where Elia Law has already studied abroad. The Early College High School senior was just happy she was graduating with 54 of her classmates with a two-year college degree. She hoped a head start on her college career would enable her to study abroad even sooner.

They’d all gathered yesterday at Yeckel Auditorium on the campus of the Marine Military Academy for the commencement ceremony of Texas State Technical College. The ECHS seniors, dressed in black robes and caps, blended very well with the other TSTC graduates — and they hadn’t even finished high school.

“I’m still 17,” Law said playfully. “I am not even an adult yet and I am graduating. I’d rather be in Italy.”

On a more serious note, she announced plans to attend the McCombs School of Business at the University of Texas at Austin.

“I feel great!” Elia said.

Principal Pamela Flores was feeling pretty great, too. She’s completing her first year as principal, and she couldn’t be more impressed.

“They are very focused to their objective, and I also believe they have a lot of support from the school district and of course partnership with TSTC,” she said.

She’d quickly built a familiar relationship with many of them. It was pretty hard not to.

“Students who have such leadership qualities, you can’t miss them,” Flores said. “You see each of them, you know them well.”

Elia and her classmates had spent their high school years taking college courses from TSTC while still earning their high school diplomas. They all had their own reasons for doing so.

“The majority of us have our academic core,” said Danielle Del Bosque, 17, as she adjusted her cap.

“A few have associate’s degrees in biology,” she said. “I chose the option for an academic core. It transfers a lot better to a lot of state universities.”

She plans to study public relations and biochemistry at the University of Texas at Austin.

Ryan Lira, 17, said earning a two-year degree in high school would save money. By attending TSTC while in high school he avoided a lot of tuition and fees, at least for the first two years.

Most of the credits are easily transferrable to the University of Texas at Dallas where he plans to study computer science.

He looked around at all the other TSTC graduates, those from his high school as well as the others.

“I feel more a TSTC student,” he said.

Many of them had few classes their senior year, having hit the ground running so to speak to complete their classes.

“We’ve been rushing on this since our freshman year,” he said.

Many of them referred to the time they’d spent preparing for this day.

“I have been going to TSTC and ECHS for four years,” said Dylan McNutt, 18, who is in the run for valedictorian.

“Graduating is kind of the end of the road,” he said before clarifying that it was the end of one road and the beginning of another.

“I will be attending UT – Dallas to pursue biomedical engineering,” he said.

PORT ISABEL — School leaders are making sure all the seniors in the district are prepared to apply for college in the fall.

One of the ways Superintendent Dr. Lisa Garcia is doing that is by offering all the high school juniors and seniors the opportunity to take the American College Test exam on campus.

“For us to be able to offer the ACT to all our students on our campus in a familiar setting is a better situation for our students to perform at their very best,” Garcia said. “Offering the test on a school day has been a tremendous advantage for our students.”

Historically, the ACT is administered on a Saturday in the fall and once in the spring at a designated location.

That wasn’t the case two weeks ago as 32 Point Isabel school district students took the ACT test during their regular high school day on campus for the first time.

Garcia said the school district had been working with the College Board over the last two years to get permission to administer the test on campus.

Garcia said the district will offer this to every junior every single year so they are ready to apply for college their senior year in the fall.

Every student who wants to go to a major university or college must take the ACT, but most students don’t have the luxury of taking the test on a regular school day.

The district’s expense was $8,000 to offer every student the training and testing for the ACT exam.

For most college-bound students they have to wake up extra early to drive off to the designated testing site and take the ACT test in an unfamiliar place.

Another way she is helping the college-bound is by offering a free online ACT tutoring service to get ready for the exam.

Garcia said students have also been very pleased with the TutorMe ACT online program available to them to prepare for the ACT test.

Students can log on to the TutorMe ACT website and get training in areas they may need help in.

“The online tutoring program provides individualized tutoring for students to prepare for the ACT,” Garcia said. “Students can select specific areas that they need help with.”

Based on college readiness indicators, U.S. News and World Report lists Port Isabel High School as one of the top high schools in America.

“We want our students prepared to complete their college application during the fall,” Garcia said.

HARLINGEN — The city’s economic development board this week weighed incentive proposals for three projects with secret code names.

The Harlingen Economic Development Corp. approved incentives for two of the projects, but did not specify which ones will receive the breaks.

The projects are code-named Project Stack, Project Forest and Project 5501.

The board also discussed Project Polar, Project PRT, Project Harvest, Project HE and Project Antelope.

In economic development circles, such secrecy is common. It is not unknown for businesses or industries to pull out of negotiations if those talks are made public.

It also helps protect the economic development board from having projects poached by other cities.

SAN BENITO — What is the one thing the city and school district have wanted to build for years?

Why, it’s an aquatic center, of course.

A real aquatic center, complete with deep blue pools and diving boards.

Plans for a future aquatic center might be the next big project the city and school district undertake together.

During Wednesday’s joint meeting of the City Commission and the school board, officials discussed the possibility of building a center.

A center of this kind has been mentioned by Superintendent Dr. Adrian Vega and Mayor Celeste Sanchez, but never discussed any further.

Until now.

Both parties agreed to conduct a feasibility study with hopes that in the next few years the city and school district could have its very own aquatic center.

“Everyone has been asking for this,” Sanchez said. “When I was working for the district, we had discussed starting an aquatic center.”

However, planning did not happen and a facility was never built.

As of right now, people in the community are using pools in the neighboring communities of Harlingen, Brownsville and Los Fresnos.

It’s unknown what exactly the city and school district have in mind.

If it’s anything like the $7.8 million Harlingen CISD Aquatic Center and the $6 million Margaret M. Clark Aquatic Center in Brownsville, the city and district could be looking at spending millions.

Aquatic centers, like the recently built center in Harlingen, are known for featuring lap pools, competition pools, diving pools and therapeutic pools.

Most are filled with natural daylight.

When San Benito officials located the current stadium, they built it with an aquatic center in mind. Naturally, the center would be built there for easy access by students.

If built, the aquatic center would not only house pools but also classrooms, where students can obtain certification in CPR and take lifeguarding classes.

“Our kids need to know how to swim,” Sanchez said.

Building will not start tomorrow, but Sanchez said if money could be put away, a facility could be built in the next few years.

The feasibility study or assessment of the practicality of the proposed project would go into detail about size and cost of the facility.

When writing a feasibility report, several factors have to be considered, including cost, benefits, economic impacts, legalities, operations and a schedule of the project.

“We don’t want to be in the business of running an aquatics center but we do want to help the school district build one and be useful to students during the day and open to the public on the weekends,” Sanchez said.

BY Amanda Sotelo

Texas State Technical College and the Harlingen Consolidated Independent School District’s Early College High School began a partnership nearly eight years ago, offering students the opportunity of a college education while still in high school.

Since its initiation, hundreds of high school students have graduated from the program and this year there’s a record number of graduates.

Dylan McNutt, Early College High School Valedictorian, took advantage of the chance to graduate with a high school diploma and an Academic Core Certificate of Completion at the same time. He was one of 392 students and one of 16 Board of Regents Honor Scholars graduates at TSTC in Harlingen. Board of Regents Honor Scholars graduates have a 4.0 grade-point average in their studies. In other words, straight As.

“Finishing with a diploma and a certificate is definitely beneficial,” said McNutt. “It saves me time and money especially heading to a four-year university. I always saw my college courses as an extension of high school, which helped me focus on finishing.”

McNutt will attend The University of Texas at Dallas in the fall to pursue a bachelor’s degree in Biomedical Engineering.

There were approximately 59 Early College High School graduates, 14 of which graduated with honors and six of them as Board of Regents graduates.

Of the high school students who shared the stage with TSTC’s graduates, 47 earned an Academic Core Certificate of Completion, nine received an Associates of Science in Biology and three graduated from the Certified Nursing Assistant program.

“I’m very proud of our students,” said Early College High School Principal Dr. Pamela Flores. “I see the growth we have in graduates continuing. The partnership we have with TSTC is so solid and accommodating to ensure that all of our students have what they need to be successful.”

Students attending Early College High School, also enroll as students at TSTC during their freshman year, no later than their junior year. They have the option to earn an Academic Core Certificate of Completion, an associate degree in education and training, science, biology, math, engineering, physics or study to become a Certified Nursing Assistant. Students are not required to pay for classes or books when pursuing this path.

“This is a true partnership,” said Flores. “TSTC is really doing what’s best for our students.”

TSTC Provost Dr. Stella Garcia said this partnership is a win-win for all, but most importantly for the students.

“These high school students get to experience the rigor of a college education and get a head start on earning college credit, saving them time and money,” said Garcia.

She said she hopes to continue to grow the partnership and she knows they are going in the right direction because of the record number of Early College High School students graduating with this semester’s TSTC class.

“This is our largest Early College High School class of graduates to date,” said Garcia. “These students are our legacy. Their success is our success. We want them to be successful and remember where they got their start in higher education.”

For more information about Early College High School call 956-430-9690.

For more information on the programs offered at TSTC call 956-364-4320. Registration for Summer and Fall 2016 is in progress. Register or apply anytime at tstc.edu.