HARLINGEN — Gloria Ostberg has cared for so many newborn babies over the past two decades it’s hard to keep track.

“Goodness, it must be thousands,” she said.

Ostberg, 88, has been volunteering at Valley Baptist Medical Center’s Newborn Intensive Care Unit for the past 21 years.

It began when she and her husband, Archie, 92, decided they wanted to volunteer at the hospital. At first, she thought about pediatrics.

“At the time, they didn’t need anybody at pediatrics and they mentioned the newborn unit,” Gloria said.

“I said I’d try that. Well, I loved it. The nurses are absolutely wonderful. They are so trained; they know what move to make, when, and they are a very, very good department.”

Newborn Intensive Care has “many babies,” she said. A week ago, there were 22 in the unit in one day.

“I hold the babies and I’m a grandma to them all,” she said. “I spoil them and send them home to mom,” she laughed.

“Some of those babies are very, very sick. I feed them and just hold them and cuddle them and love them to death.”

The couple are originally from St. James, Minnesota.

Archie, a World War II veteran, was a U.S. Army first scout in the European Theater. After the way, he worked as an electrician for a rural electric company.

Gloria says that when she was working, there weren’t as many titles as there are today. But she worked for schools and welfare departments “like a receptionist, secretary.”

They began coming to the Rio Grande Valley as Winter Texans and 35 years ago, decided to move to Harlingen permanently.

They both wanted to volunteer.

“We’ve been so fortunate in so many things that have happened in our lifetime,” Gloria said.

“I’m a breast cancer survivor and my husband was in World War II and we both survived them both. So we have so much to be thankful for.

“I’m just thankful that we are able to do this volunteering, because it’s really, really worth what we do.”

They both also volunteer at the VA clinic here. And for the past 26 years, Gloria has volunteered as a tutor for the Rodriguez Elementary School reading program.

“Right now, I have two little second graders,” she said. “They need help just with their reading and learning their words.

“They read to us and they have some worksheets that they do. It’s a wonderful program. You see a big improvement over the course of the school year.

“It just makes me feel good that I can help these kids with whatever I can help them with and help get them a little bit further in life.

“They’re just all little sweethearts to me and I love helping kids.”

Gloria and Archie also volunteered at a hospice here.

On May 4, they will celebrate their 70th wedding anniversary.

HARLINGEN — How about foam?

Nope. It makes the rocket too heavy.

OK, let’s use Memory foam from mattresses.

Rats. The eggs hit together.

The Harlingen High School Engineering and Technology Club, like all the clubs determined to compete in the Team America Rocketry Challenge in May, had been presented with a new task this year.

Teams have to place two eggs instead of the usual one inside the rocket — and one of them has to lie sideways. And they can’t break at any time during the launch.

Students felt a little bugged — and challenged. They finally decided on polystyrene, which has worked beautifully.

“You have more fun, you have to come up with more ideas to keep two eggs inside instead of just one,” said Juan Carreon, 17. He and other club members had arrived at the Harlingen Sports Complex on Friday to do the test launches.

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MERCEDES — Yesterday’s event to encourage girls and women to pursue professions in the sciences brings up a number of questions — and answers.

The Science Academy of South Texas yesterday held its first GEMS (Girls in Engineering, Math, and Science) Camp. It hosted 40 girls who dove eagerly into science projects while teachers and high school students guided them.

The children’s industrious nature and their level of focus clearly indicated they weren’t there to play around. They wanted science, not just as a subject, but as an experience where they could use their analytical minds and strengthen their powers for problem solving.

In fact, Science Academy Principal Irma Castillo pointed out that very skill. The world needs problem solvers, and women are a vital resource in that endeavour. She and other teachers at the school expressed some frustration about the lack of women in the STEM (Science, Technology, Engineering and Math) fields.

She’s not sure why so many girls shy away from STEM studies as they get older.

“I don’t know if it’s something we do, maybe guide boys into the STEM and girls into health sciences,” she said.

She elaborated by saying it could be a subconscious tendency by men and women. Many possible reasons have been proposed, but one thing seems clear to all educators: girls need to be encouraged to pursue the STEM professions if they so choose. Events such as these are a way of doing just that.

Numerous Science Academy students like Karina Hinojosa, a senior, served as ambassadors to the burgeoning young scientists and also as examples. As each session started, the ambassador identified themselves and shared their plans for the future.

Karina, 17, told the children she plans to study astrophysics. She’s already been accepted into the Massachusetts Institute of Technology.

Activities such as these are exactly the way to get started.

“I remember doing these projects when I was in middle school,” she said. “I tell them that everything you see around you was made by engineers. If they want to make the world a better place, they should start learning now.”

She didn’t get this support when she was younger.

“I didn’t have many people telling me I could do this,” she said.

She hesitated to say it was deliberate.

“I think it’s more about people’s assumptions,” she said. “They’re probably unaware.”

Leanna Leal, 11, is already considering a STEM profession.

“I am not 100 percent sure,” she said. “But this science project helps me figure that out. I want to do something with engineering. I really love chemistry.”

MERCEDES — Katelyn Elizondo, curiosity spread across her face, stirred the glitter and food coloring in the glue, turning it into a playful blue.

Beside her, 10-year-old Jenna Medrano stirred her own putty which took on a more bluish gray color. Both girls were learning about science yesterday at the GEMS (Girls in Engineering, Math and Science) Camp. The event was held at the Science Academy of South Texas for girls 8 to 10 years old.

“I like science projects because it makes science more fun,” said Katelyn, 10, a fifth grader from North Bridge Elementary School in Weslaco. She began talking excitedly about working with circuits and light and conductors, displaying a sharp analytical mind.

This was the first year the Science Academy has held the event, and 40 girls rotated between four stations. They made putty for bubbles, built circuitry, made puppies with 3D printers and built wooden bridges with popsicle sticks. The projects were related to a theme involving Tinkerbelle. The circuitry project was the creation of a doorbell.

Science Academy Principal Irma Castillo said the event was being held to address the lack of girls and women pursuing the STEM professions.

“We want to let them know they are problems solvers,” Castillo said.

Estella Pacheco taught the station about making putty.

“We are making silly putty,” Pacheco said. “You are going to be making a reusable bubble and you can bounce it off your wall.”

Karina Hinojosa, a senior, was one of many Science Academy ambassadors helping with the event. She was having fun working with the girls. They had now added starch to their putty and were kneading it in their hands. Several of them talked about how sticky and slimy it felt.

“Keep rolling it up in your hands until all the starch comes out,” Karina, 17, told the girls.

“Squeeze it, squeeze it,” Pacheco said.

The girls were literally experiencing a scientific process, feeling it, observing it, understanding it. Katelyn seemed to pour all her concentration and her zest for the sciences into the blue mixture as it took shape. Jenna seemed at once to light up with her inquisitiveness.

She’d most enjoyed learning about 3D printing.

“It’s going to be used in the future to help people, especially in space,” she said. “They can take the 3D up in space and use it to make parts for the space ship.”

As each wad of putty acquired the consistency necessary for the next step, the girls used narrow straws to blow them into bubbles. Some inflated quickly and then wilted, much to the grins and laughter of the children and the ambassadors.

The children now rotated to another room where Nelly Houston taught them about electrical circuits.

“You put the connectors and wires together,” said Haley Zuniga, a fifth grader at Airport Elementary School in Weslaco. She produced a plastic circuit board loaded with wires and batteries and resistors.

“You use the wires to connect to a battery,” she said, then going into greater detail about how it all worked.

She’d earlier delivered an inspiring declaration about the event’s effect on her.

“If you can dream something, you can actually make it happen,” she said.

It’s the dream of people in many places that the effort to encourage everyone to tap into their potential will result in more girls and women entering the STEM professions.

They represent another untapped resource, minds hungry for knowledge, for skills, for the opportunity to reach their potential and share their talent with the world.

HARLINGEN — The third annual Child Abuse Awareness Walk/Run took place yesterday with more than 300 participants of all ages taking part in the event.

Harlingen hosts one of the largest events in the state as far as the number of participants taking part.

Also helping out at the event at Keys Academy were an estimated 100 volunteers.

Medals were handed out to participants in the 1-mile run and trophies were awarded to the top 10 in both male and female categories.

April is Child Abuse Prevention Month.

BY ROD SANTA ANA III

WESLACO — The Arroyo Colorado Watershed Partnership will be hosting a steering committee meeting Thursday to discuss the latest draft of the update to the Arroyo Colorado Watershed Protection Plan, according to Jaime Flores, Texas A&M AgriLife Extension Service program coordinator for the Texas Water Resources Institute in Weslaco.

The meeting is set for 5-7 p.m. in Pauraque Hall at the Estero Llano Grande World Birding Center, 3301 S. Farm-to-Market Road 1015 in Weslaco.

“The draft update to the watershed protection plan is really coming together,” said Flores, who coordinates planning and implementation for the watershed.

“We need continued stakeholder feedback to guide the development of the plan. Their input is extremely important.”

Flores said the watershed plan update reflects the progress made within the watershed, addresses new issues and sets new goals.

“The current plan was written in 2006 with guidance measures to carry through 2015, but that was only the first phase of a long-term plan,” Flores said.

“While progress has been made in both urban and agricultural areas to reduce pollutant loads, we still have not reached our goal of removing the Arroyo Colorado from the list of impaired waterbodies. The updated plan will begin the next phase of efforts to improve the quality of water in the Arroyo Colorado.”

Flores said anyone interested in receiving the draft update may email him at [email protected] and he will forward a copy.

“Although this draft is not complete and placeholders are included throughout specifying where additional information will be inserted, we encourage stakeholders to add comments and suggestions using track changes,” he said.

“We especially need stakeholder feedback on Chapter 6, Watershed Goals, and Chapter 7, Management Measures.”

The Texas Water Resources Institute, located in College Station, is a unit of Texas A&M AgriLife Research, AgriLife Extension and Texas A&M University’s College of Agriculture and Life Sciences.

The partnership is administered by the institute in cooperation with the Texas Commission on Environmental Quality and the Texas State Soil and Water Conservation Board.

Rod Santa Ana III is a Texas A&M AgriLife communications specialist.

WESLACO — Hilda Petit had a confession to make yesterday: “This is my first time ever trying an onion blossom.”

The 31-year-old Brownsville resident expressed as much amidst a crowd of thousands at the Texas Onion Fest in Weslaco, where for 27 years the community has celebrated the development of the 1015 sweet onion, which was cultivated in the city and gets its name from the suggested planting date of Oct. 15.

Petit was among the minority in such an environment as dozens of hungry attendees waited in line for onion blossoms at the festival, which was held at Mayor Pablo G. Peña City Park on Saturday.

“We’ve tried one at a carnival before, but we were told that we have to try one at the Onion Fest,” she added, emphasizing “the” when referring to Onion Fest. “I can see why now, everything is really good here and so much better.”

She was accompanied by her best friend, Jonathan Longoria, 24, of Harlingen, who returned to the festival after a short hiatus. Like Petit, Longoria was impressed with the variety of food available.

“I came a couple of years ago with my family, but this is my first time coming back,” he said. “It’s been like seven years, but now I definitely want to keep coming back.”

Gates opened at 10 a.m. to an enthusiastic response, with the ever-popular onion-eating contest and the dancing horse shows entertaining spectators throughout the day. These were just some of the nuances the long-running event featured.

Among them were cooking and recipe competitions as well as live performances from some of the area’s more notable musicians. But it was the more than 20 food trucks and booths that stole the show, at least for those with an appetite.

According to Fran Billman, owner of Corn Maze Events in Donna, there was plenty food to go around.

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Authorities have recovered the body of missing kayaker Adrian Garcia.

His body was found in the waters near the Fingers in Port Isabel, said Lt. Shelly Brown of the U. S. Coast Guard office in Corpus Christi. He was found by the Texas Parks and Wildlife agents.

Authorities said Adrian Garcia went fishing with a friend on Thursday when his kayak overturned. His kayak and its paddle have been recovered, but not Garcia.

Family members returned to the Holly Beach area this morning hoping that some progress in the search for Garcia has been made.

The Texas Parks and Wildlife Department and the U.S. Coast Guard both sent out search boats in the waters of Holly Beach this morning.

The TPWD, Coast Guard and the Cameron County Sheriff’s Department have been searching the Holly Beach area since Thursday for Garcia.

Fog on Thursday and Friday morning hindered the search. Garcia’s family has been at the Holly Beach location since his disappearance.

HARLINGEN — Officials have amassed cash reserves significantly surpassing amounts needed to operate the city during emergencies.

The city has a general fund balance of $15 million, enough to operate all departments for 143 days, the city’s annual financial audit shows.

The state recommends governments maintain fund balances to operate for 90 days in case of emergencies.

“It reflects a healthy trend and improvements in your fund balance,” Quentin Anderson, an auditor with Long Chilton certified public accountants, told city commissioners Wednesday. “That reflects healthy maintenance of some reserves.”

Auditors presented the city’s 2015 annual financial audit, showing general fund revenues of $48.1 million.

“Each report reflects well of the city as a whole and the finance department as a whole,” Anderson told commissioners at a special meeting.

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BROWNSVILLE — Houston-based Texas LNG, one of three companies with plans to build a liquefied natural gas export terminal at the Port of Brownsville, announced it has filed a full application with the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission requesting authorization to construct and operate its facility.

Texas LNG, Annova LNG and NextDecade LNG submitted their “pre-filing” applications in March 2015. The full application is the next step in the process. Texas LNG has a 625-acre lease option at the port.

The company’s long-term plans call for a facility capable of shipping 4 million metric tons of LNG a year, making it the smallest of the three projects. The first phase of the project would have a capacity of 2 million metric tons a year.

Annova and NextDecade, when fully built out, would have total annual capacities of 6 million and 27 million metric tons, respectively.

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