Belton plans to appeal its move from Class 4A to 5A, the biggest news of the University Interscholastic League's biennial realignment for the 2002-04 school years, announced on Monday.The UIL, the governing body for Texas public high school athletic and academic competition, added Belton's 94-student Waskow Leadership Academy to the main high school's Average Daily Membership total of 1,900 students. Belton's new total of 1,994 exceeded the enrollment cutoff for Class 5A, which was 1,910.Belton superintendent Dr. Harold Ramm informed UIL officials that the district plans to appeal, which must be filed by Feb. 13. If the request is denied when hearings are held Feb. 20, then the Tigers will join Temple, Copperas Cove, Waco, Bryan and College Station A&M Consolidated in the new District 13-5A.All four Killeen schools will be in a new District 17-4A that includes Lampasas, Marble Falls, Pflugerville Connally and Taylor. The 4A cutoff was 900 students. by Will Wright
The Texas Department of Health is in the process of hiring people to fill three positions created in the wake of the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks.The positions are being filled at each of the state's regional offices, including the Region 7 office in Temple, and are for an epidemiologist, nurse epidemiologist and public health technician.Region 7 Director James Morgan said the positions, funded by the state, are designed to help local health departments increase preparedness for an attack using weapons of mass destruction and the monitoring and surveillance of infectious diseases.Morgan said there are only a select number of biological agents that can be used in a bioterrorist attack."But in the process of preparing for those, we will also be prepared for an outbreak of strep," he said. "The new positions will help us deal with all manner of infectious diseases in a more timely and efficient manner."All eight regional offices of the Texas Department of Health are forming similar three-person teams. A team of four will coordinate the regional efforts from the department's central office.Funding of $2 million over the next two years comes from the budget of the Health and Human Services Commission, which includes 13 state agencies. by Clay Coppedge
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sportsWhile Belton plans to appeal its realignment, Warrick is planning as if the Tigers will be competing in 13-5A next season."(The appeal) I'll leave up to the powers that be," Warrick said. "We're just going to take care of our business at (the athletic) end and get ready to play."Belton has played a 5A-heavy non-district schedule in various sports over the past two seasons. For example, four of the Tigers' five non-district football foes last season were 5A schools, including eventual state Division II finalist Austin Westlake. Belton also scrimmaged against Cove and A&M Consolidated."We scheduled the way we did partly to prepare for district play but also because of our size and we knew this was a possibly," Warrick said. "We've lined up against some of the best folks in the state in 5A, so we won't have a major problem in that. It's going to be a great 5A district and we're going to be part of it."Temple coach David Beal said he's looking forward to the new league, which will include Bryan The road back to the top looks fairly daunting for the Celina football program. The roads leading to district rivals are pretty far for DeSoto and Rockwall.It's all part of the University Interscholastic League's biennial realignment, which was announced Monday morning. The painstaking process of rearranging 1,200 schools into districts across 254,000 square miles of Texas inevitably leaves more than a few schools vexed."There will be some that are unhappy and some that are unhappy that just take it and go on, do work with their kids and be positive about it," said UIL Director of Athletics Charles Breithaupt. "We find that those programs that don't worry about what conference they're in, they just go and play, do much better than those that really whine and cry about where they are."For those schools that are really unhappy, there's always a Feb. 13 deadline to notify the UIL of an appeal. But UIL spokesman Peter Contreras said the organization's Austin offices weren't flooded with complaints on Monday. The UIL's latest overhaul saw 33 schools Would Craig McMurtry like to have a more experienced lineup? Yes. Would he like for arguably his top returning pitcher to be healthy for the start of the season? Sure. Would he like to have as many scholarships to dole out as many of his team's chief rivals? Definitely.But Temple College baseball coach McMurtry isn't dwelling on any real or perceived shortcomings of his Leopards, who will begin their 2002 season at 1 p.m. today with a doubleheader against perennial power Galveston at TC's Danny Scott Athletic Complex.Instead, he's thinking that a solid pitching corps and a potentially strong group of hitters can lead TC to its first NJCAA Region V Tournament berth since its program was revived in 1999 after a two-decade hiatus."I'm not going to be overly optimistic right now, but at times we've looked good, so I am optimistic about our chances of doing well," said McMurtry, whose 2001 squad was 28-24 overall and 15-17 in the Northern Texas Junior College Athletic Conference for sixth place."To me, a very positive outlook would be us winning the conference. In a more reserved role as coach, I would say that just making the playoffs is the big thing. I really think we have a chance to do that. It's not because I was a pitcher, but every year I say it's going to come down to our pitching."And having a healthy Caleb Irwin would help the Leopards' cause greatly, but the hard-throwing sophomore right-hander from Belton has experienced shoulder problems and will miss the next several weeks."We're just going to have to be patient with him and see how he reacts to rest," said McMurtry, who pitched 7 | |
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