by Brittni Cebulak

“Johnny C. Parks died two days before his first birthday more than a century ago. His grave slipped from sight along with the rest of the tiny town of Bluffton when Lake Buchanan was filled 55 years later.”

The “cracked marble tombstone engraved with the date October 15, 1882, which is normally covered by 20 to 30 feet of water, has been eerily exposed as a yearlong drought” shrank one of Texas’ largest lakes last November. Many interesting discoveries have been made since this occurrence, including a “prehistoric skull, fossils, and a small cemetery that appears to contain the graves of freed slaves.” As would be expected, some of the discoveries have “attracted interest from local historians,” and looters have “scavenged” for pieces of history; in fact, more than two dozen looters have been arrested at just a single site.
"In an odd way, this drought has provided an opportunity to view and document, where appropriate, some of these finds and understand what they consist of," said Pat Mercado-Allinger, the Texas Historical Commission's archeological division director. "Most people in Texas probably didn't realize what was under these lakes."

After finishing its driest twelve months ever with an average of 8.5 inches of rain through last September (nearly thirteen inches below normal), water levels in the region’s lakes, most manmade, have dropped by more than a dozen feet in numerous cases. Furthermore, the “vanishing” water has exposed the long-submerged building foundations of Woodville, Oklahoma, which was “flooded in 1944 when the Red River was dammed to form Lake Texoma.” Additionally, a century-old church emerged at Falcon Lake, “which straddles the Texas-Mexico border on the Rio Grande.”

Bizarrely, a man named Steven Standke, along with his wife, Carol, drove to the old Bluffton site on a sandy rutted path that the GPS devices designate as a 22,335 acre lake (normally thirty-one miles long and five miles wide), and not a road.

"If you don't see it now, you might never see it again," said Carol Standke, of Center Point, as she and her husband inspected the ruins a mile from where concrete seawalls ordinarily would keep the lake from waterfront homes.
Occasionally, Old Bluffton has been exposed during times of drought, and the receding waters have revealed things such as “concrete foundations of a two-story hotel, scales of an old cotton gin, a rusting tank, and concrete slabs from a Texaco station that also served as a general store.” However, the tallest structure discovered is the remains of the town well, “an open-topped concrete cube about four feet high.” Moreover, Jonny Parks’ tombstone is among a few burial sites.

“Local historian Alfred Hallmark, whose great-great-great grandfather helped establish Bluffton, said his research showed 389 graves were moved starting in 1931 when dam construction began.” That same year, the forty or fifty residents of the town began to move several miles west to the current Bluffton town, “which today amounts to a convenience store and post office at a lonely highway intersection serving 200 residents.” When the residents were forced to leave their homes, they were forced to abandon their “precious pecan trees,” some of which produced 1,000 pounds of nuts each year.

“It was devastating,” said Hallmark, 70, of the forced migration. “They had no choice.”

However, other depleted lakes across Texas revealed much older artifacts than old building foundations and cotton gins. At Lake Whitney, for example, among the artifacts recovered were Native American tools and fossils that “experts believe could be thousands of years old.” The Army Corps of Engineers that oversees Lake Whitney has been “patrolling a number of areas that contain artifacts, including some rock shelters once filled with water.”
Moreover, at Lake Georgetown near Austin, “fishermen discovered what experts determined was the skill of an American Indian buried for hundreds or thousands of years” (strict federal laws governing American Indian burial sites prevent evacuations in search of other remains).

However, no restrictions exist for the “nearly two dozen unmarked graves” discovered last summer in a dried up section of a Navarro County reservoir. Some coffin lids were visible just under the dirt, and “crews plan to excavate the site and move the remains to a cemetery.” An important fact to note is that it has come to light that this area of Richland-Chambers Lake is “on the property formerly owned by a slave owner.”
“This is a once in a lifetime find,” said the county’s chairman of historical commission, “and maybe the only silver lining in the ongoing drought.”

Source: http://www.foxnews.com/scitech/2011/11/20/as-drought-continues-depleted-texas-lakes-expose-ghost-towns-graves/

by Nick Holzschuh

Art, History, Spanish, Music, Gym, Biology, and English; these are a few of the many classes offered at the Owensville High school. Some of these classes are enjoyed, some are hated, and some are fought through just to receive a decent grade. Many high schoolers wish that cooler, funner, better classes would be offered, but having a class that one actually enjoys going to everyday is a very rare occasion. Everyone would love to be able to attend class and actually not stare at the clock; however, this never happens because no matter what the class is, if it involves doing work, any student on this planet would not enjoy it. All the students have a class that they wish the school would offer, so I took a poll and asked many students if they could offer any class at Owensville High School, what would it be?

by Cody Goggin

I have been a Cardinals fan all of my life, and Albert Pujols is the best player I’ve ever known, not  just to wear a Cardinals uniform. Nobody has provided the excitement in St. Louis like Albert Pujols has over the past 11 years. He was the most beloved athlete in the state for a decade. However, when he made the decision to change teams, everybody turned against him.

by Brittni Cebulak

Planet Venus has been “dominating” the nighttime sky lately, but would you think it was possible for the planet to be seen during the bright light of day? That is exactly what happened on March 26, 2012. Moreover, this rare event was last reported occurring on March 4, 1865 by “none other” than Abraham Lincoln when the streets of Washington D.C. were “packed with crowds watching the inauguration of Abraham Lincoln for his second term as president.” All was going accordingly when someone in the crowd suddenly “spotted something strange in the sky—a tiny, brilliant point of light.” Eventually, the “commotion” went through the entire crowd and even Lincoln himself was aware of the phenomenon in the sky.