Granite Shoals has few champions as passionate and tenacious as 70-year-old Shirley Darlene King. For the past 30 years, she has rooted out corruption, protected and propagated precious parks, and documented the history of her beloved city. 

Fond childhood memories of her time on the shores of Lake LBJ seemed to have instilled a pristine image of a community she has sought to maintain and has had to fight for over the years.

King was born Shirley Herring in San Antonio in 1952, but it wasn’t long before her heart was set on making a home in Granite Shoals. Her family moved to Austin when she was 5 years old and began taking trips to the Highland Lakes every weekend to visit her grandmother. Those early days were spent fishing and swimming in Lake LBJ and visiting Robin Hood Park. Fortuitously, King would help restore that park decades later.

Her family made the big move from Austin to Marble Falls when she was 14. She worked her first job as a waitress at Club Comanche, a swanky restaurant on the shores of Lake LBJ that has long since disappeared. According to King, Granite Shoals was more wilderness than development back then, but a few high-end places accommodated lavish lakeside lifestyles.

At 21, she married her partner in crime, Jackie Dale King, who would go on to have her back in future crusades. Shirley spoke with pride as she recalled the early years of their marriage, when she worked alongside her husband on construction projects across Texas. Eventually, they returned to Granite Shoals, built their first home, and put down roots that would grow deep.

The first time King took to the battlefield for her city, it actually wasn’t her city. In 1992, the Kings’ home was technically outside of the city limits, but Shirley caught wind of a rumored sale of one of the city parks and wanted to do something to stop it.

Taking advantage of their home’s location on RR 1431, the Kings posted an enormous sign on the side of the road that read: “DO NOT LET THEM SELL OUR PARKS. VOTE NO!”

According to Shirley, the next Granite Shoals City Council meeting was flooded with angry residents who vigorously opposed any park sale. King didn’t know it at the time, but she had thwarted the plans of Mayor Herman Williams.

In 1995, the Kings’ home went through a “hostile annexation” into the city. When Shirley voiced her opposition to the annexation, she recounted the words of Mayor Williams: “We don’t care what you want.”

While King had fought against becoming part of the city, once she was in, she went all in.

“Some people say that was the biggest mistake Herman Williams ever made,” said King, referring to her newly gained rights as a taxpayer to vote and confront City Hall.

By the time the Kings had been annexed, Shirley was not happy with the state of Granite Shoals and the nearby unincorporated areas of Burnet County.

“I had seen things going downhill,” she said. “Illegal bars and strippers had come in across the highway from us. It was in the county, and they were going to come over here until I threw the biggest fit and got all sorts of things going.”

Jackie chimed in, recalling how he found needles and burned spoons on their lawn during that time. The Kings were raising four children and felt the city was headed in the wrong direction.

Shirley turned her attention to the Burnet County Commissioners Court, where she was told commissioners couldn’t take action without an ordinance. She tracked down a template ordinance from the American Family Association with the harshest and most constitutional stance on sexually oriented businesses she could find. It wasn’t long before the commissioners passed the new rules, banishing strip clubs and illegal bars to unincorporated parts of the county.

Not long after that, King brought the same ordinance forward to the Granite Shoals council. She recalled a councilor telling her there was no point in doing all this work, that nothing was going to change.

“Nothing is impossible with God,” was her response.

She garnered enough support on the council to push the ordinance through, and to this day, strip clubs are banned in Burnet County and Granite Shoals.

But let’s get back to 1992 and the parks. After King successfully stopped park sales,she said the city stopped maintenance, letting them become overgrown and dilapidated. The city swimming pools were even filled in, tarnishing her childhood memories of Granite Shoals as a vacation mecca. She was determined to make a change.

King was one of the founding members of the Granite Shoals Parks Advisory Committee and its first secretary when Mayor Pat Crochet created it in 2000. Immediately, she and other committee members began restoring parks. Although Jackie wasn’t on the committee initially, he worked alongside Shirley as they tackled the monumental task.

The committee poured foundations, assembled playground equipment, built pavilions, and installed picnic tables. Robin Hood Park, where King played when she was 8 years old, was one of the first places to receive attention. They weren’t paid a dime, according to King, but that didn’t matter.

“It just made us feel good that we were doing good things for our community,” she said. “Something just got in me and (Jackie) that we just wanted to make our city better. This was our way of making that happen.”

She laughed, recalling that Jackie used to tease her because she didn’t even like planting flowers at home but was devoting all of her time to beautifying 19 city parks.

King would go on to serve on the Granite Shoals City Council for a total of 16 years and as chairwoman of the Parks Advisory Committee. Granite Shoals became “The City of Parks” under her leadership.

Throughout the 2000s, King wasn’t just getting her hands dirty assembling equipment and pouring foundations, she was delving into the tangled world of grant writing. In her research, she found that the city was not eligible for grants crucial to future park improvements because it did not own the mineral rights to the land beneath the parks. 

Everyone said the original developers of Granite Shoals had all died, meaning it would be nearly impossible for the city to acquire the mineral rights and secure future grant funding. King didn’t buy it.

In an era before the internet was widely available and “google” didn’t mean a darn thing, King tracked down the last living developer, Max Flinchbaug. After making her pitch, Flinchbaug miraculously agreed to deed over the mineral rights to the city for free and help convince the heirs of the other developers to do the same. King returned to the Granite Shoals parks commission with the ticket to the future of city parks.

The ensuing grants the city received resulted in mass improvements that have allowed residents to take full advantage of their parkland. This culminated with the acquisition of a $500,000 grant from the Texas Parks and Wildlife Department that helped develop the 131-acre Quarry Park and Granite Shoals Sports Complex. King fought for 17 years to get this grant for the city and beat out every other application in the state to do so.

However, the city’s parks were never quite safe. King said she has had to defend them at every turn. Real estate speculators, city managers, and developers have all made serious attempts to acquire or sell parks over the years. She was there every time, fighting to keep the parks free and in the hands of the people of Granite Shoals.

King is far from finished with her service to the city. As the bonafide historian of Granite Shoals, she was honored this year with a plaque from the city for her documentation of its history and civic dedication. This reporter has seen her in action, taking to the podium numerous times to defend Granite Shoals parks, ensuring that they will be here for generations to come. 

“I am really excited about the progress our city has made in the last 20 years,” King said. “I am looking forward to even better things happening.”

dakota@thepicayune.com

The old Granite Shoals fire tender will be used until its recently approved replacement arrives in January 2024. This is an essential support vehicle that significantly improves the department’s ability to battle blazes. Staff photo by Dakota Morrissiey

Granite Shoals Fire Rescue’s latest checkmark on a list of upgrades is a new fire tender, a support vehicle that supplies water to a fire engine battling a blaze. The City Council approved a $52,000 budget transfer on Tuesday, Jan. 10, to close the deal for the vehicle.

It is expected to be delivered within a year, which should line up with the arrival of the department’s new fire engine that was ordered in May 2022. 

Between the new tender, engine, and other equipment, the fire department has invested about $1.3 million into upgrades over the past year.

“That tender is very important,” Chief Tim Campbell told DailyTrib.com. “Especially for the areas in our Emergency Services District where we don’t have as many hydrants or lake access.”

A tender can quickly pump water and supply it to a fire engine, which then uses its higher-power pump to actually fight a fire. The department’s new tender will have a 3,000-gallon pumping capacity — 1,200 gallons more than the old one. That should save critical time on trips for water when firefighters don’t have immediate access to fire hydrants or the lake.

“It’s game-changing for us,” Campbell said.

The council unanimously approved the $52,000 budget transfer, derived from salary savings in the previous fiscal year when the fire department was understaffed. 

The tender’s price tag is $349,000, which will come from a $240,000 grant from the Texas A&M Forest Service, roughly $60,000 from the sale of the old tender, and the approved budget transfer from the council. Campbell expected to get closer to $110,000 for the old tender, but appraisals came back at the lower estimate.

The fire chief has been on a mission to modernize and improve the fire department since he took over in December 2021. He’s already received approval for a fire command truck, fire engine, tender, squad truck, and protective gear for firefighters — all new. The department is also now fully staffed. Firefighter salaries increased 32 percent from the last fiscal year, raising the total salary budget from $504,001 in the 2021-22 budget to $665,415 in the 2022-23 budget.

“The city has been good to us, along with the (Emergency Services District),” Campbell said. “We’re getting our needs met.”

dakota@thepicayune.com

Hill Country Litter Lifters volunteers Chris Hinojsa (left), Tom Rapp, Eric Sanchez, Rod Lange, Chuck Paramore, Irene Poth, Lisa Mills, Terry Nuss, and Jeff Wassom celebrate a successful morning of picking up trash along a stretch of RR 1431 on Jan. 7. The group hopes to attract more volunteers for its next cleanup on Feb. 4, when they will plant bluebonnet seeds. Courtesy photo

Hill Country Litter Lifters volunteers plan to replace trash and debris with natural beauty during their next cleanup, which is Saturday, Feb. 4. As they pick up litter, they will plant bluebonnet seeds along a stretch of RR 1431.

The event is from 8:30-11:30 a.m. with a meetup at the intersection of FM 1980 and RR 1431 west of Marble Falls.

The Texas Department of Transportation donated the wildflower seeds after group founder and leader Tom Rapp inquired about additional ways to beautify the 2-mile portion of 1431 that the group adopted.

“I was aware that TxDOT planted wildflowers along highways, so I ran the idea past them, and they said they’d send me the flowers,” Rapp said. “Now, I’ve got a great, big envelope of bluebonnet seeds we’ll be putting out there.”

The idea is that bluebonnets in full bloom will make litterers reconsider tossing their trash.

“My hope is people will see a beautiful carpet of flowers out there and think twice before throwing out their cans and their bottles,” he said.

The inspiration for planting wildflowers stemmed from Rapp’s time serving on the Governor’s Commission on Community Service board while living in Colorado. During Rapp’s six-year tenure, the commission planted hundreds of wildflowers along roads across the state.

TxDOT will provide vests and trash bags for the Feb. 4 event. Volunteers are encouraged to bring their own trash grabbers, though a few will be available to borrow. During the Litter Lifters’ last cleanup on Jan. 7, volunteers collected 36 bags of debris and litter. 

To learn more about the Hill Country Litter Lifters, contact Rapp at 303-887-5649 or twrapp@comcast.net.

nathan@thepicayune.com

A new interim superintendent is expected to be named during the next regular meeting of the Marble Falls Independent School District Board of Trustees, which is at 5 p.m. Tuesday, Jan. 17, in the Central Office Community Room, 1800 Colt Circle. 

Possible candidates for the interim post include Assistant Superintendent Dr. Jeff Gasaway, other MFISD administrative employees, and outside hires, said board President Kevin Naumann.

The interim will replace Dr. Chris Allen, who is leaving to take over as superintendent at Midway Independent School District near Waco. His last day in Marble Falls will be Jan. 25. 

Hiring discussions kicked off during the board’s special meeting on Jan. 6, most of which occurred behind closed doors during a two-hour executive session. 

“I’m pretty confident we’ll make a decision on our interim superintendent at the next regular meeting,” Naumann said after the Jan. 3 executive session. “For tonight’s purposes, we’re taking no action.”

The board decided to hold off on its announcement to allow trustees more time to think about the process as a whole.

“We didn’t want to have a knee-jerk reaction,” Naumann told DailyTrib.com. “We wanted to let all the information from our (special) meeting sink in before we made a decision on the interim.”

During the Jan. 6 executive session, trustees shared their thoughts on the selection process for both an interim and a permanent superintendent, Naumann said.

“We’ve had a good, long conversation about how our process might go, what our options are, and what the opportunities are,” he said at the Jan. 3 meeting.

Anyone wanting to speak to a trustee about the hiring process may email MFISD Administrative Assistant Krystal Saunders at ksaunders@mfisd.txed.net or call the district’s main office at 830-693-4357.

nathan@thepicayune.com

Anita Elaine Suchma Baxley, May 22, 1923-Jan 10 2023

Born to Czech parents Karel and Frances Suchma, Anita was raised in Guy, Fort Bend County, Texas, speaking only Czech until attending school. 

As the youngest of 11 children, Anita (aka “Fritzie” to family) grew up on their cotton farm without such “modern conveniences” as electricity and running water until almost graduation. 

She met her soulmate, Bill Baxley, after a Dallas football game, and they were wed in Wharton, Texas, in 1945. Their life together was spent largely in Brazoria and Llano counties, Anita working as a bookkeeper. They retired to Sunrise Beach Village in 1977, and she remained involved in the community as treasurer of both the First Baptist Church and Sandy Mountain Cemetery. She stayed active enjoying her grandchildren and great-grandchildren, walking, and helping Bill with his building projects.

Anita accepted Jesus as Savior early on and raised her own family to know how great a God we have. She was a member of Sandy Mountain Fellowship Church.

Survived by children David R. Baxley, Dana E. Baxley and (William) Bruce Baxley. Seven grandchildren include Krista Moran, Eric Traugott, Betsy Dement, Karma Baxley, Angela Stewart, Stacy Svegliato, and Kindra Dozier, along with 12 great-grandchildren and numerous great-great grandchildren

She was preceded in death by her parents, husband Bill, granddaughter Donna Traugott, sisters Eleanor Ward, Hattie Padon, Molly Patton, Clara King, Helen Weeks, Mary Vick, Lydia Baron, Elsie Suchma, and brothers Karel, Jarolin and Frank Suchma.

A small memorial will be held on Saturday Jan. 21, 2023, at her dear friend’s home. For more information, contact Dana Baxley at 830-693-2262.