High school graduation is only two weeks away, and seniors and their parents are making plans for the celebration, including the traditional Project Graduation party.

Project Graduation is an all-night drug-free and alcohol-free party following commencement exercises and has been an annual tradition in Albany since 1988.

The project was started by the efforts of the Albany Drug and Alcohol Task Force, and several people, especially Ann Jones, were instrumental in organizing the local event.

Six members of the Albany Volunteer Fire Department spent all of last weekend at the 46th annual Wichita Falls Fire School training in fire fighting, fire company operations, fire hydraulics, search and rescue in a structure fire, ropes and knots, and lpg fires.  

“These men and women were working their tails off to learn and to make themselves better firefighters in order to protect you and yours,” said fire chief Kyle Tischler.

The Old Jail Art Museum won the Mitchell A. Wilder Award for excellence in publication and media design in the Marketing Materials, Supplementary Materials, and Posters category at the 40th annual meeting of the Texas Association of Museums.

OJAC executive director Patrick Kelly was in attendance at the conference, and he accepted the Gold Citation certificate from TAM president Chris Dyer at the awards ceremony on Friday, April 5, in the Philanthropy Theater of El Paso’s historic Plaza Theatre.

Red Steagall will tell viewers about the Fort Griffin Fandangle on the RFD TV show “Red Steagall is Somewhere West of Wall Street” at 8:30 p.m. (Central) on Monday, May 13.

Steagall filmed the segment in Albany at the Old Jail Art Center on Oct. 31.

The Lion baseball team dominated Cross Plains in the bi-district series last week, handing the Buffaloes a pair of 10-run rule losses to advance to the next round of the playoffs.

Albany (15-6) will travel to San Angelo Central High School this week for the area playoff series against the McCamey Badgers. 

As of press time, Game 1 will be played Thursday at 5:00 p.m., with the second bout set to follow after a brief rest. If a third game is needed to determine the series, it will be played at 5:00 p.m. on Friday, May 10.

Senior Caroline Masters has her work cut out for her this Saturday.

The diminutive 4-foot 9-inch pole vaulter is headed to the UIL State Track and Field Meet for the second time, setting the lofty goal to end up on the medals stand this time.

Masters placed seventh last year with a jump of 10 feet. She is taking in a personal record of 10-6 this year and is tied for third place based on the qualifying regional jumps.

Masters is again advancing as the second place medalist out of Region 1-2A.

The Albany junior high tennis team brough home several medals from last week’s district tournament, including gold in girls singles and boys singles for both grade levels, as well as seventh grade boys doubles.

There were also several silver medals for local players, who missed out on any other action during the short season because of the weather.

“Our season was cut short, but the kids were good about coming to practice and did a great job at district,” said tennis coach Sara Wilson.

The annual field day and track meet for Nancy Smith Elementary School preschool through sixth grade students is set for Monday, May 20 at the high school track facility.

The events are scheduled to start at 8:30 a.m., according to NSES administrative assistant Stephanie Gleitz.

Events for pre-Kindergarten, Head Start, kindergarten, first, and second graders will include sack races, hurdles, tug-of-war, water kickball, and water relay. Third through sixth graders will compete in those events as well as in some running and field events. 

Kobee Lapp cleared 42 feet 11 inches in his final jump to win the gold medal in triple jump at the Region 3-A track meet last month and earn his way to the University Interscholastic League Track and Field State Championships taking place tomorrow, May 10, in Austin.

The boys 1-A triple jump event will take place at 3:00 p.m. on Friday, May 10, in Mike A. Myers Stadium at the University of Texas campus in Austin.

The stadium is located at 707 Clyde Littlefield Drive.

Parents of students and prospective students at Moran Independent School District have been asked to look over possible changes to the 2019-2020 school year calendar and then fill out an online survey.

Both the calendar and the survey can be accessed from the MISD website home page at www.moran.esc14.net. 

The modified schedule would lengthen the school day to last until 4:00 p.m. each regular day, 22 minutes longer than the current release time of 3:38 p.m. The proposed calendar also includes several scheduled half days with a 12:00 noon release.