Ice causes Moran to cancel classes
By Sam Waller
Moran Independent School District was one of several area districts to have its schedule affected by the winter storm moving through Shackelford County this week.
Moran superintendent said MISD had early release on Monday, Jan. 30 and cancelled classes on Tuesday, Jan. 31. No decision on Wednesday, Feb. 1, classes had been made at deadline time on Tuesday.
Denson said having more than half the district’s students bused in from outside the district factored into the decision.
“The ice wasn’t bad in Moran,” Denson said Tuesday, “but with Albany, Breckenridge, and Cisco all closed – that’s where we run our buses to – it wasn’t hard to make that call to go ahead and close. It would be a shame to send our bus up to Breckenridge and not be able to get across the bridge on Hubbard Lake.”
Denson said Moran could absorb the missed time from Monday and Tuesday, but further cancellations may force the district to make up classes.
“We had a little over a day built into the calendar,” he said on Tuesday. “We’ll have to get the pencil out and count our minutes if we miss another day.”
Meat Judging
Moran teams competed Sunday, Jan. 29 in the Fort Worth Stock Show Meat Contest. Moran’s Gold team of Ellis Hise, Allen Hebel, Cotten Campbell, and LeAnna Sikes placed 30th out of 59 teams with 1,556 points. The Purple team of Aubrey Oliver, Chelsea Thurman, and Amelia Mart, all competing in their first contest, placed 48th with 994 points.
Hise posted Moran’s top individual finish, placing 74th with 599 points.
“Out of 191 high school entries, Ellis Hise was the only one to receive a perfect score on the placing classes,” Denson said.
The contest consisted of six placing classes, worth a total of 300 points, and retail ID, worth 280 points.
“If you drop any on retail ID, it can set you back,” Denson said. “In these contests, you’ve got to be pretty much perfect if you want to win.”
Other individual results were Hebel in 117th place with 515 points, followed by Campbell (148th, 442), Sikes (172nd, 383), Oliver (181st, 345), Thurman (185th, 334), and Martin (186th, 315).
Tractor Tech
Moran’s tractor tech team of Hise, Campbell and Caleb York placed fifth in the Texas FFA Area IV contest Friday, Jan. 27, at Stephenville.
The team had to complete a 100-question written exam over anything related to a modern day tractor, diagnose issues on 20 different parts of a tractor, and then find five bugs on the tractor that prevented them from being operated, Moran FFA adviser Minnie Denson said. During the last part, the team had to complete a pre-trip inspection of the tractor.
