Kaeler Russell, a 2018 graduate of Albany High School, is a member of the Cisco College meats team that finished in seventh place overall at the Houston Livestock Show and Rodeo Intercollegiate Meat Judging contest held on Saturday, March 2, at Martin Preferred Foods in Houston.

Representatives of local organizations and boards that award scholarships to Albany High School graduates are asked to contact Ann Riley at the AHS office by Wednesday, March 20. The office will be closed next week for spring break, but will be open again for regular hours on Monday, March 18.

Albany ISD students, faculty, and staff are scheduled to dismiss for the spring break holiday at noon on Friday, March 8. Prior to the break, cheerleader try-outs will be held Friday morning, with the sixth graders bused over to the Albany High School gym for the competition.

Albany FFA sent a team to the Panther Creek FFA Invitational Horse Judging Contest on Feb. 26. “Most of our horse judging team members were at a tennis contest,” said advisor Chris Beard.

T-shirts, sweatshirts, and coffee cups, all sporting the Fellowship of Christian Athletes logo, are available in a wide assortment of colors from FCA Big Country East area representative Paul Johnston. “I’m selling the stuff to get kids to camp,” said Johnston.

Thomas Aly, CEO and founder of Live Missions and former Albany First Baptist Church youth minister, has once again organized a spring break mission trip to Uganda, and six local residents are among the group traveling to Africa.

The Houston Livestock Show and Rodeo is underway, with junior market goat, market lamb, and breeding heifer classes taking place this week, market barrows this weekend, and market steers next week.

Can you believe it’s already March? It’s the month of celebrating spring breaks, warmer weather, and watching all of our trees and flowers begin to bloom again. I think we have all had it with winter. I wonder if we will really have spring weather and spring temperatures during spring break.

The high school track teams got off to a slower than usual start last week due to weather conditions. Albany traveled to Clyde for the usual first meet of the season, but field events were canceled and running events moved up due to cold and windy conditions.

The varsity Lion baseball team opened the season last week with three wins at the Hamlin tournament. The varsity traveled to Anson on Tuesday, bringing home a 5-3 loss. Details of the game were not available at press time.